Monthly Archives: March 2007

Errors in Thinking

Posted on March 19, 2007 by John Hunter

The Doctor’s In, But Is He Listening?, text and podcast from NPR: Jerome Groopman (photo) is a doctor who discovered that he needed a doctor. When his hand was hurt, he went to six prominent surgeons and got four different … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Management, webcast | Tagged critical thinking, Health care, theory of knowledge | Comments Off

Experiment and Learn

Posted on March 18, 2007 by John Hunter

Experimenting with milkshakes? I have been on a mission to convince firms to do simple experiments that will give them feedback regarding the decisions that they make. Just as with people (as Anders Ericsson studies), firms cannot learn with feedback. … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Design of Experiments, Management, Quality tools | Tagged experiments, iteration, management | Comments Off

Deming Institute Seminar

Posted on March 16, 2007 by John Hunter

The Deming Institute is sponsoring, How to Create Unethical, Ineffective Organizations That Go Out of Business [the broken link was removed], 23-25 April, 2007 in Lansing, Michigan. I will be co-presenting the seminar. Twenty-seven faulty management and corporate governance practices … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, Deming, Education, Management | Comments Off

Best Buy Rethinks the Time Clock

Posted on March 15, 2007 by John Hunter

Best Buy Rethinks the Time Clock [the broken link was removed]: With a classic flextime structure, workers arrange their schedules with their boss in advance. But under a program called Rowe, for “results-only work environment,” the boss has no say … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Respect | Tagged managing people, respect for people | Comments Off

Management Improvement Carnival #7

Posted on March 14, 2007 by John Hunter

How are stories of successful companies leading us astray? by Karen Wilhelm – “correlation does not equal causation, a inspecting a “sample” consisting only of good parts will not yield good information about a process, and anecdotal evidence is interesting … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Comments Off

Simple Solutions That Work

Posted on March 13, 2007 by John Hunter

Nurse, the maggots [the broken link was removed] Maggots clean wounds 18 times faster than normal treatments, can conquer MRSA and would save the NHS millions. … Recent studies have indicated that maggot therapy can cut treatment duration from 89 … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Health care, Management, Science | Tagged Creativity, Health care | Comments Off

NCAA Basketball Challenge 2007

Posted on March 12, 2007 by John Hunter

Once again I have created a group on the ESPN NCAA Basketball Tournament Challenge for curiouscat basketball fans. To participate, go to the curiouscat ESPN group [the broken link was removed] and make your picks. Go Badgers and Go Davidson,

Posted in curiouscat.com, Fun | Comments Off

Jeffrey Pfeffer on Evidence-Based Practices

Posted on March 11, 2007 by John Hunter

Jeffrey Pfeffer Testifies to Congress About Evidence-Based Practices [the broken link was removed]: In this short statement, I want to make five points as succinctly as possible, providing references for background and documentation for my arguments. First, organizations in both … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Data, Management, Performance Appraisal, Public Sector, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged evidence based management, Public Sector | Comments Off

Investors Business Daily on Deming

Posted on March 10, 2007 by John Hunter

He Pointed Firms To Quality [the broken link was removed] by Kirk Shinkle: Management responsibility took on an almost moral role for Deming. Failure in business and the resulting unemployment could be blamed almost entirely on leadership. Leaders, he believed, … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Investing | Tagged Deming | 1 Comment

Kanban In Software Engineering

Posted on March 9, 2007 by John Hunter

Kanban in Action [the broken link was removed]: The kanban system allows us to deliver on my 3 elements of my recipe for success: reduce work-in-progress (in fact it limits it completely); balance capacity against demand (as new CRs [change … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged kanban | Comments Off