Author Archives: John Hunter

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 →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, quote, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on How to Develop Thinking People

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 →

Posted in Carnival, Health care, Management | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

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

Parfrey’s Glen, Wisconsin

Posted on July 30, 2008 by John Hunter

See more photos from my visit to Parfrey’s Glen Natural Area in Wisconsin, about an hour outside of Madison. It really was amazingly beautiful – the pictures do not do it justice. The Parfrey’s Glen trail is under a mile … Continue reading →

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Full and Fractional Factorial Test Design

Posted on July 29, 2008 by John Hunter

I am a fan of design of experiments as long time readers know (see posts on design of experiments). Continue reading →

Posted in Design of Experiments, Process improvement, Statistics | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Do What You Say You Will

Posted on July 28, 2008 by John Hunter

In Keeping Good Employees I talked about asking some simple questions. The biggest mistake I see managers make is to fail to deliver on what they say in such meetings. There is the saying “It is better to be thought … Continue reading →

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

Amazon S3 Failure Analysis

Posted on July 26, 2008 by John Hunter

Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) is a service providing web hosting. The cloud computing solution has been used by many organizations successfully. However the solution has experienced some problems including failing for much of the day on July 20th. Amazon … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Keeping Good Employees

Posted on July 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Understanding Why Good Workers Quit [the broken link was removed] “What do you need to want to stay?” Most managers, she acknowledges, are afraid to ask this question and that is a reason why their companies have to do plenty … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, IT, Management, quote, Respect | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments