Posted on July 30, 2007  Comments (2)

What a surprise – lousy customer service from a cell phone company. What a shame that it is no surprise at all. Don’t they have tons of MBAs with 6 figure salaries? They do have a CEO paid over $31 million last year. It is so frustrating that even basic stuff is so poorly done, so often and for so long. iPhone+AT&T Bill=Uh-Oh:

Many people, before the iPhone was released, were already predicting bad results based on Apple’s choice of partner. They wondered how Apple would maintain their typical customer focus when relying on a partner without a good reputation. Well, it is much easier to degrade a system to return the poorest results than to create a system performing at best levels of any portion of that system. This is a great example of failing to deal with the entire system (value stream…).

What an embarrassment. And the fact that the companies that provide such “service” are not even embarrassed is even more embarrassing.

Very well put, though it could expect more of Apple. They had to know what they were getting their customers into and the failure to manage that better is something their customers have every right to blame Apple for. Read the comments for tons of real customer opinions that are overwhelmingly negative. I wish companies would spend half the time, effort and money fixing these systemic problems that they spend on marketing efforts with little resemblance to what you experience if you actually become a customer.

Related: Standard Prepaid Cell Phone Policy – Good Customer Service Example – Incredibly Bad Customer Service from Discover Card – Customer Service is Important – Is Poor Service the Industry Standard? – No Customer Focus

Posted on July 30, 2007  Comments (3)

From a new, interesting, Theory of Constraint blog by Kevin Fox – Multi-Tasking: Why projects take so long and still go late

via: Silk and Spinach. Related: articles on Theory of Constraints – Multitasking is not Part of Standard Work – Flow – Fast Cycle Change in Knowledge-Based Organizations – single piece flow

Posted on July 28, 2007  Comments (0)

Gopal Srinivasan is Director of TVS Electronics Limited, Joint Managing Director of Sundaram-Clayton Limited and Director of various other TVS Group companies. TVS group companies, based in India, have been awarded 5 Deming Prizes. He discusses Deming and quality a bit. He also discusses their experiences in manufacturing in China and the strengths they have found in each country. And he discusses the Indian economy and manufacturing.

In the second part of the podcast he talks about the growth of the economy of Tamil Nadu and the inclusive approach required to help India grow. via Gopal Srinivasan of TVS Group of Companies on Entrepreneurship

Related: Hopeful About India’s Manufacturing Sector – Toyota Chairman Comments on India and Thailand – Indian Deming Prize Winner Expanding – 2005 Deming Prize Awardees – 2004 Deming Prize

Posted on July 24, 2007  Comments (0)

I have mentioned I like the way Amazon, and Jeff Bezos, have been managing in several posts. Recently Amazon has added very strong financial results to that portfolio of things they do well. Amazon earnings announcement:

Pretty impressive. It seems Amazon might be able to begin delivering strong current financial performance (they have done so at least twice, and maybe longer depending on how you look at it…) and continue to build and innovate for the future. That is when a company really sets itself apart from the crowd. Previously, from the investing perspective, the argument was largely based on the belief that the steps taken today were building for the future (a fine thing, but risky – without the evidence of success actually making real profit it is often easy to make a good case for why the future will be good). In an investment it is more comforting when current earning provide some evidence the profits predicted in the future have some basis in reality.

Since the beginning of April Amazon’s share price has gone from $40 a share to $70. And based on the after hours trades today it is going to be in the $80s tomorrow (though after hours trades can often be misleading – there is some more confidence based on the large volume of hour trades in Amazon, but still…). I must admit this price does seem like it might be getting a bit ahead of itself but Amazon is making an impressive case for strong future performance.

Related: Amazon Innovation – 10 stocks for 10 years (April 2005) – 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update (June 2007) – Very Good Amazon Earnings – Bezos on Lean Thinking – Is Amazon a Bargain?

Posted on July 23, 2007  Comments (0)

Photos from my trip to New York City last year are now online. Photos include: The Cloisters (part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art – though located far uptown) art and architecture of medieval Europe, the remodeled Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building and Flatiron Building.

