Category Archives: Management

Lean and Kanban for Software Developers

Posted on November 15, 2008 by John Hunter

Lean and Kanban for Software Developers by Clinton Keith Time-boxing allows us to employ a very powerful aspect of Kanban. The cards in each column represent capacity for each stage of the value stream. As we see above, each stage … Continue reading →

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6 Leadership Competencies

Posted on November 13, 2008 by John Hunter

At the recent Annual W. Edwards Deming Institute Annual conference (this year held in Madison, Wisconsin) Peter Scholtes gave an excellent speech on the 6 Leadership Competencies from his book: The Leader’s Handbook. Those competencies are: The ability to think … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay 2008

Posted on November 10, 2008 by John Hunter

I continue to tilt at the robber barron CEO pay packages (2007 post on CEO pay abuses). 2007 pay rank Company CEO Pay 5 Year Pay CEO % of 2007 Earnings 1 Apple Steve Jobs $646,600,000 $650,170,000 18.5% 2 Occidental … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Easiest Countries for Doing Business 2008

Posted on November 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Singapore is again ranked first for Ease of Doing Business by the World Bank. For some reason they call the report issued in any given year as the report for the next year (which makes no sense to me). The … Continue reading →

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Righter Incentivization

Posted on November 5, 2008 by John Hunter

Incentive schemes to get people “motivated” often backfire. Why can’t we figure out how to incentivize the behavior we desire and have it not backfire on us? What is the righter way to dangle incentives in front of our employees … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #46

Posted on November 4, 2008 by John Hunter

Ron Pereira is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #46 on the Lean Six Sigma Academy blog, highlights include: I’m never quite sure how he gets these ideas… but Jon Miller managed to tie leadership and mountain goats together in 7 … Continue reading →

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Best Places to Work for Six Sigma Professionals

Posted on November 3, 2008 by John Hunter

iSixSigma has created a list of the Best Places to Work for Six Sigma Professionals. To be eligible to participate, companies must have been actively engaged in using Six Sigma for at least two years and must employ a minimum … Continue reading →

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Management Blog Posts From October 2005

Posted on October 28, 2008 by John Hunter

Box on Quality – Read articles by George Box on quality management principles (SPC, Deming, process improvement, six sigma, etc.). An except from the book provides a table of contents and an introduction. The photos shows George Box and Bill … Continue reading →

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Get Rid of the Performance Review

Posted on October 27, 2008 by John Hunter

Get Rid of the Performance Review! by Samuel Culbert To make my case, I offer seven reasons why I find performance reviews ill-advised and bogus. … Inevitably reviews are political and subjective, and create schisms in boss-employee relationships. The link … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Appropriate Management

Posted on October 25, 2008 by John Hunter

Thinking about why appropriate technology is so effective, but underutilized (though things are much better now than they were several decades ago) can help anyone improve the solutions they adopt. I would especially encourage people to stop looking for the newest management book and actually read and adopt and re-read adopt… the excellent management books from the last 50 years Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Innovation, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments