Management Improvement Blog Carnival #193

Posted on May 15, 2013  Comments (0)

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival is published twice each month. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996: Deming, lean thinking, innovation, respect for people, customer focus, etc..

  • Dr. Deming’s “Role of a Manager of People” by Mark Graban – quoting Dr. Deming “A manager understands and conveys to his people the meaning of a system. He explains the aim of the system. He teaches his people to understand how the work of the group supports these aims.”
  • Does Standard Work Destroy Creativity? by Janet Dozier – “When standard work is consistently and uniformly adhered to, it drives continuous improvement by exposing problems within the process. Making problems easier to see inspires planned experimentation to discover better ways to perform the work. Standards are the foundation for continuous improvement.”
  • How to Be Startup CEO by Ryan Allis – “In my experience the three most important components of the Start-up CEO’s role are:
    1. Creating a product that solves a real customer need (and convincing customers to pay for it).
    2. Making sure your users and customers have an extremely positive emotional experience with your product.
    3. Recruiting a great team to build your product.”
  • Distorting the System, Distorting the Data or Improving the System by John Hunter – “It is good to get in the habit of considering if the measured improvements are truly an indication of an improved system or merely the result of distorting the system or the data.”

    • Read more

Lean Blog Podcast with John Hunter

Posted on May 13, 2013  Comments (1)

Mark Graban interviewed me for the Lean Blog podcast series: Podcast #174 – John Hunter, “Management Matters” (listen using this link). Links to more information on what we discussed in the podcast.

More podcasts with me: Software Process and Measurement Podcast With John Hunter – Business 901 Podcast: Deming’s Management Ideas Today – Process Excellence Network Podcast with John Hunter

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #192

Posted on May 1, 2013  Comments (1)

The Curious Cat management blog carnival has been published since 2006. New posts are published twice a month. I also publish a collection management improvement articles on the Curious Cat management improvement articles site.

  • Customer Service Andon Cord: Jeff Bezos and Customer Experience by Pete Abilla – “Lean principles have taken such a hold on Amazon and on Jeff Bezos that job titles now contain terms often used in Lean Manufacturing. For example, Jeff Bezos’ comment on ‘Customer Service Andon’ – well, it’s also a current job opening at Amazon…”
  • The Neuroscience of Deming by John Hunter – From the video (embedded below), JW Wilson: “Fast thinking is what you use when you are running from the bear, slow thinking is the kind of thinking you use when you want to change the world… We think we only have time to run from the bear; the consequences are devastating… [slow thinking is required for] making adaption to unsuccessful attempts”

  • Procter & Gamble: Basis Point Wise, Percentage Point Foolish by Bill Conerly – “If one of the parties in a transaction has to borrow, it should be the party with the cheaper debt cost.” [This is another example of stovepipe thinking and optimizing part of the system at great expense to the whole. People continue to fail to apply decades olds knowledge of the benefits of focusing on system improvement instead of optimizing components within the system. In addition to systems thinking failures it is an example of a focus on financial metrics themselves which often leads to silly actions due to not appreciating the proxy nature of measures. - John].
  • Are you providing leadership or support? by Dan Markovitz – Leadership means hacking through the jungle with a machete, clearing a path for front-line staff, supervisors, and managers to follow.

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94% Belongs to the System

Posted on April 24, 2013  Comments (1)

I should estimate that in my experience most troubles and most possibilities for improvement add up to the proportions something like this: 94% belongs to the system (responsibility of management), 6% special.

Page 315 of Out of the Crisis by Dr. W. Edwards Deming.

the system that people work in and the interaction with people may account for 90 or 95 percent of performance.

Dr. Deming’s quote from the introduction to the Team Handbook

I think, in looking at the total of Deming’s work, that the point he is trying to make is that looking to blame people is not a good strategy for improvement. The impact due solely to a person’s direct action (not including their interaction with the system and with others) is small in comparison to that of the system within which they work. So, Deming (and I) want people to focus on improving the system; which will achieve better results than searching for what people did wrong.

What did Deming want people to take from his statements?

Did he want us just to accept bad results? No. He was not saying it is the system there is nothing we can do just accept that this is how things are. He wanted us to focus on the most effective improvement strategies. He saw huge waste directed at blaming people for bad results. He wanted to focus the improvement on the area with the greatest possibility for results.

Did he want to say people are just cogs in the machine? No. Read or listen to most anything he said at any significant length (a full chapter of this book, a full article he wrote on management, an hour from one of his videos) and it is hard to maintain such a thought.

photo of forest trail

Pinetree Trail, Frasers Hill, Malaysia by John Hunter

Did he believe that people were not important? No. He was trying to direct the focus of improvement efforts to look not at the fault with one person but to look at the system. I believe strongly he was correct. If you blame a person as the root cause of a problem, my first, second and third reactions are why? why? why? It is possible the person is to blame and there is no benefit to exploring system improvement instead of settling for blaming the person. But that is rare.

I have written about the importance of developing people to build the capability of the organization. My father wrote about it previously, “American organizations could compete much better at home and abroad if they would learn to tap the potential information inherent in all processes and the creativity inherent in all employees.”

I wrote about the importance of the ideas behind Deming’s quotes here, back in 2006 – Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

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The Art of Discovery

Posted on April 18, 2013  Comments (1)

Quality and The Art of Discovery by Professor George Box (1990):


Quotes by George Box in the video:

“I think of statistical methods as the use of science to make sense of numbers”

“The scientific method is how we increase the rate at which we find things out.”

“I think the quality revolution is nothing more, or less, than the dramatic expansion of the of scientific problem solving using informed observation and directed experimentation to find out more about the process, the product and the customer.”

“It really amounts to this, if you know more about what it is you are doing then you can do it better and you can do it cheaper.”

“We are talking about involving the whole workforce in the use of the scientific method and retraining our engineers and scientists in a more efficient way to run experiments.”

“Tapping into resources:

  1. Every operating system generates information that can be used to improve it.
  2. Everyone has creativity.
  3. Designed experiments can greatly increase the efficiency of experimentation.

An informed observer and directed experimentation are necessary for the scientific method to be applied. He notes that the control chart is used to notify an informed observer to explain what is special about the conditions when a result falls outside the control limits. When the chart indicates a special cause is likely present (something not part of the normal system) an informed observer should think about what special cause could lead to the result that was measured. And it is important this is done quickly as the ability of the knowledgable observer to determine what is special is much greater the closer in time to the result was created.

The video was posted by Wiley (with the permission of George’s family), Wiley is the publisher of George’s recent autobiography, An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box, and many of his other books.

Related: Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity – Statistics for Experimenters (book on directed experimentation by Box, Hunter and Hunter) – Highlights from 2009 George Box Speech – Introductory Videos on Using Design of Experiments to Improve Results (with Stu Hunter)

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #191

Posted on April 15, 2013  Comments (0)

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival has been published since 2006. The carnival, published twice a month, links to great, recent, management blog posts. I hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow John Hunter online: Google+, Twitter and elsewhere.

  • How much is your success dependent on those around you? by Eric Barker – “You’d think that doing thousands of heart surgeries would make you better at them. Not necessarily. Surgeons only got better at their home hospital: the one where they knew the team best and developed strong working relationships…. We often take our context and those around us for granted. What is it about those around you that’s making you good at what you do?
  • A Lesson on Leadership from Marrakech by Kevin Meyer – “Five times a day Muslims are reminded of their faith and are asked to reflect on it. And practicing Muslims will, whenever possible… Take the time to discover and define the true purpose of the organization. Translate that into a long-term strategy with short- and intermediate-term objectives. Then communicate and reinforce that purpose, strategy, and thinking… over and over and over.

    At least five times a day.”

    • photo of vista at Frasers Hill, Malaysia

    Fraser’s Hill, Malaysia, by John Hunter. See photos from my walk on Bishops Trail in Fraser’s Hill.

  • The Reason Health Care Is So Expensive: Insurance Companies by Jeffrey Pfeffer – “Unless and until we as a society pay attention to the enormous costs and the time wasted by the current administrative arrangements, we will continue to pay much too much for health care.” [the administrative system used by insurance companies is a big part of the problem but there are plenty more that needs to be improved with the health care system - John.]
  • This Executive Compensation Issue by Bill Waddell – What all of this means in terms of lean is that a holistic, respectful approach is an essential element of the lean philosophy – respect for people, including all of the stakeholders in the business. It is hard for me to see how anyone with the focus and priorities it takes to be in the cross hairs of the critics of CEO compensation can be such a lean leader.” [Taking What You Don’t Deserve, CEO Style - John Hunter]

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Management Improvement Blog Carnival #190

Posted on April 4, 2013  Comments (0)

The Curious Cat Management Carnival is published twice each month. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996: Deming, evidence based management, systems thinking, respect for people, applied statistics, etc..

photo of George Box, John Hunter and Peter Scholtesphoto of (from right to left) Peter Scholtes, John Hunter and George Box in Madison, Wisconsin at the 2008 Deming Conference
  • George Box (1919 to 2013) by John Hunter – George Box was a very kind, smart, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He was also one of the most important statisticians of the last 100 years. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate…
  • George Box: A remembrance by Bradley Jones – “His greatest contribution to my life was the wonderful book, Statistics for Experimenters, which he wrote with William G. Hunter and Stu Hunter and published in 1978, the same year he served as president of the American Statistical Association. I remember the excitement I felt on reading the description of how the attainment of knowledge is an endless spiral proceeding alternately from deduction to induction and back. Even now, I recall with pleasure the discussion of the randomization distribution early in the book.”
  • Getting Started with Factorial Design of Experiments by Eston Martz – “When I talk to quality professionals about how they use statistics, one tool they mention again and again is design of experiments, or DOE. I’d never even heard the term before I started getting involved in quality improvement efforts, but now that I’ve learned how it works, I wonder why I didn’t learn about it sooner. If you need to find out how several factors are affecting a process outcome, DOE is the way to go.”
  • Brian Joiner Podcast on Management, Sustainability and the Health Care System – Recently Brian has shifted his focus to the health care system (while maintaining a focus on quality principles and sustainability). “Our health care system is an economic tsunami that is about to overwhelm us if we don’t do something very significant, very soon.”

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George Box

Posted on March 28, 2013  Comments (10)

I would most likely not exist if it were not for George Box. My father took a course from George while my father was a student at Princeton. George agreed to start the Statistics Department at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and my father followed him to Madison, to be the first PhD student. Dad graduated, and the next year was a professor there, where he and George remained for the rest of their careers.

George died today, he was born in 1919. He recently completed An Accidental Statistician: The Life and Memories of George E. P. Box which is an excellent book that captures his great ability to tell stories. It is a wonderful read for anyone interested in statistics and management improvement or just great stories of an interesting life.

photo of George EP Box

George Box by Brent Nicastro.

George Box was a fantastic statistician. I am not the person to judge, but from what I have read one of the handful of most important applied statisticians of the last 100 years. His contributions are enormous. Several well know statistical methods are known by his name, including:

George was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1979. He also served as president of the American Statistics Association in 1978. George is also an honorary member of ASQ.

George was a very kind, caring and fun person. He was a gifted storyteller and writer. He had the ability to present ideas so they were easy to comprehend and appreciate. While his writing was great, seeing him in person added so much more. Growing up I was able to enjoy his stories often, at our house or his. The last time I was in Madison, my brother and I visited with him and again listened to his marvelous stories about Carl Pearson, Ronald Fisher and so much more. He was one those special people that made you very happy whenever you were near him.

George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill Hunter (my father) wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters. I am biased but I think this is acknowledged as one of (if not the) most important books on design of experiments.

George also wrote other classic books: Time series analysis: Forecasting and control (1979, with Gwilym Jenkins) and Bayesian inference in statistical analysis. (1973, with George C. Tiao).

George Box and Bill Hunter co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1984. The Center develops, advances and communicates quality improvement methods and ideas.

The Box Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Industrial Statistics recognizes development and the application of statistical methods in European business and industry in his honor.

“All models are wrong but some are useful” is likely his most famous quote. More quotes By George Box

A few selected articles and reports by George Box

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Quality Processes in Unexpected Places

Posted on March 25, 2013  Comments (0)

This month Paul Borawski asked ASQ’s Influential Voices to explore the use of quality tools in unexpected places.

The most surprising example of this practice that I recall is the Madison, Wisconsin police department surveying those they arrested to get customer feedback. It is obvious that such “customers” are going to be biased. Still the police department was able to get actionable information by seeking the voice of the customer.

photo of a red berry and leaves

Unrelated photo from Singapore Botanical Garden by John Hunter.

Certain of the police department’s aims are not going to match well with those they arrest (most obviously those arrested wish the police department didn’t arrest them). The police department sought the voice of the customer from all those they interacted with (which included those they arrested, but also included those reporting crimes, victims, relatives of those they arrested etc.).

The aim of the police department is not to arrest people. Doing so is necessary but doing so is most similar in the management context to catching an error to remove that bad result. It is better to improve processes so bad results are avoided. How the police interact with the public can improve the process to help steer people’s actions away from those that will require arrests.

The interaction police officers have with the public is a critical gemba for meeting the police department’s aim. Reducing crime and encouraging a peaceful society is aided by knowing the conditions of that gemba and knowing how attempts to improve are being felt at the gemba.

All customer feedback includes bias and personal preferences and potentially desires that are contrary to the aims for the organization (wanting services for free, for example). Understanding this and how important understanding customer/user feedback on the gemba is, it really shouldn’t be surprising that the police would want that data. But I think it may well be that process thinking, evidence based management and such ideas are still not widely practiced as so the Madison police department’s actions are still surprising to many.

Quality Leadership: The First Step Towards Quality Policing by David Couper and Sabine Lobitz

Our business is policing, our customers are the citizens within our jurisdictions, and our product is police service (everything from crime fighting and conflict management to safety and prevention programs.)
…
If we are to cure this we must start to pay attention to the new ideas and trends in the workplace mentioned earlier that are helping America’s businesses; a commitment to people, how people are treated — employees as well as citizens, the development of a people-oriented workplace, and leadership can and does make a difference.
…
If we change the way in which we lead the men and women in our police organizations, we can achieve quality in policing. However, wanting to change and changing are worlds apart. The road to change is littered by good intentions and short-term efforts.

This article, from 1987, illustrates the respect for people principle was alive and being practiced 25 years ago; most organizations need to do a great deal more work on applying practices that show respect for people.

Related: Quality Improvement and Government: Ten Hard Lessons From the Madison Experience by David C. Couper, Chief of Police, City of Madison, Wisconsin – SWAT Raids, Failure to Apply System Thinking in Law Enforcement – Measuring What Matters: Developing Measures of What the Police Do – The Public Sector and W. Edwards Deming – Doing More with Less in the Public Sector – A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin

The Components of Genius

Posted on March 19, 2013  Comments (1)

image of poster on what makes up genius

Wonderful poster, by Grant Snider, on the question: what is genius.

Related: Comic About Programers – You Have to Find What You Love To Do – Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation – Interruptions Can Severely Damage Performance

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #189

Posted on March 15, 2013  Comments (1)

The Curious Cat management blog carnival has been published since 2006. New posts are published twice a month. I also publish a collection management improvement articles on the Curious Cat Management Articles site.

  • The Three Rules for Rules by Jon Miller – “If rules aren’t being followed, there is a reason. Proceed to the next rule [Rules must be frequently improved.] and rewrite an improved rule.”
  • Those Disposable People by Kevin Meyer – “Believing that employees are purely a cost, not understanding that just because the value of employees is not explicitly stated on a P&L and balance sheet doesn’t mean that there is no offsetting value to the “cost,” is a faiure of management.”

  • Why ThoughtWorks Eliminated Sales Commissions by John Hunter – “This is another instance of a technology company providing a well reasoned explanation for why they are better off without sales commissions.”
  • Dealing With Complexity in Leadership by Linda Fisher Thornton – “The ability to think through complex problems clearly is an asset to individual leaders and to the organizations they serve. We need to find ways to help leaders develop this ability, and to do that, it helps to understand what it is that leaders with a high degree of thinking complexity do.”

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What Does Respect for People Actually Mean?

Posted on March 11, 2013  Comments (0)

“Respect for People” is a great short hand statement. There is a great deal of complexity packed into those words.

At the simplest level respect for people requires systems that are designed with people in mind – systems are not designed as though robots were doing what people did. Then those systems also must be built in a way that respects the inherent value of people.

photo of construction site in Mongolia, 1980s

Construction site in Mongolia in the 1980′s, photo by Bill Hunter.

And the idea builds beyond that and grows into an understanding that in order for human systems to be most effective they must engage people. There are significant limits to how effective systems with people can be if you act as though people are just robots to implement the instructions given by some boss. Respect for people moves from being about just the inherent value of people themselves to a principle to allow organizations to be most effective.

Within these principles are all sorts of shades of grey where the principles shed light on ideas to consider but it becomes challenging to know what the specific situation calls for.

Things also get complicated with the way English works. There is another aspect to respect that has to do with having confidence in someone’s ability or maturity.

You don’t show more “respect for people” by overestimating them. If someone does not have the statistical skills to do a task it isn’t a failure of “respect for people” to acknowledge that.

I find myself making decisions on how to treat people differently based on what can be seen as different “respect” (in the respect = confidence in their capabilities and their self-confidence). With some people I can simple say, no you are wrong in this case it is best to do x, y, z. I find this is what I can do with those I have the most of the “respect” for their emotional intelligence.

