Management Improvement Carnival #2

Please let me know what you think of these carnival posts.

  • Lean Consumption at the Post Office by Mark Edmondson – “With so much of this customer facing process broken, and the salsa dance suggestion thrown in by an earnest postal worker, my mind went tilt. Yet another example of a good employee coping as well as possible with a broken process.”
  • Toyota Questions… Everything by Kevin Meyer – “Of course Toyota is questioning kaizen, one of the core underpinnings of their Toyota Production System. Just like they question every single aspect of their business, all the time”
  • More on Mulally’s “First Impressions” by Mark Graban – “It’s a great lesson in defining value from the customer’s standpoint as opposed to the engineer’s standpoint.”
  • Profit Beyond Measure by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “Lean must change the principles that shape peoples’ beliefs, behaviors and actions…. Johnson goes on to describe a lean organization as ‘countless nonlinear feedback loops in a complex, self-adaptive and self-corrective living system.’ As an engineer and a scientist, I find that to be an incredibly descriptive and insightful articulation. As a manager, my response is more like ‘uh…what?!?’
  • Don’t make the Demo look Done by Kathy Sierra (on software application development “when it’s an early demo, think fuzzy. Think sketchy. Think underpromise-and-overdeliver.”
  • Selecting a Management and Improvement System [the broken link was removed] by Jon Miller – “how does a decision maker select the appropriate management and improvement system when faced with many choices such as Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, TOC, QRM, DFT or any hybrid?”
  • Several blog authors have participated in the blog tag, including: Mark Graban, Peter Abilla, Kevin Meyer, Jon Miller [the broken link was removed] and me – John Hunter.
  • Noise Vs. Problems [the broken link was removed] by Lee Fried – “Since we are using Lean to drive our overall business strategy we are not only changing the way that we “do work”, but also how we support and measure it. This is the true value of a Model Line, we are using as a laboratory to figure out how to do all work differently and not just tweaking operational processes.”
  • The 2nd most readable and useful book I’ve ever read [the broken link was removed] by Clarke Ching – “Last month I mentioned what looked to be a most promising new book Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath . Chip very kindly sent me a gallery copy, which I’ve just finished. I’m happy to report that the book is fantastic.
  • More Trouble Canceling HP Orders by Bob Sutton – “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.'”
  • A3 Communication: Overcoming Resistance To Change by Richard Tucker – “By using your A3 to communicate the entire problem-solving process (not just the change) and being honestly open to feedback and suggestions, you begin to create a learning/ coaching/ problem-solving culture that is a hallmark of true lean organizations.”
  • How to Improve by John Hunter – “the most effect way forward is to initially strive to improve performance and, at the same time, build the capacity of the organization by building a broad understand of these ideas. Building that capacity is an investment that will pay off over the long term”

Related: Management Improvement Carnival #1Lean Blog Carnival

This entry was posted in Carnival, Lean thinking, Management. Bookmark the permalink.