Author Archives: John Hunter

Why Lean is Different

[the broken link to the embedded video was removed] Short webcast by Michael Ballé discusses what makes lean manufacturing different: going to where the work is done, standardize processes (from the gemba view), practice respect for people and continually improve. … Continue reading

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Management Improvement Carnival #128

The management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. I also collect management improvement articles through Curious Cat Management Articles, you can subscribe via RSS to new article additions. Resist your machine thinking! … Continue reading

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Quality is Made in the Board Room

Dr. Deming stated “Quality is made in the board room,” page 202 Dr. Deming: the American who taught the Japanese about quality. I believe, once the board and executive leadership has put in place the right management system (one that … Continue reading

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Finding, and Keeping, Good IT People

Finding good IT people, wherever you located globally, is hard. Waiting for the good IT people to apply for positions, is not likely to gain enough good candidates. To get really good IT people you need to actually manage your … Continue reading

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Toyota Kata Song – The Times They Are Changing

Very well done song, Toyota Kata – Managing by Means, by Doug Hendren – to the music of “The Times They are A-changing” by Bob Dylan. Doug sounds impressively similar to Dylan and the words are actually wonderful. Managing by … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Lean thinking, webcast | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #127

The Curious Cat Management blog carnival highlights recent management blog posts 3 times each month. The posts generally focus on the areas I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Guide since 1996 (Deming, agile software development, systems thinking, … Continue reading

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Innovation in Thinking and the Web

Investing time and effort to attract “the right kind” of contributors to a news site He thought we needed to make the same shift with our users – instead of seeing having to engage with them digitally as a time-consuming … Continue reading

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Customer Focus and Internet Travel Search

The internet should make finding airline flight information easy. Instead it is a huge pain. Hipmunk has taken on the challenge of doing this well, and I think they have done a great job. This video provides an excellent view … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #126

Mark Hamel is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #126 on the Gemba Tales blog, highlights include: Data and Facts Are Not the Same. Matt Wrye’s Beyond Lean blog further echos the necessity of being gemba-based. Are You “Under New Management” … Continue reading

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Is Using the Words Resources or Assets When Talking About People the Problem?

I don’t have any problem with the words resource or assets when discussing people (I know lots of people seem to get excited about those words). What I care about is behavior and organizational systems that embody respect for people. … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments