Monthly Archives: August 2008

Toyota Winglet – Personal Transportation Assistance

Posted on August 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Toyota has a long term vision. The population of Japan is aging rapidly. Toyota has invested in personal transportation and personal robotic assistance for quite some time. I must admit this new Winglet doesn’t seem like an incredible breakthrough to … Continue reading →

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Individual Bonuses Are Bad Management

Posted on August 7, 2008 by John Hunter

Gojko Adzic provides a nice post on Mary Poppendieck’s presentation at Agile 2008 on bonus, compensation and motivation: Paying programmers: are bonuses bad and what to do about it? In software development, it is very hard to establish the effects … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, IT, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

How to Develop Thinking People

Posted on August 6, 2008 by John Hunter

Toyota’s Top Engineer on How to Develop Thinking People [broken link was removed] Hayashi says, “Developing people requires physical endurance.” Frequent follow up is necessary, in person. It is not acceptable to give an assignment and follow up or scold … Continue reading →

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India Lean Management

Posted on August 4, 2008 by John Hunter

India’s Economic Times has an interview with James Womack, Now is the time for lean management, with an interesting quote: When I last visited India in 2002, I looked carefully at several operations of the TVS group in the Chennai … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #40

Posted on August 1, 2008 by John Hunter

Mark Graban is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #40. Mark recently authored a new book, Lean Hospitals. Health care highlights from this carnival include: Hospital Error – Heparin in the news again (The Lean Thinker Blog): “I am reasonably certain … Continue reading →

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Multitasking Decreases Productivity

Posted on August 1, 2008 by John Hunter

The problems with multitasking are becoming more and more well know, thankfully. Here is another article on the lower productivity multitasking produces – Multitasking Madness Decreases Productivity [the broken link was removed] by Barbara Bartlein: In a recent study by … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Science | Tagged , , | 2 Comments