Monthly Archives: October 2006

Designing In Errors

Posted on October 12, 2006 by John Hunter

TiVo’s “self-destruct button” destructs [the broken link was removed] In so doing, they’ve created a bunch of potential failures in which the user is locked out of her own equipment. It’s like those movies where an accident or a bad … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Quality tools | Tagged design, mistake-proofing, system thinking | 1 Comment

Righter Performance Appraisal

Posted on October 9, 2006 by John Hunter

Speaking of “doing the wrong things righter” Microsoft has eliminated forced rankings in performance appraisal: to do performance appraisals righter. Microsoft exec puts her stamp on human resources: The forced curve was company policy. And it climbed up a list … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged Deming, managing people, organization as a system, Performance Appraisal, respect for people | 1 Comment

Doing the Wrong Things Righter

Posted on October 8, 2006 by John Hunter

The more we manage, the worse we make things by Simon Caulkin The distinguished systems theorist Russ Ackoff describes the trap as ‘doing the wrong thing righter’. ‘The righter we do the wrong thing,’ he explains, ‘the wronger we become. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged continual improvement, Systems thinking | 3 Comments

Hiring the Right People

Posted on October 7, 2006 by John Hunter

The job market is an inefficient market. There are many reasons for this including relying on specification (this job requires a BS in Computer Science – no Bill Gates you don’t meet the spec) instead of understanding the system. Insisting … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Customer focus, IT, Management, Performance Appraisal, Popular | Tagged Career, curiouscat, Deming, hiring, management, managing people, Popular | 15 Comments

Google Shifts Focus

Posted on October 7, 2006 by John Hunter

It appears Google has decided it is time to put more resources into improving their many existing products (Gmail, News, Video, Maps, Picassa, Spreadsheets, Checkout, GoogleTalk, AdSense for Radio, GoogleReader, BlogSearch, GoogleGroups,…). That makes sense to me. When Google had … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, IT, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | Comments Off

Not Innovation but Still Interesting

Posted on October 5, 2006 by John Hunter

10 years of the most innovative ideas in business in not packed with ideas on innovation: it was obviously titled by someone hoping to catch the interest of those following the innovation fad. Still it has interesting stories originally published … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Innovation, Management | Tagged Books, Innovation, Management, Management Articles | 2 Comments

More on Overpaid CEO’s

Posted on October 4, 2006 by John Hunter

CEO pay up big – but not performance: The Corporate Library analyzed the compensation of nearly 1,400 chiefs for its annual report on CEO pay. The group’s median total compensation rose 16 percent between 2004 and 2005. A year earlier, … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged deadly diseases, executive pay, Management, overpaid executives | 2 Comments

Evidence-based Management

Posted on October 3, 2006 by John Hunter

Bob Sutton’s writing includes the excellent article “Management Advice: Which 90% is Crap?” (which we discussed in: Management Advice Failures) and the Knowing Doing Gap. I just discovered his blog today which is quite good: Work Matters. A recent post includes some good advice on data and process improvement Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Health care, Management, Process improvement | Tagged economic data, evidence based management, Management | 1 Comment

The State of Lean Implementation

Posted on October 2, 2006 by John Hunter

Interesting survey by the Lean Enterprise Institute notes the following as the major obstacles to transforming to a lean organization. 1 Lack of implementation know-how: 48% 2 Backsliding to the old ways of working: 48% 3 Middle management resistance: 40% … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management | Tagged evidence based management, Lean thinking, Management | Comments Off

Why Pay Taxes or be Honest

Posted on October 1, 2006 by John Hunter

This kind of stuff makes me mad. I was taught about robber barons in school (or actually I think by my uncle but…). And what I was taught was that business used to be seen as an amoral area. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Psychology | Tagged business, ethics, government, leadership, Psychology, society | 2 Comments