Monthly Archives: December 2006

The IT Iceberg Secret

Posted on December 29, 2006 by John Hunter

The Iceberg Secret, Revealed by Joel Spolsky It’s pretty clear that programmers think in one language, and MBAs think in another. I’ve been thinking about the problem of communication in software management for a while, because it’s pretty clear to me that the power and rewards accrue to those rare individuals who know how to translate between Programmerese and MBAese. … Customers Don’t Know What They Want. Stop Expecting Customers to Know What They Want. It’s just never going to … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development | 2 Comments

Change Your Name

Posted on December 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Best Buy Asks Man To Change Name [the broken link was removed]: Turns out if your last name is less than three letters, the online sign-up isn’t an option for you. Companies often put up barriers for no reason, then leave customer service agents to try and explain. And then this happens: When he called Best Buy one customer service agent even suggested he change his name Now that is great 🙂 Charles Yu: “I said well, I think that … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Customer Un-focus

Posted on December 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Counties caught in conundrum: getting Amish to take food stamps [the broken link was removed] by John Horton Accepting public assistance is verboten within the Amish culture. It simply is not done. But Taylor is under orders to at least try to get them enrolled. The Ohio Department of Job & Family Services has asked Geauga and Holmes counties, which feature the state’s largest Amish populations, to lift dismal food-stamp participation rates. Taylor and his Holmes counterpart, Dan Jackson, called … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Management, Public Sector | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Poor Service – Industry Standard?

Posted on December 27, 2006 by John Hunter

More Trouble Canceling HP Orders by Bob Sutton: I wrote a post a couple months ago about how difficult it was to cancel an order I had JUST made for an HP computer, and how when I complained on the phone to the HP salesperson, his justification was that it was “industry standard,” which really pushed my buttons — as the logic is “I am going to treat my customers badly just because everyone does.” How true. One good example, … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management

Create Your Own Book

Posted on December 26, 2006 by John Hunter

I received a custom made photo book from my brother. It is amazing. It is a hardcover book, full of photos. The quality is amazing. The book is printed by blurb. Looking on their web site the pricing is surprisingly cheap: 150 page full color hardcover book – $39.95 (for 1 copy! – 10% discount at 25 copies…), as little as $18.95 for a full color softcover book up to 40 pages. The site says books are normally printed in … Continue reading →

Posted in Books | Tagged , , ,

Holding Improvement Gains

Posted on December 26, 2006 by John Hunter

The Hard Part: Holding Improvement Gains [the broken link was removed] by Ron Snee The long term goal should be to combine all improvement initiatives into an overall improvement system and create the management framework to sustain that system. Thus, improvement will become a routine managerial process, just like any other. … One of the strongest spurs to maintaining momentum and sustaining the gains of an improvement initiative comes from the effect achieving significant, measurable benefits has on the culture. … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement | Tagged ,

5 Things You Might Not Know About Me

Posted on December 21, 2006 by John Hunter

I have been tagged by Mark Graban of the lean blog: “Tag” – 5 Things You Don’t Know About Me. I spent a year in Singapore (the small person in the photo is me, the bigger one is Dad on a beach in Malaysia during a visit during our stay in Singapore) and another in Nigeria while I was growing up. Dad, Bill Hunter, was a professor (related to the item above), who co-authored Statistics for Experimenters and applied Deming’s … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, Fun | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Interview with Toyota President

Posted on December 20, 2006 by John Hunter

Very interesting interview with Katsuaki Watanabe – Toyota President seeks growth without major quality problems: For the North American-exclusive models, we would like to localize as much as possible the r&d activities, like factory, production engineering and production preparation. We need to improve the engineering capabilities in those functions so that we will be able to localize more of those activities. So in that sense, they have to increase and enhance the operations at TMMA. We are likely to increase … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Why Extrinsic Motivation Fails

Posted on December 20, 2006 by John Hunter

Why Motivation by Pizza Doesn’t Work This completely changes the role of the manager as motivator. Rather than being the source of motivation (kind of a ludicrous idea in itself), the manager must help employees to find their own intrinsic motivation. Lean thinkers understand this idea as respect for people. Dr. Deming talked about joy in work. Douglas McGregor talked about theory x and theory y thinking. All of these perspectives incorporate an understanding of workplace systems and human psychology. … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

How to Prevent Innovation

Posted on December 19, 2006 by John Hunter

Top ten tips for preventing innovation give some great ideas many companies are already doing but you may find some your company hasn’t mastered 🙂 For example: Make performance reviews easy. Create some easy-to-measure metrics (like # of sick-days taken, # of powerpoint slides created, # of meetings attended), and use those for performance reviews. People always gravitate toward the metric. We can run the reviews with a minimum of effort, giving us more time to tell them how to … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Performance Appraisal | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Mason Neck State Park Photos

Posted on December 18, 2006 by John Hunter

Photos of Mason Neck State Park, Virginia National park photos: Grand Canyon, Great Falls, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton…

Posted in curiouscat.com, Travel photos | Tagged

Starbucks: Respect for Workers and Health Care

Posted on December 16, 2006 by John Hunter

Starbucks Corp. CEO Howard Schultz interview on Marketplace [the broken link was removed] I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I guess it’s been well documented, many times, in federally subsidized housing known as the projects. My dad never made more than $20,000 a year and I saw first-hand what it was like to kind of live on the other side of the tracks … the company is deeply-rooted in a sensibility and trying to build the company with a … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Health care, Management, Respect | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Workplace Management by Taiichi Ohno

Posted on December 14, 2006 by John Hunter

Workplace Management [the broken link was removed] by Taiichi Ohno, translated by Jon Miller. This classic work by the founding father of the Toyota Production System returns to print in a new translation. Ohno delivers timeless lessons on how to effectively manage the gemba – actual place or work. He relates stories from across his nearly 40 years of struggle to establish the Toyota Production System as both a mindset and supporting behaviors of constant improvement. In the book’s 37 … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged , , , ,

How to Improve

Posted on December 12, 2006 by John Hunter

My management philosophy is guided by the idea of seeking methods that will be most effective.* There are many ways to improve. Good management systems are about seeking systemic adoption of the most effective solutions. What this amounts to is learning about the ideas of Deming, Ackoff, Ohno, Chirstensen, Scholtes, Womack… and then adopting those ideas. In doing so learning about management tools and concepts as they are applied to your work. Here is a simple example. Years ago, my … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

10 Stocks for 10 Years Update

Posted on December 11, 2006 by John Hunter

In April of 2005 I wrote: 10 stocks for 10 years. At that time I also created a fund through Marketocracy. Thus far the portfolio is up 15.8% annually (versus 15.3% for the S&P 500) – see more below… I have made minor changes to the fund during the year (less than 4% turnover). As I mentioned in June I would buy Tesco, but Marketocracy does not support it. Google is still doing quite well, up 122% since inception. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing | 1 Comment

Weblog Awards: Best Business Blog Finalist

Posted on December 10, 2006 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog is a 2006 Weblog Awards finalist in the Best Business Blog category. 10 blogs from each category are selected as finalists. Voting opened last week and continues through December 15th. For those visiting from the award site you may want to take a look at our popular posts including: Stop Demotivating Employees – New Rules for Management? No! – Toyota IT Overview – Eliminate Slogans – Quality and Innovation – Manufacturing Jobs data USA … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com