Category Archives: IT

How Google Works

How Google Works [the broken link was removed] by David F. Carr An interesting look at the technology system behind Google. “But this is the start of the story,” he adds, part of an approach that says “don’t necessarily do … Continue reading

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged | 4 Comments

Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand

Conversation with Boston Volkswagen [the broken link was removed] by Paul Graham I recently looked into getting a new car. The Kafkaesque conversation that resulted would have been funny if it were happening to someone else. If only Volkswagen could … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Innovation Example

Farecast is a cool internet application, and one that might actual save you money to buy, say a digital camera. Farecast provides data and analysis to those looking to purchase airplane tickets. The graph above shows ticket prices for tickets … Continue reading

Posted in Fun, Innovation, IT, Systems thinking | 3 Comments

Toyota IT for Kaizen

How Toyota Uses Information Technology (IT) for Kaizen [the broken link was removed] by Jon Miller. He quotes Toyota’s CIO from the Japanese article: Part of my job as CIO is to take on these company-wide issues and use this … Continue reading

Posted in IT, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus

Reddit is a site for what’s new and popular on the web (votes by the user community rate web links). That user community is highly skewed toward software engineers who are a bit irreverent (as some of the language in … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Deming’s 14 Obligations of Management

Deming and his 14 Points [the broken link was removed] with comments from the Random Thoughts from a CTO blog. Curious Cat’s Deming on Management Deming’s 14 Points on the Curious Cat site 2 minute webcast of Deming (and Robert … Continue reading

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Planet Kaizen

Toyota has a section on their web site called Planet Kaizen [the broken link to www.toyota.com/planetkaizen was removed, this is a rare instance where they are doing us a favor by removing this poorly designed application from the internet]: “what … Continue reading

Posted in IT, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bad Visual Controls – Software

Bad Visual Controls Example: Software via Lean Manufacturing Blog. Funny example. If I had to use it I might use a different adjective. In the example, the software uses icons that are not obvious. The user has pasted labels on … Continue reading

Posted in Fun, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

IQ and Muda: Information Quality Eliminates Waste

IQ and Muda: Information Quality Eliminates Waste [the broken link was removed] by Larry English The article provides an explanation of each of these 9 types of muda and relates them to information quality: There are nine types of muda … Continue reading

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Management Science for Software Engineering

Management Science for Software Engineering [the broken link was removed]: using the Theory of Constraints 5 focusing steps and the drum-buffer-rope solution for production flow problems, it was possible to increase the productivity of a sustained engineering department by more … Continue reading

Posted in IT, Management Articles, Software Development, Theory of Constraints | Tagged , | 3 Comments