Category Archives: Process improvement

The Ergonomics of Innovation

The Ergonomics of Innovation by Hayagreeva Rao and Robert Sutton the IHI case teaches us that innovations spread quickly when organizations focus relentlessly on selecting and spreading ideas in ways that ease the burden of thought and action for everyone … Continue reading

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Agile PDSA

Dr. Deming encouraged the use of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle to improve. Agile Management encourages a similar mindset – to test out ideas in practice and adapt quickly. A key to both strategies is to quickly iterate over possible solutions. Tesco … Continue reading

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The Power of Small Teams

The power of small teams [broken link was removed] by Avi Muchnick Choose a project that is simple to implement. Don’t try to create a complex suite of applications… Focus on solving a single problem. Philip Kaplan made email more … Continue reading

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Multitasking Decreases Productivity

The problems with multitasking are becoming more and more well know, thankfully. Here is another article on the lower productivity multitasking produces – Multitasking Madness Decreases Productivity [the broken link was removed] by Barbara Bartlein: In a recent study by … Continue reading

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Full and Fractional Factorial Test Design

I am a fan of design of experiments as long time readers know (see posts on design of experiments). Continue reading

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Do What You Say You Will

In Keeping Good Employees I talked about asking some simple questions. The biggest mistake I see managers make is to fail to deliver on what they say in such meetings. There is the saying “It is better to be thought … Continue reading

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Not Exactly Lean Packaging

HP shatters excessive packaging world record (17 boxes to protect 32 A4 sheets of paper) Stephen said: “Imagine our excitement as we opened it, hoping against hope that it might contain a copy of some c-class virtual connect firmware that … Continue reading

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Outcome and In-Process Measures

An outcome measure is used to measure the success of a system. For example, the outcome measure could be the percentage of people who do not get polio (the result). An output measure, for example, would be the number of … Continue reading

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Better Meetings

Meetings are perennial problems. People sit through meetings and then complain about how big a waste of time it was. Here are a couple very simple tips to try and actually improve (instead of just agreeing that meetings are wasteful, … Continue reading

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The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success

An interesting article in this month’s Harvard Business Review looks at the seeming contradictions at Toyota – The Contradictions That Drive Toyota’s Success by Hirotaka Takeuchi, Emi Osono, and Norihiko Shimizu Many of Toyota’s goals are purposely vague, allowing employees … Continue reading

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