Category Archives: Data

In Praise of Data-Driven Management (AKA “Why You Should be Skeptical of HiPPO’s”)

Guest post by Justin Hunter, originally published 18 August 2009. Jeff Fry recently linked to a fantastic webcast in Controlled Experiments To Test For Bugs In Our Mental Models. I would highly recommend it to anyone without any reservations. Ron … Continue reading

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Remembering Brian Joiner

I knew Brian Joiner as a child growing up in Madison, Wisconsin. He and my father worked together and our families spent time together. As I grew I interacted with Brian in my professional life and that relationship made my … Continue reading

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Interview of Bill Hunter: Statistical Variability and Interactions

Interview of Bill Hunter on Statistical Variability and Interactions by Peter Scholtes, 1986: In this interview Bill Hunter describes how results are made up of the impact and interactions of many variables. Many of those variables we don’t know about … Continue reading

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Interview of Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes on Better Management Practices

Interview with Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes (listen to the interview) on a Public Affair, National Public Radio about improving management practices in the USA. The interview is over 30 years old now but the better management ideas … Continue reading

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Factfulness – The Importance of Critical Thinking

Factfulness by Hans Roling (of TED talks and Gapminder charts fame) is an exceptionally good book. It provides great insight into how to think more effectively and how to understand the reality of the world we live in (versus the … Continue reading

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My Willing Worker Award

Here is an image of the employee of the quarter award I received from Bill Scherkenbach. I have received other awards and I don’t think those awards were given with any more understanding of the contributions to results due to … Continue reading

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Poorly Stratified Data Leads to Mistakes in Analysis

Stratification can help provide insight into the nature of the real world situation. Determining what is a sensible conclusion to draw and what is not is aided by an understanding of statistics and expert knowledge of the situation the data is drawn from. Continue reading

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Don’t Expect Short Quotes to Tell the Whole Story

When people try to use a short quote as an accurate encapsulation of a management concept they will often be disappointed. It is obvious that Dr. Deming believed that organizations failed to use data effectively to improve. He proposed that … Continue reading

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The Importance of Critical Thinking and Challenging Assumptions

There are many factors that are important to effectively practice the management improvement ideas that I have discussed in this blog for over a decade. One of the most important is a culture that encourages critical thinking as well as … Continue reading

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Technological Innovation and Management

Technological innovation brings great opportunity for improving results and our quality of life. But transforming potential benefits into real results comes with many challenges. ASQ has asked their Influential Voices to explore the idea of the fourth industrial revolution: “this … Continue reading

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