Author Archives: John Hunter

Management Improvement Carnival #73

Posted on August 20, 2009 by John Hunter

Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival The Maddening Effectiveness of Root-Cause Analysis – “And I wonder: how often this is a subtle blockage to individuals and teams doing good root cause analysis? How often am I fearful of Really Knowing … Continue reading →

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Blame the Road – Not the Person

Posted on August 19, 2009 by John Hunter

The system is responsible for 90, 92, 94, 97% of problems – W. Edwards Deming. Fix the system, don’t blame the people. When you seek system fixes you approach situations differently than if you search for people to blame. By … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Economics, Health care, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

YouTube Uses Multivariate Experiment To Improve Sign-ups 15%

Posted on August 17, 2009 by John Hunter

Google does a great job of using statistical and engineering principles to improve. It is amazing how slow we are to adopt new ideas but because we are it provides big advantages to companies like Google that use concepts like … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Design of Experiments, Google, IT, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Science, Software Development, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Baking in Quality to Software Development

Posted on August 15, 2009 by John Hunter

One of the reasons my organizations switched to Ruby on Rails for software development was the great integration with automated testing. We always wanted to have good test coverage on our software applications (which are web applications – some used … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Don’t Hide Problems in Computers

Posted on August 11, 2009 by John Hunter

Making things visible is a key to effective management. And data in computers can be easy to ignore. Don’t forget to make data visible. Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston recently hosted Hideshi Yokoi, president … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #72

Posted on August 10, 2009 by John Hunter

Jon Miller is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #72 on the Gemba Panta Rei blog, highlights include: Three Key Principles when Leading without Authority – One piece of advice passed down by Toyota managers is to “lead as if you … Continue reading →

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CEO’s Castles and Company Performance

Posted on August 8, 2009 by John Hunter

Where are the Shareholders’ Mansions? CEOs’ Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance by Crocker H. Liu, Arizona State University and David Yermack, New York University – Stern School of Business We study real estate purchases by major company … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Bogus Theories, Bad for Business

Posted on August 6, 2009 by John Hunter

The Wall Street Journal has a book review of The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart. The book flushes out the ideas Matthew Stewert explored in a previous article in the Atlantic about the failure of management to mature as a … Continue reading →

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When Performance-related Pay Backfires

Posted on August 3, 2009 by John Hunter

When Economic Incentives Backfire by Samuel Bowles, Sante Fe Institute Dozens of recent experiments show that rewarding self-interest with Economic incentives can backfire when they undermine what Adam Smith called “the moral sentiments.” Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn, is … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Data, Deming, Economics, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, quote, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #71

Posted on August 1, 2009 by John Hunter

Read the previous management carnivals. Caring for Your People: Part of the Boss’s Job by Wally Bock – “Caring for your people means helping them grow and develop. You can help them develop skills to keep them out of trouble … Continue reading →

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