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Management Improvement Blog Carnival #188

Posted on March 3, 2013  Comments (1)

The Curious Cat Management Carnival has been published since 2006. The carnival, published twice a month, links to great, recent, management blog posts. I hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow me online: Google+, Twitter and elsewhere.

  • Toyota, Respect for People (or “Humanity”) and Lean by Mark Graban – “I’ve really come to appreciate how ‘respect for people’ and ‘continuous improvement’ (or Kaizen) are intertwined. We practice CI because we have RFP… we practice RFP by engaging people in CI and challenging them to perform better… for the sake of our customers and our patients (who we have respect for).”
    • photo of Van Gogh self portrait

    Van Gogh self portrait. Photo by John Hunter, Musee d’Orsay, Paris.

  • Where There is Fear You Do Not Get Honest Figures by John Hunter – “The problems fear creates result in bad data, ineffective decision making and the destruction of joy in work.”
  • Comparing the Five Lean Principles to the Toyota 14 Principles by Matt Wrye – “The standardization allows for a baseline when a problem arises. If standards are being followed then the problem becomes easier to diagnose. Once the root cause is discovered, allowing the employees the freedom to improve the standard so the issue doesn’t surface again promotes empowerment and respect for people. This respect for their knowledge of the process will help to foster more improvement ideas from them.”
  • Disruption guru Clay Christensen says incumbent media players are making a classic mistake by Mathew Ingram – “incumbent players in a particular industry routinely fail to make the necessary changes to the way they do things, even when they can see the disruption occurring all around them. In almost every case, they see the disruptors as not worthy of their attention because they are operating at the low end of the market, and either don’t see that as important or are too committed to their existing business models.”

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Your Brain Can Jump to Incorrect Conclusions

Posted on February 27, 2013  Comments (1)

How our brain works without us realizing it often is hugely beneficial, but it also creates some faulty conclusions at times. The video gives a good synopsis of the quick intuitive leaps our brains make all the time. These are extremely helpful, but occasionally lead us to fall into traps.

I have discussed these idea before: The Illusion of Knowledge, Optical and Other Illusions. By understanding some of the traps our brain can fall into, we can improve our decision making.

By learning that our “system 1 brain” will jump to immediate answers but may make some risky assumptions in seeking the quickest answer we can learn to question that conclusion. I find building the case for that conclusion (and questioning the assumptions) is helpful.

The trickiest part is figuring out when to apply more conscious effort to exploring the options. I do not believe the quip “don’t assume” is useful. We have to make hundred of assumptions every day or we couldn’t make any progress. If I don’t assume the floor will support my weight I have to be very careful getting out of bed, then the stairway, then whether food is safe to eat, whether the brakes still work on my car…

We have to assume. But it is helpful if we can intelligently question our immediate conclusions if it is important to do so. Optical illusion are interesting, most often the mistakes our brain makes are not important to us. But if such a conclusion was important, knowing to question your system 1 response will give you the chance to improve.

Related: We are Being Ruined by the Best Efforts of People Who are Doing the Wrong Thing – How We Know What We Know – Flaws in Understanding Psychology Lead to Flawed Management Decisions – Albert Einstein, Marylin Monroe Hybrid Image

Software Process and Measurement Podcast With John Hunter

Posted on February 25, 2013  Comments (0)

In my podcast with Tom Cagley, Software Process and Measurement Cast: John Hunter on Management Matters, as you might expect there was a bit of a focus on software development and agile software development as related to the ideas I expressed in Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability.

photo of John Hunter at the Borobudur Temple

John Hunter at the Borobudur Buddhist Temple in Indonesia.


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Podcast Discussion on Management Matters

Posted on February 19, 2013  Comments (1)

I continue to record podcasts as I promote my new book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. This the second part, of 2, of my podcast with Joe Dager, Business 901: Management Matters to a Curious Cat. The first part featured a discussion of 2 new deadly diseases facing companies.

image of the cover of Managmenet Matters by John Hunter

Management Matters by John Hunter

Download this podcast.

Links to more information on some of the topics I mention in the podcast:

More podcasts: Process Excellence Network Podcast with John Hunter – Business 901 Podcast with John Hunter: Deming’s Management Ideas Today (2012) – Leanpub Podcast on Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #187

Posted on February 16, 2013  Comments (0)

The Curious Cat Management Carnival is published twice each month. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996: Deming, lean manufacturing, customer focus, leadership, systems thinking, respect for people, etc..

  • We Need to Understand Variation to Manage Effectively by Mike Stoecklein – “I believe that much of what I see and hear these days related to lean and lean thinking can be traced back to Dr. Deming, his teachings and the system of profound knowledge – with one exception. I rarely hear anything about ‘understanding variation’.”
  • Lean Leadership Lessons from Costco Wholesale by Jon Miller – “1) Obey the law 2) Take care of our members 3) Take care of our employees 4) Respect our vendors 5) Reward our shareholders. If we do these four things throughout our organization, then we will realize our ultimate goal, which is to reward our shareholders.”
    • photo of 4 penguins marching on a beach in South Africa

    Penguins marching on a beach in South Africa by Justin Hunter.

  • Employees leave managers, not companies by Alaister Low – “The key to being able to keep the good employees is not so much the salary you offer them or even the actual work, it is more about how you manage them and how they feel working under you as their manager. Do they feel valued within your team?…”
  • 10 Penalties That I Would Call if I Were a Management Referee by Dan McCarthy – “1. Employee pass interference: Otherwise known as micromanagement, this penalty is for getting in the way of an employee or team of employees that know how to do the job better than the manager. 2. Illegal use of meetings: A meeting with no agenda, no apparent purpose, no process facilitation, little or no collaboration, and no meaningful decisions or action items…”

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Accept Taking Risks, Don’t Blithely Accept Failure Though

Posted on February 13, 2013  Comments (2)

For discussion by ASQ’s Influential Voices this month, Paul Borawski looks at Risk, Failure & Careers in Quality.

There is a bias toward avoiding the possibility of failure by avoiding actions which may lead to failure or even any action at all. This is a problem. The need in so many organizations to avoid failure means wise actions are avoided because there is a risk of failure.

Many times the criticism of such cultures however gets a bit sloppy, in my opinion, and treats the idea of avoiding failure as bad. Reducing the impact of failure is very wise and sensible. We don’t want to sub-optimize the whole system in order to optimize avoiding as much failure as possible. But we don’t want to sub-optimize the whole system by treating failure as a good thing to welcome either.

Part of the problem is sloppy thinking about what is failure. Running an experiment and getting results that are not as positive as you might have hoped is not failure. That is going to happen when run experiments. The reason you run PDSA’s on a small scale is to learn. It is to minimize the cost of running the experiments and minimize the impacts of disappointments.

Running an experiment as having results that negatively impact customers or result in costs that were not planned may well be failure. Though even in that case calling it failure may be less than useful. I have often seen that a new process that eliminated 10 problems for customers but added 2 is attacked for the 2 new problems. While those new problems are not good that you have a net gain of 8 fewer problems should be seen as success, I would argue, not failure. However, often this is not the case. And the attitude that any new problem is blamed on those making a change, regardless of the overall system impact does definitely hamper improvement.

As I said in a previous post, Learn by Seeking Knowledge, Not Just from Mistakes:

It isn’t an absence of people making mistakes (including carrying out processes based on faulty theories) that is slowing learning. People are very reluctant to make errors of commission (and errors of commission due to a change is avoided even more). This reluctance obviously makes learning (and improvement) more difficult. And the reluctance is often enhanced by fear created by the management system.

The culture I want to develop is one where systems thinking leads to optimizing the overall system. And to the extent that to do so it is wise to take risks that may include some failures taking risks is good. But we need to also use the long known practices to reduce any costs of adverse results.

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Process Excellence Network Podcast with John Hunter

Posted on February 10, 2013  Comments (0)

image of the cover of Managmenet Matters by John Hunter

Management Matters by John Hunter

Diana Davis with the Process Excellence Network interviewed me for their podcast series, process perspective – Management Matters: Interview with author John Hunter (listen to podcast). Additional details on some of the ideas we discussed:

Related: podcasts and interviews on Management Matters – Business 901 podcast: Two New Deadly Diseases for Business – Deming’s Management Ideas Today (podcast with John Hunter)

Business 901 Podcast: Two New Deadly Diseases for Business

Posted on February 4, 2013  Comments (1)

I continue to record podcasts as I promote my new book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability. In this podcast I discuss the 2 new deadly diseases facing companies. The second part of the Business 901 podcast will be posted soon.

Links to more information on items discussed in the podcast: Dr. Deming’s 7 Deadly Diseases + 2

Executive pay:

Copyright and Patents

I have created a new subreddit for posting links to interesting items about the new deadly diseases for business.

Related: Interviews for Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability – previous business 901 podcast – LeanPub podcast on Management Matters

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