Monthly Archives: August 2010

The role of leadership in software development

Posted on August 30, 2010 by John Hunter

The webcast of Mary Poppendieck’s talk, The role of leadership in software development, at Google. As usual Mary does a very nice job of providing some good historical background while exploring wise management practices (tied to software development but plenty useful for any manager). via: Sheep of a different fold Related: Lean, Toyota and Deming for Software Development – Webcast on the Toyota Development Process – Don’t Use Performance Appraisals – Lean Software Development – The Leader’s Handbook

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

Management Blog Posts from July 2006

Posted on August 27, 2010 by John Hunter

New Rules for Management? No! – “New” rule: “Look out, not in.” What kind of rule is that? It is pretty obvious you need to do both. I find it incredible the amount of time that is taken trying to show “new” ideas that amount to absolutely nothing. See comments on: Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt. How Google Works – Google understands when you experiment things might not work out. Google’s solution is to experiment quickly and fail early (turn … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged | 1 Comment

Lean Daily

Posted on August 25, 2010 by John Hunter

Lean Daily consolidates the latest posts from seven excellent lean blogs in one convenient, free, iPhone app. Learn more about it, see a simulator demo, and download it directly from iTunes. Mark Graban, Lean Blog, took the lead and a number of us combined efforts to provide this as a free service to our loyal readers: Ron Pereria (Lean Six Sigma Academy) Jon Miller (Gemba Panta Rei) Kevin Meyer (Evolving Excellence) Matt May (In Pursuit of Elegance) Jamie Flinchbaugh (Lean … Continue reading →

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Managing Our Way to Economic Success

Posted on August 23, 2010 by John Hunter

From Managing Our Way to Economic Success, Two Untapped Resources by William G. Hunter, my father. Written in 1986, but still plenty relevant. We have made some good progress, but there is much more to do: we have barely started adopting these ideas systemically. there are two enormously valuable untapped resources in many companies: potential information and employee creativity. The two are connected. One of the best ways to generate potential information to turn it into kinetic information that can … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Management Improvement Carnival #107

Posted on August 20, 2010 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat management blog carnival selects recent management blog posts 3 times each month. Since 2006 the carnival has focused on finding interesting posts for managers on improving the performance of organizations (lean manufacturing, Deming, agile software development, six sigma, customer focus, innovation…). “To find out what happens when you change something, it is necessary to change it.” by Andrew Gelman – “From the classic Box, Hunter, and Hunter book. The point of the saying is pretty clear, I … Continue reading →

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Dee Hock on Hiring

Posted on August 16, 2010 by John Hunter

Great quote from Dee Hock, founder of Visa: Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities. This short article from Fast Company is … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, quote | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Technical Non-Support

Posted on August 12, 2010 by John Hunter

A bit of fun from Dilbert. I have had the exact experience Dilbert does of tech support refusing to think about the actual symptoms of the problem and insisting on following some script and wasting my time – repeatedly. The second act takes on another time waster with a management tip from Dogbert: “Always postpone meetings with time wasting morons.” Dogbert hasn’t quite adopted the respect for people principle. via: The final word on making meetings better Related: Dilbert and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, webcast | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #106

Posted on August 10, 2010 by John Hunter

Jon Miller hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #106 on his blog, highlights include: 3 Observations of Healthcare vs. Construction by Mike Lombard. Lombi gives us his fresh view on the differences between construction businesses and healthcare organizations, two months after moving to a healthcare lean leader position. Culture is all about people and how they look at the world. I’m looking forward to more observations from Lombi on the culture in healthcare as he continues to explore and support process … Continue reading →

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Build an Environment Where Intrinsic Motivation Flourishes

Posted on August 8, 2010 by John Hunter

50 years after Douglas McGregor’s classic, The Human Side of Enterprise, too many managers still have not learned that using extrinsic motivation is not an effective way to manage complex human systems (organizations). The issue is important to me because their is a huge amount of poor management based on this thinking (focused on how people need to be fixed/motivated) instead of fixing what management really needs to fix. You can succeed as a manager, and progress in your career, … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Stop Starting and Start Finishing – Jason Yip

Posted on August 5, 2010 by John Hunter

Jason Yip explores the value of reducing work in process and reducing context switching costs to optimize throughput. By designing processes to work on projects serially instead of in parallel we reduce context switching, and other costs, of multitasking. Related: Multi-Tasking: Why Projects Take so Long – The Importance of Making Problems Visible – One piece flow (continuous flow) – Kanban

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How to Manage What You Can’t Measure

Posted on August 4, 2010 by John Hunter

In Out of the Crisis, page 121, Dr. Deming wrote: the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable (Lloyd S. Nelson, director of statistical methods for the Nashua corporation), but successful management must nevertheless take account of them. So what do you do then? I am a strong advocate of Deming’s ideas on management. I see understanding system thinking, psychology, the theory of knowledge and variation as the tools to use when you can’t get … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Popular, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #105

Posted on August 1, 2010 by John Hunter

The management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. Also try our collected management articles and blogs posts at: Curious Cat Management articles. Instead of a Layoff by Gregg Stocker – “Everyone has a stake in the company. When a company has a history of layoffs, though, people feel powerless, disconnected, and expendable. The organization’s leaders send a very clear message that employees are not important when jobs are cut in response to … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , | 1 Comment