Category Archives: Process improvement

Organizational Learning

Why Your Organization Isn’t Learning All It Should [the broken link was removed, Harvard still doesn’t seem to realize how to manage a web resource] by Anita Tucker, Amy Edmondson, and Steven Spear Our analysis of qualitative data suggests that … Continue reading

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Cease Mass Inspection for Quality

Comment in response to, Re-Discovering W. Edwards Deming, a partial quote from that post: Not all of the Deming approach is part of core TPS thinking. In particular, Deming advocated a statistical sampling approach to quality inspection, while Toyota focuses … Continue reading

Posted in Data, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Lean Retailing

Teaching the Big Box New Tricks [the broken link was removed, *sigh* yet another website fails basic long term thinking related to usability, while saying they are aiming to help others adopt better management practices.] Tesco in Britain has been … Continue reading

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Learning, Systems and Improvement

A Major Mistake That Managers Make by Russell L. Ackoff Once again Ackoff provides great ideas: Page 4 and 5 explore the method to effectively learn from decisions the organization makes. The idea seem simple but they are powerful. Preparing … Continue reading

Posted in Education, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | 4 Comments

Agility vs. Six Sigma

My response to the agilemanagement list: I agree with David Anderson [the broken link was removed], in this thread [this broken link was also removed], as well as pretty much everything else actually. If I understand his writing correctly I … Continue reading

Posted in Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Six sigma | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Joel Management

Topic: Management Improvement, Lean Thinking Joel Spolsky writes the excellent Joel on Software blog and runs Fog Creek Software. Recently he has been writing about process improvement of the order fulfillment process for a movie on the experience of interns … Continue reading

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Not the End of Process

The End of Process by Ross Mayfield If a knowledge worker has the organization’s information in a social context at their finger tips, and the organization is sufficiently connected to tap experts and form groups instantly to resolve exceptions — … Continue reading

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Google: Experiment Quickly and Often

Google Thinks Small by Quentin Hardy, Forbes: Brin and Page have created a corporate organism that tackles most big projects in small, tightly focused teams, setting them up in an instant and breaking them down weeks later without remorse. “Their … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Data, Google, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote, Software Development | Tagged , , | 12 Comments

Process Leadership

Process Leadership [the broken link was removed] by Daniel T Jones: the most promising approach is to create a small team, led by a high potential executive, operating initially outside the normal departmental structure and reporting to the top. They … Continue reading

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Eliminating Complexity from Work

Eliminating Complexity from Work: Improving Productivity by Enhancing Quality [broken link replaced with link from the Internet Archive] by F. Timothy Fuller. National Productivity Review, Autumn, 1985. A case study of a process improvement from 1985. as much as half … Continue reading

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