Tag Archives: curiouscat

Who Inspires Your Management Thinking and Action?

Posted on January 22, 2015 by John Hunter

This month Bill Troy, ASQ CEO, asked ASQ Influential Voices bloggers: “who influenced or inspired your management thinking and in what ways?” He discussed Paul O’Neill’s influence on his thinking [the broken link was removed – so many websites have … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged curiouscat, George Box, John Hunter, leadership, Madison, management, William Hunter | 6 Comments

Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

Posted on August 20, 2014 by John Hunter

When your customer service organization is universally recognized as horrible adding sales requirements to customer service representatives jobs is a really bad practice. Sadly it isn’t at all surprising to learn of management doing just that at our largest companies. … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged bad management, business, commentary, curiouscat, Customer focus, customer service, Economics, executives, gemba, Google, government, internet, leadership, management, Psychology, regulation, respect for people, sales, targets | Comments Off

Building a Great Software Development Team

Posted on May 29, 2014 by John Hunter

Elliot: I worked with some of the best programmers I’ve ever known at the tiny, obscure ASEE Adam Solove: Why do you think that happened? They hired for passion, rather than experience? If I had to pick one thing, passion … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Popular, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged curiouscat, hiring, John Hunter, managing people, organization as a system, Popular, Psychology, Software Development, teams | 4 Comments

Interview on PDSA, Deming, Strategy and More

Posted on May 8, 2014 by John Hunter

Bill Fox interviewed me and has posted part one of the interview on his web site: Predicting Results in the Planning Stage (sorry, the link has been hijacked to forward to an unrelated page [so obviously I removed the link], … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools | Tagged curiouscat, Deming, experiments, interview, John Hunter, learning, management system, management tools, PDSA, Process improvement, Quality tools, strategy | 5 Comments

Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran

Posted on March 31, 2014 by John Hunter

This webcast shows an interesting interview with Steve Jobs when he was with NeXT computer. He discusses quality, business and the experience of working with Dr. Juran at NeXT computer. The video is likely from around 1991. America’s in a … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Respect | Tagged Apple, business, continual improvement, curiouscat, Customer focus, management, marketing, Process improvement, quality, respect for people, webcast | 3 Comments

Deming and Software Development

Posted on March 17, 2014 by John Hunter

I am sometimes asked about how use Deming’s ideas on management in a software development context. My belief is Deming’s ideas work extremely well in a software development context. The main issue is often unlearning some assumptions that people might … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Popular, Process improvement, Respect, Software Development | Tagged build capability, commentary, Creativity, curiouscat, Deming, John Hunter, managing people, Popular, Software Development, Systems thinking, technology | 7 Comments

Managers Are Not Non-Leaders: Managers Need to Practice Things We Classify as Leadership Traits

Posted on October 14, 2013 by John Hunter

Saying “Managers care about efficiency and leaders care about effectiveness” is like saying “Doctors care about theory and nurses care about patients.” Managers that don’t care about effectiveness are lousy managers. Leaders that don’t care about the gemba are lousy … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Popular, quote | Tagged commentary, curiouscat, leadership, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Systems thinking | 5 Comments

How to Sustain Long Term Enterprise Excellence

Posted on October 3, 2013 by John Hunter

This month Paul Borawski asked ASQ’s Influential Voices to explore sustaining excellence for the long term. There are several keys to pulling sustained long term excellence. Unfortunately, experience shows that it is much easier to explain what is needed than … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged ASQ Influential Voices, build capability, continual improvement, curiouscat, in-process measures, long term thinking, Process improvement, respect for people, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

What is the Explanation Going to be if This Attempt Fails?

Posted on June 25, 2013 by John Hunter

Occasionally during my career I have been surprised by new insights. One of the things I found remarkable was how quickly I thought up a new explanation for what could have caused a problem when the previously expressed explanation was … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged Creativity, curiouscat, experiments, John Hunter, problem solving, Psychology, Software Development, tips | Comments Off

Experience Teaches Nothing Without Theory

Posted on June 11, 2013 by John Hunter

Experience teaches nothing. In fact there is no experience to record without theory… Without theory there is no learning… And that is their downfall. People copy examples and then they wonder what is the trouble. They look at examples and … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Psychology, quote | Tagged curiouscat, Deming, learning, Psychology, quote, theory of knowledge | 9 Comments