Related: New York City Photo Essays – Paris Travel Photos – Pacific Northwest photos – Curious Cat Travel Photos

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Posted on July 19, 2007  Comments (1)

Often people have trouble understanding Dr. Deming’s disapproval of arbitrary numerical targets. What he was trying to prevent is what many see every day, such as managing to quarterly earnings targets. There are several problems with numerical goals but in here lets focus on one. The change from managing for what is best for the business to managing to hit a target. Google Profit Trails Analyst Estimates; Shares Slide:

Great statement. And if more people could manage that way, one of the problems with numerical goals would be eliminated. But with so many organizations tying huge bonuses to meeting arbitrary numerical targets you will have a great deal of difficulty getting managers to hire 3 extra people this quarter, who will help the business, but will ruin their chance at a bonus. Or even if they just take a hit on their performance appraisal compared to the other managers that meet the headcount target – even if it meant turning away talent the organization could have benefited from greatly – and then the manager that missed their target loses out in the next promotion opportunity.

I am happy to own a tiny portion of Google and glad they are making decisions like this. Now just because I think there is a good case to be made for exceeding the targets that doesn’t mean that hiring more people is necessarily good. It is perfectly possible Google is hiring too many people and making a bad prediction about how these people will benefit Google in the long run. I am just saying I strongly support not tying yourself to short term numerical targets, if you predict a better decision requires taking actions that will cause the target to be missed.

Google increased profit by 28%, from the second quarter last year, to $925 million (and down from $1.0 billion in the first quarter of 2007). Lest you think personnel can’t really cost Google that much can it, just the stock based compensation in the second quarter reduced earning by $242 million in the quarter (an “expense” that wasn’t reported just a few years ago). Google had 13,786 full-time employees as of June 30, 2007 (up 1,548 in the quarter) – so that is over $17,500 per full time employee. If anyone at Google wants to talk I am open to considering an employment offer.

Posted on July 18, 2007  Comments (1)

I have mentioned before that I think Gary Hamel is one of the leading management thinkers on innovation. Here is an interesting interview (via: brisebois blog) with him – Gary Hamel: management innovation

Related: Gary Hamel’s Idea Hatchery – Google Management – Effective Innovation – Managing Innovation – Process Improvement and Innovation – Management Innovation Lab web site

Posted on July 18, 2007  Comments (3)

Management by walking around (MBWA) is based on the concept that a manager needs to actually understand what is really going on – not just view reports in an office. By seeing the actual state of affairs they can better understand what management improvements are actually doing where work is being done. Lean thinking includes a great deal on the importance of going to the gemba to make decisions. Anyone interested in MBWA should look at some of that material (as often MBWA is too superficial to do much good). Knowing what is to be accomplished by MBWA is important and I think often those that say they do MBWA are not clear on what that is.

In a similar way a manager needs to see how their web site works, if the web is of importance to their organizations (true for most organization but…). Just visiting it and trying to accomplish tasks (purchase an item, find information) would be a good step. In Is Management by Walking Around still relevant for retail furniture stores in a cyber-based culture? by Larry Mullins he discusses this idea (and the idea that yes MBWA is still important):

Related: Ohno Circle – management improvement search – Information Technology related posts – Gemba Kaizen by Imai

Posted on July 16, 2007  Comments (0)

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival.

• John Kotter on Change Management by Lauchlan Mackinnon – “Kotter therefore suggests an 8-stage process for managing organisational change that addresses each one of these concerns and turns them around to a key stage in the successful management of change”
• Six Sigma and Innovation by James Todhunter – “while classical Six Sigma is primarily a statistically driven approach to system performance optimization, there are opportunities at every phase within the methodology to augment the process with innovation best practices.”
• 8 Tips to Better Meetings by Ron Pereira – “Summarize. Throughout the meeting remind the participants what has been accomplished by restating things a bit. Also, if any ideas or solutions have been discussed summarize those as well.”
• Top 10 Improvement Tools Named After Lean Sensei by Jon Miller – “Kano Model – The chart below illustrates how there is the Voice of the Customer (spoken needs) as well as what is sometimes called Mind of the Customer (latent or unspoken needs).”
• Communicate And Train To Foster Innovation – “Contrary to what some may think, ‘innovation process’ is not an oxymoron.” [This is so true, innovation and process improvement are not contrary ideas - John]
• Ten Questions with Jeffrey Pfeffer by Guy Kawasaki – “many companies presume that incentives are the answer to everything, and have a very mechanistic model of human behavior. That is also incorrect.”

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Posted on July 15, 2007  Comments (5)

Comic by Joe Sayers, Wanna play work?

A good laugh, but also a reminder of an important idea. We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking I know). Read the respect for people posts for some ideas on how to make your workplace better. If you think a new job might be the answer – find management improvement jobs via Curious Cat Career Connections.

People are entitled to joy in work – Dr. W. Edwards Deming

Related: What Business Can Learn from Open Source – Stop Demotivating Employees

Posted on July 13, 2007  Comments (5)

Process improvement tools offer great resources to improve results. Dr. Deming included understanding psychology as one of the 4 areas of his management system. He understood organizations where not machines but systems made up of people. Therefore management needs to reflect that reality. -Lee Fried discusses these ideas in It is All About the People:

I see building improvement capacity of the organization, which largely means building the capacity of the people, as an extremely important focus of improvement efforts. As he mentions, it is at times, important to slow down the pace of change to ensure that people can adopt and incorporate the new concepts fully. If not the improvements tend to only take effect on the surface. Improvements in results are important but it is also critical to have management improvement concepts adopted as the natural way of doing business. And reaching that point most likely requires a focus on making that happen as well as improving processes… This split focus may seem to dilute effort but it is the most effective long term strategy (the time invested today in building capacity will make the management changes much more likely to sustain over the long term and will improve results over the long term).

Related: How to Improve – People are Our Most Important Asset – Management Recipe – articles on process improvement

Posted on July 11, 2007  Comments (0)

From lean tools to lean management by Jim Womack:

He is right. The tools are useful. The much more significant changes are in the management suite not on the shop floor (or cubicle farm). Even on the shop floor there is room for huge amounts of improvement. In the c-suite I don’t know how to explain the amount of work left to do. Lets say this – there is much much much more improvement left to do than has been done so far.

Related: articles by Jim Womack – Deming on Management

Posted on July 11, 2007  Comments (0)

The Art Of Listening: Dell Converts Customer Requests Into Exclusive Vostro Brand For Small Business

A good step (if quite late) on this issue we addressed 15 months ago in – Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus.

Related: Dell Innovation – Dell Falls Short – Designing In Errors – Usability Failures – 12 Stocks for 10 Years (Jun 2007 Update)

Posted on July 9, 2007  Comments (1)

IRA Toyota – Milford; Great Service

I think the lean folks will like the level loading the dynamic calendar facilitates (and all the other ways the process provided value to the customer). This strategy levels the load by pushing around demand a bit (rather than just accommodating whatever demand exists – real world conditions can make this the correct strategy). For example, if special machines are needed for certain jobs and the long term demand supports one of each such machine and if you can adjust the flow to level out the demand doing so is a good strategy. As this example shows, customers have flexibility in scheduling preventative maintenance; therefore take advantage of that in your system design.
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Posted on July 8, 2007  Comments (2)

Harvard Business Review has a new article on Toyota that both the Elegant Solutions blog (by Matthew E. May author of Elegant Solutions: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation – via: lean blog) and Got Boondoggle, have raved about.

