Management Seminar in Colorado

Posted on April 30, 2008  Comments (1)

The Deming Institute is sponsoring, How to Create Unethical, Ineffective Organizations That Go Out of Business, 12-14 May, 2008 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Kelly Allan and John Hunter will be presenting the seminar. Please let me know if you sign up.

Twenty-seven faulty management and corporate governance practices create most of the problems in any organization. These practices will be identified, and better practices recommended. It will be shown that as better practices are introduced, quality of products and services increases, costs decline, and you create a globally competitive advantage for your organization.

Learn how governance practice leads to the heaviest losses, how inconsistencies between policy and strategy create sub-optimal outcomes, how mismanagement of people leads to unethical and ineffective behavior, and how to overcome these problems. Study the theory and practice of management. Not quality management, not good management, not excellent management, not knowledge management, not risk management, not process management, not performance management, not supply or asset management, not technology management, not time management, not emergency management, just plain management.

Related: Deming on ManagementCurious Cat Management Improvement CalendarDeming Seminar and ConferenceDeming Companies

Post Number 1,000

Posted on April 29, 2008  Comments (1)

This is the 1,000th post to the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. Here are some highlights:

2007 Baldrige National Quality Award

Posted on April 28, 2008  Comments (1)

2007 Baldige awardee representatives in the Oval Office

The Baldrige National Quality Award winners for 2007 are:

President Bush met with winners for the first time since 2000, I believe (photo from Coral Springs web site). He did in private this year in the Oval Office. The Baldridge award had more prestige in the management community 10 years ago. In my opinion the award has failed to attract the best managed companies to apply.

When you purport to recognize the highest level of management excellence you should understand that leaving out those companies that are widely seen as excellent calls into question the credibility of the award. I can understand the challenge in convincing many potential applicants to apply. I would say that is the same challenge companies have that want to convince potential customers their solution is what the customer should purchase.

ARDEC provides a public version of their application (some details removed) that is interesting. ARDEC received the President’s Award Quality in 2000. From 1998 to 2002 the President’s Quality Award recognized management excellence in the federal government based on a Baldrige-style system (it was then switched from Baldrige-style to generic “excellence”).

Related: 2005 Baldrige AwardVice President Presents Baldrige Awards (2004)Problems with Lean Manufacturing Awards2007 Shingo Prize for Excellence in ManufacturingManagement excellence in governmentDeming Prize 2007

Toyota Canada CIO on Genchi Genbutsu and Kaizen

Posted on April 24, 2008  Comments (2)

What’s driving Toyota Canada’s success? – CIO reveals all

for Hao Tien, chief information officer (CIO) at Toyota Canada Inc. those two Japanese phrases – Genchi Genbutsu (go and see) and Kaizen (continuous improvement) really capture it all.

the innovation wasn’t in the technology, but in the way the various partners were brought together to agree upon processes, which were then consistently executed. CustomerOne is only project of its kind in the Toyota empire.

A computer system links activities across multiple customer touch points, and analyzes data from the more than 13,000 daily service visits to Toyota dealers across the country. The system flags major repeat problems and Toyota Motor Corp. head office in Japan is informed so engineers can be assigned to make repairs to designs or manufacturing, if necessary.

“For instance if a call comes into us at Toyota Canada, the dealer knows about it. So if they go back to the dealer for services, everyone offers the same resolution of the problem.” In the four years since its launch CustomerOne was has been a runaway success. Tien cites some of the more tangible benefits this initiative has brought about. They include:

* Cutting down the customer problem resolution from weeks to an average of three days through this initiative alone;
* Early detection of customer dissatisfaction in services
* Reducing detection of product defects (from months to days).

The Toyota Canada CIO talks about the tremendous business benefits from this seamless freeflow of information. “When a defect is detected at the dealership, the next day it would up to our engineering department.” The speed at which information traverses is of immense value – especially when new vehicles are launched. Tien cited an example.

“We recently launched a new Toyota Corolla [model]. If there were a problem with a door knob of the vehicle, the plant would know about it and a fix would be put in place.”

An article well worth reading. Related: Toyota IT OverviewLessons from Toyota’s IT StrategyGood Customer Service Example at ToyotaSoftware Supporting Processes Not the Other Way Around

Deming and Performance Appraisal

Posted on April 22, 2008  Comments (1)

Guest post by Ron Kingen (originally posted to the Deming Electronic Network)

Several weeks ago someone in the DEN list ask what did Dr. Deming recommend about this issue, well I ask that very question of Dr. Deming back in the 80′s when I had the good fortune to work with him. I had expressed my concern to Dr. Deming about several of his fourteen points that I either didn’t understand completely or did not fit with my experience and/or education. Dr. Deming suggested we talk about it over dinner – during the subsequent dinner discussion Dr. Deming made several points relative to performance improvement (not appraisal):

  1. Hire good people – one of the most critical decisions we all make.
  2. Train and educate them – even if they come from the best universities and are at the top of their class.
  3. Coach them, constantly, don’t wait for an annual appraisal to correct an issue or behavior.
  4. It is the system that must be improved to ensure people work to their potential.
  5. Recognize your top performers, but money isn’t the best method of recognition, in fact, it can be counterproductive.
  6. Work with your low performers to understand their issues and difficulties; give them support and assistance. If they can’t improve and are truly performance outliers , don’t keep them, they will affect the over system.

The advice seemed valid, but I told him my company insisted we do performance appraisals. He laughed, he suggested I change the system; but Dr. Deming knew I worked for General Motors and that wouldn’t be easy. So he recommended I become a rebel and change my part of the system; which I did try. At the time I worked for one of the most progressive divisions within GM and was fortunate to work with many talented GM people and several well know and recognized experts, but I was convinced the best system change option was to leave GM.
Read more

Find Joy and Success in Business

Posted on April 21, 2008  Comments (3)

<div><a href='http://www.omnisio.com'>Share and annotate your videos</a> with Omnisio!</div> <p>

David Heinemeier Hansson Talk at Startup School 2008 (Paul Graham‘s Y-combinator school). It is helpful to appreciate the importance of some simple ideas. Working on web focused businesses people often get carried away with the huge potential and sometimes lose touch with reality. While the ideas are more obvious when looking at web related business their is plenty here for many companies (the second half might be more helpful for many).

In this talk David does a great job of explaining how 37 signals has chosen to work. They are not concerned with becoming large. They focus on doing what they want to do – creating great software solutions (see: Systemic Workplace Experiments). And on making money to allow them to stay in business.

Some tidbits of advice: create great applications, charge people money, make a profit. Yes to those outside the web world this might seem obvious… He discusses a very similar idea to the idea of 1,000 true fans. He mentions to bring in a $1 million, all you need is 2,000 customers paying $40/month. 37 Signals has done well focusing on small business. Don’t be in such a hurry.

Related: Why is 37signals so arrogant?Complicating SimplicityJoy in Software DevelopmentGreat Marissa Mayer Webcast on Google Innovation

The Defect Black Market

Posted on April 18, 2008  Comments (6)

The Defect Black Market

It all started a week before, when the CTO of Damon’s midsize warehousing and transportation company in Northern California announced an innovative program to motivate employees and boost the quality of their logistics software. For every bug found by a tester and fixed by a programmer, both would get $10.

Well, this doesn’t sound very well thought out. Bonuses often distort behavior. Dr. Deming was not against such targets and bonuses because he thought they would not result in bugs being fixed: Dr. Deming on the problems with targets or goals. It is a question of how that will happen. The system being distorted is the most likely result of any such system.

Everyone worked a bit harder the next day. Testers made sure to check and double-check every test case they ran, while developers worked through lunch to fix their assigned bugs. And it paid off. On that second day each had earned an average bonus of $50.

Everyone worked even harder on the third day. On the fourth day, however, the well had started to dry up. The testers ran, re-ran, and re-ran again the test cases, but they could only find a handful of issues. The developers strained the issue-tracking system, constantly reloading the “unassigned bugs” page and rushing to self-assign anything that appeared.

And then something strange happened at lunch. Instead of going out to eat with his usual teammates, one of the developers went out with a tester. Soon after, another developer went out with another tester. Within a few minutes, almost all of the developers had paired up with testers.

As the developers returned from lunch, they immediately got to work. Instead of scavenging for newly found bugs, they worked on “code refactoring” and new functionality. And as soon as they deployed their changes, testers found bugs — minor, obscure bugs that a developer could easily overlook. And just as quickly as testers found bugs, the developers were able to fix them and re-deploy. By the end of the day, developers and testers had earned an average of $120.

Read more

Gary Convis is the New CEO of Dana

Posted on April 17, 2008  Comments (1)

Another former Toyota USA leader is talking a leading role at another company. Gary Convis from Toyota retired last year.

Related: articles by Gary ConvisToyota Management Speech by Gary ConvisToyota Management Develops the New CamryQuality Conversation with Gary ConvisJim Press, Toyota N. American President, Moves to Chrysler

Dana Holding Corporation Names Gary L. Convis Chief Executive Officer

Dana Holding Corporation (NYSE: DAN) emerged from bankruptcy recently and today announced that it has named Gary L. Convis, 65, to the post of Chief Executive Officer. Convis was appointed to Dana’s new Board of Directors in January 2008 after retiring from Toyota Motor Corporation, where he had spent more than 20 years culminating in his role as Chairman of Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky.

“We are delighted to welcome Gary as Chief Executive Officer,” said Dana Executive Chairman John Devine, who had served as the company’s acting CEO since January. “Gary is widely respected as one of the leading experts in lean manufacturing and management systems, including the Toyota Production System. Along with his strong leadership and global industry experience, we believe he is an ideal choice as our new Chief Executive.”

“I am honored by the Board’s confidence in me to lead Dana,” Convis said. “I’m also eager to join with our people in establishing world-class manufacturing systems and returning this great company to the leadership ranks of the global automotive supply industry.”
Read more

Overview of 5 Nations Health Care Systems

Posted on April 16, 2008  Comments (7)

PBS presents a very nice overview of the heath care systems in Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, Taiwan and Switzerland in: Sick Around the World. It is a just a surface view of the overall system but even so does a good job of providing more understanding of the options available to fix the failed system in the USA. The US system costs over 50% more than others and has worse outcome measures than the alternatives (and leaves many without any coverage). And while the alternatives are not perfect the defenders of the status quo make claims about the alternatives are not accurate.

Table combines data from my previous post, International Health Care System Performance, and the PBS website:

Australia Canada Germany Japan Netherlands New Zealand Switzerland Taiwan UK USA
National health spending – Percent of GDP 9.5% 9.8% 10.7% 8.0% 9.2% 9.0% 11.6% 6.3% 8.3% 16.0%
Percent uninsured 0 0 <1 <2 0 0 16

Switzerland, spending 11.6% of GDP on health care, is the 2nd most expensive in the world.

Related: USA Spent $2.1 Trillion on Health Care in 2006Measuring the Health of Nations (USA ranks 19th of 19 nations studied)Drug Prices in the USAUSA Health Care Costs 16% of GDP (2006)Deadly Diseases of Western Management5 Million Lives Campaign

Management Improvement Carnival #33

Posted on April 15, 2008  Comments (0)

Shaun Sayers is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #33 on the Capable blog, some of the highlights include

  • Recent Trackbacks

  • Comments