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Management improvement (lean thinking, Deming, six sigma, customer focus, innovation...) career and job related posts.
Also see the Curious Cat: Management Improvement Job Board and conferences and seminars.
Our management improvement job center is 100% free to post and respond to jobs.
The Deming Institute is sponsoring, How to Create Unethical, Ineffective Organizations That Go Out of Business, 12-14 May, 2008 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Kelly Allan and I will be presenting the seminar. Please let me know if you sign up.
Learn how governance practice leads to the heaviest losses, how inconsistencies between policy and strategy create sub-optimal outcomes, how mismanagement of people leads to unethical and ineffective behavior, and how to overcome these problems. Study the theory and practice of management. Not quality management, not good management, not excellent management, not knowledge management, not risk management, not process management, not performance management, not supply or asset management, not technology management, not time management, not emergency management, just plain management.
Related: Deming on Management - Curious Cat Management Improvement Calendar - Deming Seminar and Conference - Deming Companies
A Case for Agile: Benefits for a Programmer’s Career by Theodore Nguyen-Cao
Most importantly, I still feel I’m growing as a developer. I honestly believe the best thing a developer can do in their career is to always be learning. Everything else will follow.
I am also a strong proponent of agile software development. Information Technology projects have a poor success rate. The best method, I have found, to provide better software solutions is agile development (and I find a grounding in management improvement techniques is useful - customer focus, process improvement, systems thinking, understanding variation, data driven management…). My experience is with custom application development (rather than developing Commercial Off The Shelf software - COTS) for which I think agile is a great fit.
Related: Joy in Work for Programmers - Agile Software Development Presentation - Metrics and Software Development - Management Science for Software Engineering - Programmers at Work - Joel Management
Utah scrambling to meet need for technical workers
The situation continues to worsen, with jobs being created and unemployment remaining low in the state. And as the current work force ages, the supply of skilled workers is diminishing, forcing employers to recruit outside of Utah and sometimes leave Utah altogether, the report said.
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The college’s Lean Manufacturing Center was built from an old warehouse with state funds and $30 million from rocket-booster manufacturer Williams International. Williams provides the college with equipment and mentors to train students with practical, real-world applications, said Lloyd McCaffrey, the Lean Center’s director.
Related: Engineering Innovation for Manufacturing and the Economy - Applied Quality Engineering Education - Wisconsin Manufacturing - Top 10 Manufacturing Countries - Help Wanted: Lean Manufacturing Experts - The Lean MBA - Curious Cat Management Improvement Job Board
The In Thinking network offers many great ways to learn. This week they have 4 hour long conference call discussions with Russ Ackoff. Thought Pieces (suggested links to review in preparation for the conference call)
Lecture on “Systems Practice” at Open University (audio file)
Transforming the Systems Movement
A Major Mistake that Managers Make
From Mechanistic to Social Systems Thinking
These four resources are great, even if you are not going to participate in the conference calls.
Related: articles by Russel Ackoff - Curious Cat Management Improvement Calendar - Write it Down - Transformation and Redesign - Ackoff’s F-laws: Common Sins of Management
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Do Lean Companies Create Fewer Jobs?
No, they create more. If you assume the lean company grows sales at the same rate as some poorly management company then it may well be that the lean company creates fewer jobs. However that is not a valid assumption. Deming provided the reason in his presentations to Japan in the 1950’s with his chain reaction. From page 3 of Out of the Crisis
For an example of this process at work see GM, Ford and Toyota. Toyota defines lean (Toyota’s management system is what was called lean manufacturing by Jim Womack and Dan Jones). Toyota continues to add employees while Ford and GM have been shedding jobs.
It is true, for lean (and un-lean) companies alike, productivity is improving (it just improves more at lean companies) which means that fewer people are needed to produce the same amount as we have in the past. We have posted previously about the mistaken belief that jobs are moving overseas.
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IT talent shortage, or management failure?
But if you leave it to some personnel jockey who relies on buzzwords and resumes, you’ll never hire real talent — and it will always seem there is a talent shortage. What’s difficult to understand about that?
Great post. I agree: the main problem is poor management. Dr. Deming kept increasing the percentage of problems due to systemic issues (which are management responsibility to address), he was saying 97% of issues were commons cause problems (from the system) at the end of his life.
So what should managers do? Read the Curious Cat Management Blog and follow the advise in our previous posts, including: Stop Demotivating Employees (IT employees are especially disdainful of pointy haired boss actions that others tolerate more easily) - Signs You Have a Great Job … or Not - Joy in Work for IT - hiring silicon valley style - Bad Management Results in Layoffs
The W. Edwards Deming Institute is sponsoring a 4 day seminar using videos of Dr. Deming’s seminars and facilitated by Ed Baker, Dave Nave, and Joyce Orsini: Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position. Ed Baker was the person at Ford responsible for helping Ford apply Dr. Deming’s ideas.
Hear and watch Dr. W. Edwards Deming identify faulty management practices. He will describe how, as better practices are introduced, quality of products and services increases, costs decline, and you create a globally competitive advantage for your organization.
Built on archive videos of Dr. Deming, this seminar blends footage of Dr. Deming presenting his theories with live facilitation by Ed Baker, Dave Nave, and Joyce Orsini to create an interactive learning environment. Facilitated discussion following each film segment will provide opportunity to deepen your understanding of the concepts, and interpret what these ideas might mean for your organization.
This seminar explores simple and powerful principles for anyone who manages people, or holds an executive responsibility in an organization. For more details see: Quality, Productivity, and Competitive Position.
Related: Scoring a Whole in One by Dr. Ed Baker - Deming on Management - Curious Cat Management Calendar - Deming Institute Conference (2006) - Deming Seminar Update - Investors Business Daily on Deming - Where to Start Improvement
If organizations just adopt management improvement practices I firmly believe customer service, financial performance and employee satisfaction could be improved. This was a big part of the reason I started to use the internet to share management improvement ideas back in 1996 (plus I find management improvement interesting).
On the note of making a difference in people’s lives. I have had far more people tell me how my father (Bill Hunter) made a huge difference in their lives (far more than ever tell me anything like that). Now there is the sensible explanation, that he actually had a big impact on people’s lives (but you also have to figure most of those people never saw me so the chance for them to say anything didn’t exist…). I believe far more people told me (after he died) than ever told him, which says something about psychology in the USA, I think. But I don’t really know what people told him - so I could be wrong about that.
Anyway the point of this is that many people have told me their life was significantly changed by working with him on management improvement initiatives (mechanics talking about how he changed the workplace they had been in for years, people who saw that they could contribute more and changed careers, managers that realized how much damage they had done but now were on the right track…). There was obviously a great deal of emotion for many people. And it was largely about applying concepts like Deming’s management system, Toyota Management practices, statistics (yes even that)… and his ability to talk to everyone and make them comfortable (tons of people mentioned this - that this university professor would ask me questions and talk to me like a person, not talk down to me and be interested in my answers and…). As I continue through life I realize that this management improvement stuff really can matter if done right.
I have grown to enjoy maintaining the management improvement resources and other Curious Cat web sites but this is the reason I started and continued these efforts over the years. Today there is a great amount of useful management information online - but for years the pickings were quite slim.
Photo is of Dad and me a few years ago. Related: Quality in the Community: Madison, WI - Statistics for Experimenters - Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin - Managing Our Way to Economic Success: Two Untapped Resources - Invest in new management methods not a failing company
Learn how to do your work better, faster, and for less cost, plus find more time to plan your future and develop balance in your life - Attend The W. Edwards Deming Institute Fall Conference. Gain new insights to:
* Reduce product and service variation
* Enhance job satisfaction
* Redesign organizations as a system
* Appreciate the thinking behind the Toyota Production System
* Discover the role of psychology in continual improvement
* Understand trends in improving healthcare
Speakers include: Norm Bafunno (Senior Vice President - Manufacturing and Administration, Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Indiana, Inc.), Bill Bellows - Associate Technical Fellow, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne), Joyce Orsini (Fordham University, Deming Scholars MBA Program), John Pourdehnad - Ackoff Center for Advancement of Systems Approaches), Gipsie Ranney (Statistical Consultant) and Don Wheeler (Consulting Statistician and Author).
