Author Archives: John Hunter

Add Constraints to Processes Carefully

Take great care in adding constraints to processes to avoid doing so needlessly. Online you will frequently find forms that have required fields that needn’t be. Certainly if you were designing with focus on what is best for customers those … Continue reading

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Bell Labs Designing a New Phone System Using Idealized Design

I remember hearing this same story when Russ Ackoff spoke at the Hunter Conference on Quality (which was named in honor of my father) in Madison, Wisconsin. If you haven’t heard this story you are in for a treat. And … Continue reading

Posted in Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Burning Toast: American Health System Style

Democrats and Republicans have created a health care system in the USA over the last 40 years that “burns toast” at an alarming rate. As the symptoms of their health care system are displayed they call in people to blame … Continue reading

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Lead by Building Organizational Capability

The result of a recent interview with me has been posted: How to Lead From Any Level In the Organization [broken link replaced by new link to content hosted on this site] 2. Help people solve their problems. Similar to … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Management | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Applying Toyota Kata to Agile Retrospectives

Hakan Forss, King (interactive entertainment games), presentation at the GOTO Copenhagen 2015 conference. I strongly recommend Mike Rother’s book: Toyota Kata. Description from Workshop description “The Toyota Kata Experience” Kata means pattern, routine, habits or way of doing things. Kata … Continue reading

Posted in Lean thinking, Process improvement, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Understanding Design of Experiments (DoE) in Protein Purification

This webcast, from GE Life Sciences, seeks to provide an understanding Design of Experiments (DoE) using an example of protein purification. It begins with a good overview of the reason why multi-factorial experiments must be used while changing multiple factors … Continue reading

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Integrating Technical and Human Management Systems

ASQ has asked the Influential Voices on quality management to look at the question of integrating technical quality and human management systems. How do different systems—technical or human—work together? How should they work together? My view is that the management … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Unintended Consequences

Using data to understand your processes and improve them is very useful. But using data often results in unintended consequences. If you don’t have a good understanding on the pressures collecting data will bring to bear on the system you … Continue reading

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Support Theatre

Support theatre provides the appearance of supporting customers when in fact it is just treating customers poorly based on a management system that disrespects customers. It is a similar idea to security theatre that has become so popular for government … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, Management | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Ranking

I created a ranking of top management improvement blogs for fun. There is no way to objectively rate blogs by how worthy or valuable they are. I just wanted to create a listing that ranked blogs I thought were worth … Continue reading

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