Monthly Archives: July 2007

Focus on Customers and Employees

Posted on July 5, 2007 by John Hunter

As I have stated I believe it is the purpose of organization to serve many stakeholders (customer, employees, stockholders, community…). Thankfully some companies agree: Compensation at Whole Foods – Starbucks: Respect for Workers – Google: Ten Golden Rules – Amazon Innovation. Here is another example – How Costco Became the Anti-Wal-Mart: But the Pièce De Résistance, the item he most wanted to crow about, was Costco’s private-label pinpoint cotton dress shirts. “Look, these are just $12.99,” he said, while lifting … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Process Improvement and Innovation

Posted on July 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Every so often an article appears discussing the need to change focus from process improvement to innovation (and recently they are followed with quite a bit of blog talk). I disagree on several grounds. First you have needed to focus on both all the time. Second, it is not an either or choice. Third, the process of innovation should be improved. I do not believe process improvement is bad for innovation. Bad process changes can be bad for innovation. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Visual Instructions Example

Posted on July 4, 2007 by John Hunter

How to get people to actually use instructions for using your product: make it easy to do so. This blog post illustrates a well designed instruction guide for the Seagate FreeAgent backup drive. Simple pictures make it very obvious what to do (and even includes a time stamp showing how long into the process you are – which shows you the total time it will take at one simple glance 1 minute and 36 seconds). Such instructions are a great … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Quality tools | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Failure to Address Systemic SWAT Raid Failures

Posted on July 3, 2007 by John Hunter

The systemic failure of police raids continues to cause deaths of innocent people. In congressional testimony last month Radley Balko presented more evidence in: Our Militarized Police Departments: Pay particular attention to the red markers on the map. Those are the approximately 40 cases where a mistaken raid resulted in the death of a completely innocent American citizen. The most recent example of course is the drug raid in Atlanta last fall that killed 92-year old Kathryn Johnston. Ms. Johnston … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Public Sector, Respect | 3 Comments

Advertise on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog

Posted on July 2, 2007 by John Hunter

We are adding the option to place direct ads on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog. If you would like to place text ads – or small image ads – related to management topics please contact us. For more information see: placing an ad on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog.

Posted in curiouscat.com

Deming’s 14 Points

Posted on July 2, 2007 by John Hunter

The Project Management Student blog has posted point 14 of the series covering Deming’s 14 points for Project Management. I have mentioned it before, and the series is worth reading (in this Deming advocates opinion). A sample, from Enable Pride of Workmanship [the broken link has been removed]: Project managers should be looking for the great things their teams are doing. People on their projects should know that when they go above and beyond, they will be recognized. A huge … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management

Management Improvement Carnival #14

Posted on July 1, 2007 by John Hunter

Management Improvement Carnival #14 is hosted by Kevin Meyer at Evolving Excellence. Some highlights include: Reducing Waste for Shoppers at Lean Blog. “The traditional grocery store is to spread out common items to force you to walk the whole store – that’s waste for the customer. Target is trying a new approach.” 10 Common Misperceptions About Lean Manufacturing at Gemba Panta Rei. “There is nothing inherently Japanese about Lean manufacturing, nor are Japanese people naturally better at Lean than any … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management