Monthly Archives: November 2008

More Management Blog Posts From October 2005

Posted on November 30, 2008 by John Hunter

Performance Without Appraisal – When asked “If we eliminate performance appraisals, as you suggest, what do we do instead?” Dr. Deming’s reply: “Whatever Peter Scholtes says.” Read The Leader’s Handbooks, by Peter Scholtes Ford and Managing the Supplier Relationship – “Until they acknowledge what problems in their management system have caused them to fail to use sensible management practices that have been well know for decades I see no reason to believe their claims that they will behave differently this … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged

Family Business Gives $6.6 million in Bonuses to Workers

Posted on November 29, 2008 by John Hunter

The PEER Bearing Company (a manufacturer of bearings based in Illinois) was bought out by a Swedish company this year. The family that had owned the company gave surprise bonuses of $6.6 million to the 230 employees of the company (an average of over $28,000). family thanks employees with surprise bonuses Family members signed two thank-you cards to each employee, one in Spanish and one in English, expressing gratitude for “the loyalty and hard work of our employees over the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Respect | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Thanksgiving: Micro-financing Entrepreneurs

Posted on November 28, 2008 by John Hunter

This is a post from my Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog. For me, giving back to others is part of my personal financial plan. As I have said most people that are actually able to read this are financially much better off than billions of other people today. At least they have the potential to be if they don’t chose to live beyond their means. Here are some of the ways I give back to others. Kiva is a … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Respect | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Honda has Never had Layoffs and has been Profitable Every Year

Posted on November 25, 2008 by John Hunter

Engineers Rule, 2006 Longtime auto analyst John Casesa, who now runs a consulting company, says, “There’s not a company on earth that better understands the culture of engineering.” The strategy has worked thus far. Honda has never had an unprofitable year. It has never had to lay off employees. … The lean and compact Fukui, like all of his predecessors, is an engineer who started in R&D and later ran the subsidiary. While other auto chief-executives-to-be were punching keyboards in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Respect | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Eric Schmidt on Management at Google

Posted on November 24, 2008 by John Hunter

Eric Schmidt speaks at the Management Lab Summit on May 29, 2008 in Half Moon Bay, California. Conversation with Professor Gary Hamel. “The culture can be thought of as a ship and iterate culture with transparency for what people are doing. And that model scales pretty well.” “I have two jobs, two roles. The first is to make sure every issue that is important is really debated to find, not the common outcome, but the best decision… second thing is … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, Google, Management, Popular, Software Development, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Invest in New Management Methods Not a Failing Company, 1986

Posted on November 22, 2008 by John Hunter

Invest in New Management Methods Not a Failing Company by William Hunter, 1986 I predict American Motors will stop making cars in Wisconsin in the near future, whether or not the state’s money is used for a temporary propping-up operation. These competitors are beginning to understand how essential it is to take a long-term view of their businesses. Toyota, for example, took its top 40 managers on a two-day retreat to ponder what their corporation will look like in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

What’s the Value of a Big Bonus?

Posted on November 21, 2008 by John Hunter

What’s the Value of a Big Bonus? by Dan Ariely To look at this question, three colleagues and I conducted an experiment. We presented 87 participants with an array of tasks that demanded attention, memory, concentration and creativity. We asked them, for instance, to fit pieces of metal puzzle into a plastic frame, to play a memory game that required them to reproduce a string of numbers and to throw tennis balls at a target. We promised them payment if … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , ,

The Manager FAQ

Posted on November 20, 2008 by John Hunter

This is a great set of answers for programmers on the behavior of managers, that can also be of interest to some non-programmers. The Manager FAQ by Peter Seebach The following list is an attempt to cover some of the issues that will invariably come up when hackers without previous experience of the business community first start working in it. Other workers may also find it informative. DISCLAIMER: The author is a hacker. Bias is inevitable. Questions and Answers: Section … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Software Development | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

CMMI and Agile Development

Posted on November 19, 2008 by John Hunter

CMMI or Agile: Why Not Embrace Both! is a new report that is worth reading. All too often, CMMI has been applied rather than implemented. The standards-centric application of CMMI has contributed to some spectacular failures and losses of time and money. The key difference between applying and implementing CMMI is that applying usually appears as a superimposition (or overlay) of model practices onto existing activities with an expectation of producing the example work products found in the model, rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Process improvement, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Ford’s Camaçari Plant in Brazil

Posted on November 18, 2008 by John Hunter

Brazil’s Camaçari plant is model for the future This state-of-the-art manufacturing complex in the northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia is not only the centerpiece of Ford’s Brazilian turnaround plan, it is also one of the most advanced automobile plants in the world. It is more automated than many of Ford’s U.S. factories, and leaner and more flexible than any other Ford facility. It can produce five different vehicle platforms at the same time and on the same line. … At … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Manufacturing, Respect, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #47

Posted on November 17, 2008 by John Hunter
Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , , , ,

Lean and Kanban for Software Developers

Posted on November 15, 2008 by John Hunter

Lean and Kanban for Software Developers by Clinton Keith Time-boxing allows us to employ a very powerful aspect of Kanban. The cards in each column represent capacity for each stage of the value stream. As we see above, each stage can only handle one zone at a time. That is the capacity of each stage, if we have one person working at each stage. Time-boxing is the first step in beginning to find a balanced flow for our value stream … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Software Development | Tagged , ,

6 Leadership Competencies

Posted on November 13, 2008 by John Hunter

At the recent Annual W. Edwards Deming Institute Annual conference (this year held in Madison, Wisconsin) Peter Scholtes gave an excellent speech on the 6 Leadership Competencies from his book: The Leader’s Handbook. Those competencies are: The ability to think in terms of systems, and knowing how to lead systems. The ability to understand the variability of work in planning an problem solving Understanding how we learn, develop and improve. Leading true learning and improvement. Understanding people and why they … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

ASQ William Hunter Award 2008: Ronald Does

Posted on November 12, 2008 by John Hunter

The recipient of the 2008 William G. Hunter Award is Ronald Does. The Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality (ASQ) uses the attributes that characterize Bill Hunter’s (my father – John Hunter) career – consultant, educator for practitioners, communicator, and integrator of statistical thinking into other disciplines to decide the recipient. In his acceptance speech Ronald Does said: The first advice I received from my new colleagues was to read the book by Box, Hunter and Hunter. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Design of Experiments, Statistics | Tagged , , ,

Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay 2008

Posted on November 10, 2008 by John Hunter

I continue to tilt at the robber barron CEO pay packages (2007 post on CEO pay abuses). 2007 pay rank Company CEO Pay 5 Year Pay CEO % of 2007 Earnings 1 Apple Steve Jobs $646,600,000 $650,170,000 18.5% 2 Occidental Petroleum Ray Irani $321,640,000 $509,530,000 5.9% 3 IAC Barry Diller $295,140,000 $512,270,000 Company Lost Money 4 Fidelity National Financial William Folley $179,560,000 NA 138.4% 5 Yahoo! Terry Semel $174,200,000 $432,490,000 26.4% 7 Countrywide Financial Angelo Mozilo $141,980,000 $295,730,000 Company Lost … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Easiest Countries for Doing Business 2008

Posted on November 8, 2008 by John Hunter

Singapore is again ranked first for Ease of Doing Business by the World Bank. For some reason they call the report issued in any given year as the report for the next year (which makes no sense to me). The data shown below is for the year they released the report. Country 2008 2007 2006 2005 Singapore 1 1 1 2 New Zealand 2 2 2 1 United States 3 3 3 3 Hong Kong 4 4 5 6 Denmark … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Economics, Management | Tagged , , , , , ,