Amazing HBR Interview with Toyota President Watanabe on Elegant Solutions:

What’s Next for Toyota?, Got Boondoogle:

For those people thinking they were catching up on Toyota that might not be good news. I suppose you could hope that Toyota will fail, but that doesn’t seem likely given past experience (and there continued vigilance). I don’t think we will see them spend $40 billion on robots and then decide they can’t make it work (GM in the 1980′s). But it is much easier to fail that succeed, so it is possible.
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Posted on July 6, 2007  Comments (0)

Clare Crawford-Mason produced the 1980 NBC news white paper on W. Edwards Deming that sparked a movement to improve management. She produced the Deming library tapes to help reach those taking steps to improve management and looking for more help. Last year she teamed up with Lloyd Dobbins on a new documentary – Good News – How Hospitals Heal Themselves.

Better Questions, Wiser Answers by Clare Crawford-Mason

I agree. Related: blog posts on the Toyota Production System – articles on improving health care – Fixing Healthcare from the Inside – Change Health Care

Posted on July 5, 2007  Comments (3)

As I have stated I believe it is the purpose of organization to serve many stakeholders (customer, employees, stockholders, community…). Thankfully some companies agree: Compensation at Whole Foods – Starbucks: Respect for Workers – Google: Ten Golden Rules – Amazon Innovation. Here is another example – How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart:

I am happy to invest in companies where all stakeholders are winning – I think that is a great long term strategy. Especially since so often, so many of the rewards seem to, inappropriately, go to the senior executives and everyone else [the employees seem to get the most abused but that is just my wild guess] including the owners share what is left over). I don’t own Costco, though: I prefer Tesco. I also don’t mind owning companies for a decade or more – unlike many “owners” which contributes to supporting such a long term strategy.
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Posted on July 4, 2007  Comments (3)

Every so often an article appears discussing the need to change focus from process improvement to innovation (and recently they are followed with quite a bit of blog talk). I disagree on several grounds. First you have needed to focus on both all the time. Second, it is not an either or choice. Third, the process of innovation should be improved.

I do not believe process improvement is bad for innovation. Bad process changes can be bad for innovation. But if we are looking at a research and development organization where the output is new products then process improvement would be focused on improving the processes to make that happen. The type of process improvement would be different than those made to manufacturing a product better.

Some six sigma efforts are little more than cost cutting efforts. And those efforts might claim a “process improvement” that is really just cutting costs in R&D. But we should not confuse bad management with the good practice of process improvement. Yes, cutting costs for the sake of cutting costs often leads to problems. Waste should be eliminated (which can reduces cost). Focus on eliminating waste. Eliminating waste in innovation activities is no worse than eliminating it anywhere. It might be more difficult to determine what is waste (that is where management skill and knowledge come into play) but the idea that process improvement (including eliminating waste is bad for innovation is something that should be rejected). And process improvement in innovation should not be limited to eliminating waste.

A good example of process improvement in innovation activities: Fast Cycle Change in Knowledge-Based Organizations (pdf format) by Ian Hau and Ford Calhoun, published by the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement, University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Related: Better and Different – New Rules for Management? No! – Quality and Innovation – “New” Management Needs – Management Advice Failures

Posted on July 4, 2007  Comments (4)

How to get people to actually use instructions for using your product: make it easy to do so. This blog post illustrates a well designed instruction guide for the Seagate FreeAgent backup drive. Simple pictures make it very obvious what to do (and even includes a time stamp showing how long into the process you are – which shows you the total time it will take at one simple glance 1 minute and 36 seconds).

Such instructions are a great example to guide internal standard work instructions.

Related: Why Isn’t Work Standard? – How to Create Visual Work Instructions – blog posts on quality tools – management improvement glossary

Posted on July 3, 2007  Comments (2)

The systemic failure of police raids continues to cause deaths of innocent people. In congressional testimony last month Radley Balko presented more evidence in: Our Militarized Police Departments:

It is a shame that the evidence of systemic failure is ignored and business as usual continues (when that business as usual is so extreme). It sure seems to me this situation calls for intervention and a replacement of current methods of business with much improved management practices. Talk about lack of respect for people – those with homes being invaded and even killed due to systemic failure of police raids. There is a need to fix this system – not just making excuses every time yet another mistake is made. The mistakes are not special causes unique to the individual case but the common cause errors resulting from the current management practices.