Author Archives: John Hunter

Revolutionary Management Improvement May Be Needed But Most Management Change is Evolutionary

This month the ASQ Influential Bloggers were asked to respond to the question – will the future of quality be evolutionary or revolutionary? I think it has been and will continue to be both. Revolutionary change is powerful but very … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

When your customer service organization is universally recognized as horrible adding sales requirements to customer service representatives jobs is a really bad practice. Sadly it isn’t at all surprising to learn of management doing just that at our largest companies. … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

Use Urls – Don’t Use Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z Instructions

In the 1980s software applications had to use click x, then click y, then click z type instructions to get you to a specific location in a software application (or at least they had a decent excuse to do that). … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Vision can be a Powerful Driver but Most Often It is Just a Few Pretty Words

This month Bill Troy, the new CEO of ASQ, asked ASQ’s Influential Voices to explore the value of vision [the broken link was removed] to the success of organizations. An aim for the organization is extremely helpful when it allows … Continue reading

Posted in Systems thinking | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Children are Amazingly Creative At Solving Problems

This story at NPR reminded my of Russell Ackoff talking about the creativity kids show in solving problems* – and how school often stifles that creativity. Preschoolers Outsmart College Students In Figuring Out Gadgets Children try a variety of novel … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Psychology | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Benefits of Blogging

ASQ interviewed me, and several other ASQ Influential Voices bloggers for an article published in the current issue of Quality Progress magazine: The Blog Boom [the broken link was removed, it is so disappointing how many organizations can’t manage a … Continue reading

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Gerald Suarez on Creating the Future

I was lucky enough to be hired by Gerald Suarez to work for him at the White House Military Office. The webcast below is speech he gave at TedX Loyola Marymount. The illusion of knowledge is more dangerous than ignorance. … Continue reading

Posted in Career, Management, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Root Cause, Interactions, Robustness and Design of Experiments

Eric Budd asked on The W. Edwards Deming Institute group (LinkedIn broke the link with a register wall so I removed the link): If observed performance/behavior in a system is a result of the interactions between components–and variation exists in … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

George Box lecture on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement at the Second International Tampere Conference in Statistics, University of Tampere, Finland (1987). Early on he shows a graph showing the problems with American cars steady over a 10 years period. … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, Science, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

The Education System

The current topic for ASQ Influential Voices to address is the importance of the education system and the impact on the capability of employees. The education system is important and not very good in my opinion. As a kid I … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments