Category Archives: Education

Teaching Students How to Use Better Management Practices

This month Edwin Garro writes about the Quality and Productivity Technical Program for high school students that has been adopted in Costa Rica. 5 high schools joined in the first year and 7 more will join in the next 2 … Continue reading

Posted in Education | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Teaching Students How to Use Better Management Practices

The Value of Professional Conferences. Also Why Has There Been So Little Innovation?

In the most recent ASQ Influential Voices post, Julia McIntosh takes a look at the costs and benefits of professionals attending conferences. I still remember being in high school and George Box talking about the primary value of conferences was … Continue reading

Posted in Career, Customer focus, Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Education System

The current topic for ASQ Influential Voices to address is the importance of the education system and the impact on the capability of employees. The education system is important and not very good in my opinion. As a kid I … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

ASQ Influential Voices: Future Engineers and Scientists

As I mentioned previously, I will be posting on a topics raised by Paul Borawski, CEO, ASQ as part of ASQ Influential Voices. This month Paul’s post, New Bloggers, STEM & More, looks at the development of future engineers. How … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Science | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

You’ve Got to Find What You Love

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Education, Fun, Innovation, Psychology, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Continual Learning

There are several things that destroy your ability to be effective. Thinking you have all the answers (which leads to stopping learning) is probably at the top, along with any other reason for stopping learning (more interested in other things, … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Psychology | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers

Excerpts from The Deming Library Volume XXI, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Russell Ackoff and David Langford demonstrate that educators can begin a quality transformation by developing an understanding of the properties and powers of systems-oriented thinking. You can order … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Education, Management, quote, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Problems With Student Evaluations as Measures of Teacher Performance

Dr. Deming was, among other things a professor. He found the evaluation of professors by students an unimportant (and often counterproductive measure) – used in some places for awards and performance appraisal. He said for such a measure to be … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Education, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Improving Education with Deming’s Ideas

This interview (link broken, so removed) with David Langford discusses how to improve education using ideas from Deming. Along with Alfie Kohn, David have long been the learning and management experts I find most valuable. I have long remembered is … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Education, Manufacturing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Lean Manufacturing Simulation (webcast)

This webcast, from the MIT Open Courseware initiative, shows a simulation (with legos). And in doing so explores the advantages of lean manufacturing methods. Related: Red Bead Experiment Webcast – one-piece flow – Applied Quality Engineering Education – The Lean … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Lean thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment