Management Improvement Carnival #132

The Curious Cat Management blog carnival highlights recent management blog posts 3 times each month. The posts generally focus on the areas I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Guide since 1996 (Deming, agile software development, systems thinking, lean manufacturing, customer focus…).

• If management stopped demotivating their employees… by Mark Graban – “Think of a person in your workplace who is considered to have a “bad attitude.” Do you think they started their career or their job at that point? If so, why were they ever hired? … What do you think happened to turn the “live trees” you hired into “dead wood” as Peter Scholtes said?“
• The Poison of Performance Appraisals by Nicole Radziwill – “Progressive organizations might use a 360-degree approach, a la Jones & Bearley, but the underlying dynamic is the same: I’m telling you what I think about you and that’s my evaluation. I’m not familiar with any managers or organizations who can pull this off with impartiality and avoid the many sources of bias that can creep into the process.”
• One factor at a time (OFAT) Versus Factorial Designs by Bradley Jones – “The most common argument I read against OFAT these days has to do with inability to detect interactions and the possibility of finding suboptimal factor settings at the end of the investigation. I admit to using these arguments myself in print.
  I don’t think these arguments are as effective as Fisher’s original argument.”

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• Lean Strategy: The Role of Ideal State Thinking by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “One of the opportunities in building a strategy is really understanding the roles that all the different product/services that you offer fit together”
• Lean UX at work by Jeff Gothelf – “It seems that as a team matures and the trust bonds between the members grow, the rituals of formal process fall away in favor of less-prescribed, more “understood” cadences.”
• TryStorming by Lee Fried – “stop brainstorming and start “trystorming (actual simulation or creation of the idea).” This meant putting away the flip charts and sticky notes and getting out on the floor and getting our hands dirty. Having the 3D, tangible “mock-ups” allowed the teams to quickly understand each others ideas and iteratively improve the solution in a way that would not be possible on paper.”
• Triple-Loop Learning by Jurgen Appelo – “This is level 2 understanding. Or second-loop learning. Or adaptation. Or systems thinking. Your product is part of a larger socio-economical system, and therefore you must observe the environment, revise your goals, and let your product adapt in order to survive in it.”
• The Five Challenges of Every Change Agent by Heather Stagl – “As a change agent, sometimes it feels like all you do is wait! But, your job is to figure out how to first gain attention and then influence people to take action or change their behavior in a reasonable amount of time.”
• From Recalls to Redemption: Toyota Did NOT Lose its “Way” by Jeffrey Liker – “he Toyota Way is guiding their long-term response based on deeply reflecting (hansei), taking responsibility, developing appropriate counter-measures with real punch, and relentlessly implementing the countermeasures. We believe we will see an even stronger and better Toyota that we can be proud of for decades to come. “
• The Case For Hiring People Who Never Seem Like They’re Having A Bad Day by Kris Dunn – They may have bad days, but they don’t let it affect their service-orientation to the world around them – whether it’s their customers, team members, bosses or family. Consistent. Positive but not fake. Helpful. Authentic.
• Cutting Edge Visual (and Sensory) Control by Mark R. Hamel – “So, my mother slapped a twist tie on the knife to remind him that it is not a candidate for the dishwasher (unless he’s the dishwasher)… Visual and tactile control”