Monthly Archives: December 2009

2009 Annual Management Blog Review Part 1

Posted on December 30, 2009 by John Hunter

The 2009 annual management improvement blog review is underway. Jamie Flinchbaugh found excellent posts from In Pursuit of Elegance, Shmula blog and Got Boondoggle? Those posts include: The Art of Symmetry: Fractals and the Mandelbrot by Matthew May Respect for People, Underutilized People, and Waste by Pete Abilla Get Your Boots On! by Mike Wroblewski Mark J. Anderson has highlighted posts from Work Matters and will be reviewing Seth Godin and the Hexawise blog in upcoming posts. Highlights from Bob … Continue reading →

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

Systemic Health Care Failure: Small Business Coverage

Posted on December 27, 2009 by John Hunter

There are many significant problems with the medical care system in the USA. It makes sense that a system that costs over 50% more than other countries and has no better outcomes, from all that extra spending, suffers from many failures. Coverage for small business is one of the problems we face now – When Health Insurers Dump Small Companies: In June testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee, Potter said insurers “dump small businesses whose employees’ medical claims exceed what … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Health care, Innovation, Systems thinking | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Soren Bisgaard

Posted on December 22, 2009 by John Hunter

Soren Bisgaard died earlier this month of cancer. Soren was a student of my father’s who shared the commitment to making a difference in people’s lives by using applied statistics properly. I know this seem odd to many (I tried to describe this idea previously, also read his acceptance of the 2002 William G. Hunter award). Soren served as the director of the director of the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (founded by William … Continue reading →

Posted in Psychology, Six sigma, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

2009 Annual Management Blog Review

Posted on December 21, 2009 by John Hunter

Over the next 2 weeks several management blogs will be posting their contributions to the 2009 year in review of management blogs. Posts will highlight some of the best posts on other management blogs in the last year. The home page of the 2009 review of management blogs will be updated as new posts are added. The hosts of the 2009 management blog carnival include the: Lean Blog, Jamie Flinchbaugh, Stats Made Easy, Gemba Panta Rei and Lean Reflections. See … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged ,

Video Overview of the PDSA Cycle

Posted on December 20, 2009 by John Hunter

Robert Lloyd, PhD From the IHI Open School‘s, presents a nice overview of the PDSA Cycle (plan-do-study-act). The webcast includes an example of using PDSA to improve the discharge process for a hospital. As I have said many times the keys to success are to turn the PDSA cycle rapidly, predict the results in advance, and analyze the results to continually improve. the Improvement Handbook is an excellent resource. The IHI Open School is a great resource and exactly the … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Health care, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science, webcast | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The CEO is Only One Person

Posted on December 14, 2009 by John Hunter

The CEO is important but they are only one person. Rarely do they determine the success of a company. The instances where they seem to are so rare as to almost seem like just random luck. I think they can make a difference, but that they make a significant difference rarely. Steve Jobs seems to have made a huge difference to Apple, for example (and Jeffery Bezos at Amazon – note both of these examples are also founders of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #84

Posted on December 12, 2009 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival provides links to recent blog posts on improving the management of organizations. How Do You Get from Here to Agile? Iterate. by Mike Cohn – “…following an iterative transition process. Making small changes on a continual basis is a logical way to adopt a development process that is itself iterative.” What is Lean? by Mike Wroblewski – “Do we measure leanness on the number of lean tools being used? Let’s see, 5-S check, Kanban … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged | 1 Comment

Habits

Posted on December 10, 2009 by John Hunter

Some things about what people do also have their roots in psychology. Deming had an understanding of psychology as one of 4 areas in his system of management. A huge factor in what people do is based on what they are used to doing – habits. It is often difficult for people to change – not necessarily because they don’t want to, or the alternative is more difficult or they think it is unwise. It is difficult just because they … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Biggest Manufacturing Countries in 2008 with Historical Data

Posted on December 7, 2009 by John Hunter

Once again the USA was the leading country in manufacturing for 2008. And once again China grew their manufacturing output amazingly. In a change with recent trends Japan grew output significantly. Of course, the 2009 data is going to show the impact of a very severe worldwide recession. Chart showing the percentage output of top manufacturing countries from 1990-2008 by Curious Cat Management Blog, Creative Commons Attribution. The first chart shows the USA’s share of the manufacturing output, of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Economics, Manufacturing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Eric Schmidt on Google in 2010 and the Economy

Posted on December 3, 2009 by John Hunter

CEO Eric Schmidt Reveals ‘Centerpiece’ Of Google’s 2010 Strategy, speaking at the White House jobs summit. Google is definitely hiring. “We’re hiring a couple thousand people over the next year,” he said. And looking at the White House summit he said, “The basic message today is that with small business – which is the primary source of jobs – we need to figure out the loan problem. The banks aren’t really lending to them and anything that the government can … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Google | Tagged , , , ,

Management Improvement Carnival #83

Posted on December 2, 2009 by John Hunter

Jon Miller is hosting the Management Improvement Carnival #83 on the Gemba Panta Rei blog, highlights include: How to Explain “How To” I am constantly referring people to Bryan Lund‘s valuable TWI Blog wherein one can find public domain Training Within Industry documents as well as Bryan’s articles and practical insights. He shows us an example of a job breakdown sheet on how to compress hundreds of digital photos in under 1 minute. Follow the link at the end of … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | Tagged