Related: Curious Cat Management Improvement Calendar - Thoughts on 2006 Deming Institute Conference - Improvement at UTC (2005 Deming conference) - Deming’s Ideas at Markey’s Audio Visual - Improving Problem Solving by Ian Bradbury and Gipsie Ranney.
Interviews on how to hire in Silicon Valley. I especially like Guy Kawasaki’s comment - “the key to getting great people to work for you is to have a great product. That is why Google does so well. That is why Apple does so well.” I agree with the concept that a huge part of hiring good people is offering them a place where they feel proud of what they are working on. This is even more true when you talk about great software developers that have more choice than most in how they choose to earn a living.
via: How Are Companies in Silicon Valley Hiring?
Related: Interviewing and Hiring Programmers - Google’s Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm - Google Exceeded Planned Spending on Personnel
Is There A Lean Employee Deficit?:
The first was an article from the American Society for Quality published last week in Reliable Plant about the aggressive luring of Lean manufacturing experts to the services sector. The article quotes Jack Stiles, the president of an executive search firm, that experts are enjoying 20 to 30% pay raises to take their Lean thinking from manufacturing to service industries, like Healthcare or Banking. A Bain executive, Mark Gottfredson, adds “There is a whole industry luring away Toyota and General Electric people”.
Then today, Industry Week’s Traci Purdum published a piece online entitled “Help Wanted“. The article looks at the difficulty manufacturer’s are having in filling jobs from the plant to the management suite.
If you are looking a new job (or a company looking for skilled and knowledgeable people) the Curious Cat Management Improvement Job Board lists openings (and companies can post relevant vacancy announcements - 100% free). Current listings include: Quality Engineer, Director - Lean Manufacturing, TPS Consultant and
Director, Six Sigma Process Improvement. It is great there is a demand for skilled lean manufacturing experts; now we just need to make sure companies can get the right people in place so they can be successful and grow the adoption of lean management methods.
Related: Hiring the Right Workers - Signs You Have a Great Job … or Not - management improvement career related posts - USA Job Growth
Comic by Joe Sayers, Wanna play work?
A good laugh, but also a reminder of an important idea. We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking I know). Read the respect for people posts for some ideas on how to make your workplace better. If you think a new job might be the answer - find management improvement jobs via Curious Cat Career Connections.
People are entitled to joy in work - Dr. W. Edwards Deming
Related: What Business Can Learn from Open Source - Stop Demotivating Employees
Deep Thinkers Need Not Apply: How To Get Ahead In the Modern Business World:
Something to be very careful of in managing people. I find that who says something is most often more important in predicting how people will react than what is said. As I have tested this myself I have learned how biased people are by who is talking and have taken care to try and correct such judgments that I make (I know I don’t do it all the time but I try to especially for important things).
I haven’t managed to have that reaction yet 
Ok, maybe I am not suppose to wish that people would use poor reasoning to listen to me but I am in favor of any reason that makes them listen 
Related: Management is Prediction - Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal - posts related to psychology - Curious Cat Management Improvement Jobs
Peter Abilla (shmula blog) is hiring a Manager for Process Improvement to work with him at eBay. A great opportunity, in my opinion.
Here are some highlights of what he is looking for:
See the Curious Cat Management Improvement job board for more lean manufacturing, six sigma, quality engineering… jobs.
Ian Bradbury, President of Peaker Services Inc., will discuss his company’s implementation of Dr. Deming’s theory of management at a seminar in Lansing, Michigan, 23-25 April 2007. As I mentioned previously I will be co-presenting this seminar. Several interesting articles:
So What’s System[s] Thinking by Ian Bradbury
Improving Problem Solving by Ian Bradbury and Gipsie Ranney.
Appraising the Performance Of Performance Appraisals by Harry Goldstein discusses some of the management decisions at Peaker Services.
Related: Deming’s Ideas at Markey’s Audio Visual - Management Improvement Calendar
Web anonymity can sink your job search:
And it’s not just about technology, Bray says. “Most companies would rather have somebody who has demonstrated the propensity to contribute, and one [sign] of that is going out and getting involved, joining in the discussion.”
I think that is exactly right. For certain jobs the need for an online presence is not as critical, however, knowledge workers can really help out their prospects with a good online presence. Creating such a presence can be a big job or it can be a fairly simple site with a few articles with your ideas on topics that interest you. Creating your own blog can also be an effective strategy. Guest blog posts on another blog can also be useful. Having one home page that can serve as the long term address is a very good idea (and getting a web site with your name is a good idea, if possible, even if you don’t use it right away, for example: johnhunter.com). Then you can link to various efforts (guest posts on blogs, articles at various sites, podcast…).
Related: Blogging is Good for You - Your Online Identity - Curious Cat Career Connections - Curious Cat Management Improvement Articles
The Curious Cat Management Improvement site includes a wide array of resources for management professionals (and has been growing and improving, I hope, since 1996). Our calendar now includes several interesting opportunities including Performance Measures and Statistics Workshop in Richland, Washington, USA by Stephen Prevette. This workshop looks interesting. We have mentioned the presenter in previous posts.
Our management improvement job board currently lists jobs including: Six Sigma/Technical Specialist, Supply Chain Project Manager (Google), Quality Control Specialist (Toyota) and Quality Engineer. The service is free, both to those posting and those responding to jobs. If you are looking to fill a management improvement position or for a position please give it a try.
In addition to the blog we also offer an links to hundreds of articles on management topics we have selected, a dictionary of management terms, annotated directory to management resources and recommened management books.
Please let us know what you like and what we could improve.
Interviewing and Hiring by Tom Van Vleck
A very worthwhile read. I discussed some of these ideas in: Hiring the Right Workers.
Related: Find management improvement jobs - Signs You Have a Great Job … or Not - Management Training Program
Classroom projects translate into immediate workplace gains for working professionals in engineering
The project is the capstone experience in the College of Engineering’s award-winning distance-education program, the Master of Engineering in Professional Practice (MEPP). Designed for mid-career engineers who live and work all over the country, MEPP’s Internet-based curriculum strives to provide knowledge students can apply immediately at their companies.
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“Our project was a very good example of the Kaizen approach,” says Aloisi. “It wasn’t one specific thing, a home run type of thing, that we changed to make our improvements.” Instead, his team met its targets through many small steps, including adjustments to equipment settings and better training for machine operators.
Good news. Related: Wisconsin Manufacturing - Improving Engineering Education - Teaching Quality Improvement by Quality Improvement in Teaching - The Lean MBA
Google Answer to Filling Jobs Is an Algorithm. First, from a “what should I do,” view, I believe, Kevin Meyer’s advice is more appropriate: The False God of the Almighty Algorithm. But Google can do some things well that are unwise for others to try.
They are comparing this to answers provided by Google employees (who were asked to fill out 300 question surveys). I can’t see this as an effective strategy for most companies. And even for Google, I don’t see it as a great idea, but trying ideas that might seem crazy can be an effective innovation strategy. Google experimenting in this way, seems fine to me - though I think it will fail. Better: Google’s brain teasers - but that effort probably will not scale to meet Google’s needs.
Interested in management improvement jobs. Try out Curious Cat Management Improvement Jobs. Those looking to hire can post announcements for jobs in lean manufacturing, six sigma, quality engineering, customer focus, process improvement… for free.
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