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Monthly Archives: August 2009
Workers Allowed Recreational Use of the Internet are More Productive
Freedom to surf: workers more productive if allowed to use the internet for leisure “People who do surf the Internet for fun at work – within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office – are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t,” … According to the study of 300 workers, 70% of people who use the Internet at work engage in WILB. Among the most popular Workplace Internet Leisure Browsing (WILB) … Continue reading
Posted in Management, Psychology, Respect
Tagged internet, Psychology, research, respect for people
2 Comments
Dr. Deming Webcast on the 5 Deadly Diseases
The W. Edwards Deming Institute has posted Dr. Deming’s 1984 video on the 5 deadly diseases of western management. Lack of constancy of purpose Emphasis on short term profits – “creative” accounting, focus on quarterly profits Annual Performance Appraisals – management by objective, management by fear Mobility of management – [see Toyota for a great example of a company that operates on different principles – where the leadership has been with Toyota for decades] Running a company on visible figures … Continue reading
Management Improvement Carnival #73
Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival The Maddening Effectiveness of Root-Cause Analysis – “And I wonder: how often this is a subtle blockage to individuals and teams doing good root cause analysis? How often am I fearful of Really Knowing just what is at the root of some undesirable outcome?” Lean and Basketball – “in a strong Lean business, it is essential to have a well-trained and motivated staff to execute all of the good tools and methodologies that have … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Management
Tagged Carnival
Blame the Road – Not the Person
The system is responsible for 90, 92, 94, 97% of problems – W. Edwards Deming. Fix the system, don’t blame the people. When you seek system fixes you approach situations differently than if you search for people to blame. By the way, I am often asked about the data supporting Deming’s contention that the system was responsible for 97% of the problems. This statement was not based on a set of data but on Dr. Deming’s decades of experience. And … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Economics, Health care, Management, Systems thinking
Tagged Creativity, Deming, Economics, Health care, health care system, Innovation, Systems thinking
5 Comments
YouTube Uses Multivariate Experiment To Improve Sign-ups 15%
Google does a great job of using statistical and engineering principles to improve. It is amazing how slow we are to adopt new ideas but because we are it provides big advantages to companies like Google that use concepts like design of experiments, experimenting quickly and often… while others don’t. Look Inside a 1,024 Recipe Multivariate Experiment A few weeks ago, we ran one of the largest multivariate experiments ever: a 1,024 recipe experiment on 100% of our US-English homepage. … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Data, Design of Experiments, Google, IT, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Science, Software Development, Statistics
Tagged curiouscat, Customer focus, Data, Design of Experiments, experiments, Google, Innovation, internet, management, Science, Software Development, Statistics
2 Comments
Baking in Quality to Software Development
One of the reasons my organizations switched to Ruby on Rails for software development was the great integration with automated testing. We always wanted to have good test coverage on our software applications (which are web applications – some used only inside our organization) but didn’t actually find the time to do so. Since we adopted Ruby we have been doing much better in this regard. It isn’t just the switch to Ruby, of course, but the switch to Ruby … Continue reading
Don’t Hide Problems in Computers
Making things visible is a key to effective management. And data in computers can be easy to ignore. Don’t forget to make data visible. Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston recently hosted Hideshi Yokoi, president of the Toyota Production System Support Center and wrote this blog post: Together, we visited gemba and observed several hospital processes in action, looking for ways to reduce waste and reorganize work. It was fascinating to have such experts here … Continue reading
Management Improvement Carnival #72
Jon Miller is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #72 on the Gemba Panta Rei blog, highlights include: Three Key Principles when Leading without Authority – One piece of advice passed down by Toyota managers is to “lead as if you had no power” George Ambler writes about the three key principles of leading without authority. They are built around having enthusiasm, humility and the strength to not let results come before leadership. Most of us who lead or attempt to … Continue reading
CEO’s Castles and Company Performance
Where are the Shareholders’ Mansions? CEOs’ Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance by Crocker H. Liu, Arizona State University and David Yermack, New York University – Stern School of Business We study real estate purchases by major company CEOs, compiling a database of the principal residences of nearly every top executive in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. When a CEO buys real estate, future company performance is inversely related to the CEO’s liquidation of company shares and … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Economics
Tagged executive pay, leadership, management research, overpaid executives, research
3 Comments
Bogus Theories, Bad for Business
The Wall Street Journal has a book review of The Management Myth by Matthew Stewart. The book flushes out the ideas Matthew Stewert explored in a previous article in the Atlantic about the failure of management to mature as a discipline. Mr. Stewart quotes Bruce Henderson, the founder of the Boston Consulting Group, who describes consulting as “the most improbable business on earth” and who goes on to ask: “Can you think of anything less improbable [sic] than taking the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Science
Tagged Deming, Lean thinking, management, management experts, management research, managing people, Systems thinking
When Performance-related Pay Backfires
When Economic Incentives Backfire by Samuel Bowles, Sante Fe Institute Dozens of recent experiments show that rewarding self-interest with Economic incentives can backfire when they undermine what Adam Smith called “the moral sentiments.” Punished by Rewards, by Alfie Kohn, is a great book on this topic. The area of “motivating” employees is one it is often hard for managers to learn. Even managers that have been studying Deming, Ackoff, Ohno… for years still have trouble with the idea that trying … Continue reading
Management Improvement Carnival #71
Read the previous management carnivals. Caring for Your People: Part of the Boss’s Job by Wally Bock – “Caring for your people means helping them grow and develop. You can help them develop skills to keep them out of trouble in the future.” Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule by Paul Graham – “You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started. When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster.” … Continue reading