Monthly Archives: March 2010

Aligning Marketing Vision and Management

Posted on March 23, 2010 by John Hunter

Why do so many companies market one thing and provide something else? I know it might be easier to sell something different than what you offer your customer today. But if you decide to market one vision, why don’t you change your organization to actually offer that? I suspect this is substantially due to the outsourced nature of large marketing efforts. It makes sense to me that when you outsource your marketing message creation it isn’t tied to your management … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #92

Posted on March 20, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management blog carnival selects recent management blog posts 3 times each month. Also visit the Curious Cat Management Library for online management improvement articles. The 7 Software Development Wastes by Jack Milunsky – “1) Keep your stories small, and unambiguous. 2) Ensure that each story has well defined acceptance test criteria (assisted by input from the customer). 3) Ensure that your code is well tested. Adopting good Test Driven Development habits will pay back in spades…” Strengths, … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Toyota’s Journey to Lean Software Development

Posted on March 18, 2010 by John Hunter

Toyota’s journey from Waterfall to Lean software development by Henrik Kniberg Toyota builds cars (duh). In the past that didn’t involve much software, and the little software that was needed was mostly developed by suppliers and embedded in isolated components. Toyota assembled them and didn’t much care about the software inside. But “The importance of automatic electronic control system has been increasing dramatically year by year” said Ishii-san. A modern car is pretty much a computer on wheels! In a … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Quality tools, Software Development, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , ,

Bill George on Leadership

Posted on March 15, 2010 by John Hunter

Bill George is professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School and former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, the world’s leading medical technology company. Under his leadership, Medtronic’s market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion, averaging 35 percent a year. He is the author of the best-selling Authentic Leadership and a board member of Goldman Sachs, Target, and Novartis. His board membership at Goldman Sachs certainly leaves him with something to answer for (which I don’t think … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #91

Posted on March 11, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Blog Carnival provides links to recent articles to help managers improve the performance of their organization. A Mindless Worker is a Happy Worker “when people are given a chance to participate in creating something good, solving a problem, and play a role in adding value through the use of their mind, hands, and heart, good things happen.” Creating a Culture of Process Improvement by Rip Stauffer – “If you listen and act, you’ll soon find that … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Improving Software Development with Automated Tests

Posted on March 8, 2010 by John Hunter

Automated software testing is a mistake proofing (poka-yoke) solution for software development. The way automated testing works is that software code is written that tests the software code of the application. This automated testing code test that business rules are correctly being followed by the code in the application. So for example, a user should not be able to create a new account without entering password. Then you create code that does not allow an account to be created without … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Improving Education with Deming’s Ideas

Posted on March 4, 2010 by John Hunter

This interview (link broken, so removed) with David Langford discusses how to improve education using ideas from Deming. Along with Alfie Kohn, David have long been the learning and management experts I find most valuable. I have long remembered is his idea that he was the CEO of his classroom. On hearing Deming discuss how critical it was to have the CEO active in a management improvement effort to achieve success he tried to get those above him in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Education, Manufacturing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Carnival #90

Posted on March 2, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement blog carnival provides links to recent blog posts for those interesting in improving management of organizations. Leader Standard Work Should Be…Work! by Mark Hamel – “A lean leader’s standard work, among other things, may require him to check a particular work cell once in the morning and once in the afternoon to ensure that the workers are maintaining their plan vs. actual chart (usually by hour), and that specific and meaningful reasons for any shortfalls … Continue reading →

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