Tag Archives: Customer focus

Human Proof Design

Human proof design is design that prevents people from successful using the item. It is similar to mistake proofing except instead of prevent mistakes it prevents people from using it. When you see human proof design you will often see … Continue reading

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Visual Management and Mistake-Proofing for Prescription Pills

Good ideas often just require some sensible thought to think of an improved approach. Management concepts can help guide such thinking, such as mistake-proofing and visual management. To apply visual management requires giving a bit of thought to how to … Continue reading

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The Value of Professional Conferences. Also Why Has There Been So Little Innovation?

In the most recent ASQ Influential Voices post, Julia McIntosh takes a look at the costs and benefits of professionals attending conferences. I still remember being in high school and George Box talking about the primary value of conferences was … Continue reading

Posted in Career, Customer focus, Education | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Transforming a Management System – A Case Study From the Madison Wisconsin Police Department

This post in an excerpt from The Quality Leadership Workbook for Police by Chief David Couper and Captain Sabine Lobitz (buy via Amazon). Transformational Steps A Case Study Madison, Wisconsin (1981-1993) Step 1: Educate and inform everyone in the organization … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Deming, Management, Respect, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Good Startup Ideas from Startup Weekend JB (Malaysia)

I like all these startup ideas from Startup Weekend JB (Malaysia). I can’t figure out how to comment on their blog (I am guessing Tumbler just eliminates commenting?), so I started this post – and ended up adding much more … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Innovation, IT | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t Ignore Customer Complaints

I find Paul Graham’s ideas very useful. I disagree with his recent tweet though. Update: See note at bottom of the post – Paul tweeted that his original tweet was wrong. Base your assessment of the merit of an idea … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

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

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Use Urls – Don’t Use Click x, Then Click y, Then Click z Instructions

In the 1980s software applications had to use click x, then click y, then click z type instructions to get you to a specific location in a software application (or at least they had a decent excuse to do that). … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple

Mistake proofing is a wonderful management concept. Design systems not just to be effective when everything goes right but designing them so mistakes are prevented. I have had several bad customer experiences in the short time I have had my … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran

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 , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments