Fun A4 Paper Art – unrelated to an A3 report. Another innovative use of paper: Teaching Engineers Experimental Design With a Paper Helicopter by George Box.
Monthly Archives: March 2007
Goodbye Quarterly Targets?
Goodbye Quarterly Targets? [the broken link was removed], Business Week:
On March 14 the Commission on the Regulation of U.S. Capital Markets in the 21st Century, a project of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged executives to stop issuing their short-term goals. The practice is a “self-inflicted wound by American CEOs,” says commission member Robert Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management, a Boston fund manager.
Debate over this issue has simmered for years. Indeed, dozens of companies, including Coca-Cola and McDonald’s, have quit publicizing quarterly earnings targets. Now the issue has become urgent, the Chamber argues, as U.S. companies face growing long-term competition from overseas, where such projections are not widely made.
Learning that a fixation on short term profits is bad for the organization is a good step. Deming talked about this problem over twenty years ago in seven deadly diseases of western management one of which was: the emphasis on short term profits.
Related: Life Beyond the Short Term – Dell Falls Short – Constancy of Purpose
Data Visualization Example
[I replaced the embedded video, since Google broke the original link with the way they shut down Google Video after buying YouTube]
In Myths About the Developing World, Hans Rosling shows some great graphics to display data on health care outcomes. This is one of the talks from the great TED conference that we have mentioned before. They really have some great webcasts available on their site.
The presentation also gives a concrete example of faulty knowledge (people thinking things which are not so – related to theory of knowledge). He also makes good points on stratifying data at the 14 minute mark. See gapminder.org for good additional material.
Related: Great Charts – Open Access Education Materials
Metrics and Software Development
Lean-based Metrics for Agile CM Environments [the broken link was removed] by Brad Appleton, Robert Cowham and Steve Berczuk:
I agree that measuring individuals is normally not an effective way improve. And “measuring up” can often be valuable. Often a fixation on small process measures can result in improvements that don’t actually improve the end result. But rather than the measure up view, I find looking at outcome measures (to measure overall effectiveness) and process measures (for viewing specific parts of the system “big picture”) the most useful strategy.
The reason for process measures is not to improve those results alone. But those process measures can be selected to measure key processes within the system. Say finding 3 process measures that if we can improve these then this important outcome measure will improve (using PDSA to make sure your prediction is accurate – don’t fall into the trap of focusing on improving that measure even after the data shows it does not result in the desired improvement to the overall results that was predicted).
Also, process measures are helpful in serving as indicators that something is going wrong (or potentially going better than normal). Process measures will change quickly (good ones can be close to real time) thus facilitate immediate remedies and immediate examination of what lead to the problem to aid in avoiding that condition in the future.
Your Online Presence
Web anonymity can sink your job search [the broken link was removed]:
And it’s not just about technology, Bray says. “Most companies would rather have somebody who has demonstrated the propensity to contribute, and one [sign] of that is going out and getting involved, joining in the discussion.”
I think that is exactly right. For certain jobs the need for an online presence is not as critical, however, knowledge workers can really help out their prospects with a good online presence. Creating such a presence can be a big job or it can be a fairly simple site with a few articles with your ideas on topics that interest you. Creating your own blog can also be an effective strategy. Guest blog posts on another blog can also be useful.

[I added this image after the blog post – from my post: New JohnHunter.com Website]
Your own web site that can serve as the long term address is a very good idea (and getting a web site with your name is a good idea, if possible, even if you don’t use it right away, for example: johnhunter.com). Then you can link to various efforts (guest posts on blogs, articles at various sites, podcasts…).
Related: Blogging is Good for You – Your Online Identity – Interviews with John Hunter – Curious Cat Management Improvement Articles
GM Lacrosse: China and the USA
Made in China, an article exploring the new GM LaCrosse:
I wonder how much value there is to designing cars to be world cars? Occasionally that might make sense and standardizing parts and even design processes… makes sense to me (as much as practical). The key it seems to me is “so well targeted” and local manufacturing.
I don’t like that idea. As much as possible they should cooperate with each other.
Using Google to Eliminate Some IT Costs
Computer Science 101: A Case Study In Google Applications [the broken link was removed]:
The cost to ASU: zero. The university had been spending a half-million dollars a year on servers and storage for its open source e-mail system, including administrative support costs. More important is the faster pace of innovation. “Now we’re on Google’s development curve, not ours,” Sannier says.
Google’s efforts with Google Apps have fairly quietly become quite significant. I find gmail excellent (and Google talk and Google calendar are good but hopefully will be improved significantly). I must say I find Open Office very good and so don’t quite see the value in Google docs but maybe I am missing something (for those few documents that benefit from collaboration Google’s model sounds interesting – though a wiki seem like the best option in that case). Seems very possible Google Apps are an example of Clayton Christensen’s concept of disruptive innovation.
Exposing CEO Pay Excesses
The politics of pay from The Economist:
Thankfully, more of the ludicrous pay packages details are being made public and shame will force some changes (those approving these pay packages have to justify such reckless spending). Of course, some feel no shame no matter how egregious the situation. As I mentioned earlier, I would add excessive executive pay to Deming’s seven deadly diseases of western management. We need to drastically role back the luducrous pay packages.
Related: More on Obscene CEO Pay – Excessive Executive Pay – Toyota’s CEO pay under $1 million – Warren Buffett on Excessive CEO Pay – Compensation at Whole Foods – Bloated CEO salaries, subsidized by taxpayers, undermine American values – CEO Compensation: A Problem That Just Gets Worse
Making Suits in the USA
Trying On Toyota’s Methods (site broke link so I removed it):
Abboud says its sales are about $400 million a year. The company is doing fine, but management says the U.S. factory has to improve constantly to justify the higher salaries its workers make, compared with foreign rivals. The average wage in the factory is $12 an hour, plus union benefits. That’s three or four times what workers in Mexico make, Sapienza said.
…
“It’s one thing to do it in 2007,” he said. “Are we going to be able to do it in 2010? In 2012? … In the final analysis, if Toyota can make a car in 13 hours, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to make a suit in a much reduced period of time.”
Related: Made in the USA – Joseph Abboud: Lean Manufacturer – More on Joseph Abboud
Eric Schmidt Podcast – Google Innovation and Entrepreneurship
iinnovate podcast interview with Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google.
“Normal sales quotas” – oops maybe Google can learn from others in this area. I found it interesting that Eric Schmidt teaches at Standford even while being the CEO of Google, because as he says he learns from students questions. The podcast series, done by 2 Stanford students, has quite an impressive list of, I guess, visiting speakers at Stanford: Andy Grove, Alex Counts, David Kelley…
via: Eric Schmidt Interviewed On Entrepreneurship, Management and More
Related: Innovation at Google – Google Shifts Focus – Chaos Management (by design) at Google