Monthly Archives: January 2012

We are Being Ruined by the Best Efforts of People Who are Doing the Wrong Thing

Posted on January 30, 2012 by John Hunter

Deming’s Second Theorem: “We are being ruined by best efforts.” What did Dr. Deming mean by this? Another quote by Dr. Deming might give you a clue? “Best efforts will not substitute for knowledge.” Irwin, the porcupine at the Animal Rescue League Wildlife Center has to work a little harder for his breakfast in this clip. The wildlife center likes to provide animals in captivity puzzles and challenges to keep them interested in their environment so they stuck his breakfast … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

ASQ Influential Voices

Posted on January 26, 2012 by John Hunter

I am joining the ASQ Influential Voices project for 2012. The effort started last year when ASQ chose a few people to participate in a group effort to share their thoughts on various topics in quality improvement. I have been asked to join for 2012, along with a couple lean bloggers (Mark Graban and Tim McMahon) and others. Each month the ASQ executive director will post on a topic and I, and the other influential voices participants, will share out … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Web Seminar with Gerald Suarez: Better Thinking About Leadership

Posted on January 23, 2012 by John Hunter

In2In offers some great opportunities for those interested in management improvement. Their conference is excellent. They also offer various conference calls with speakers knowledgeable about Deming and Ackoff’s ideas. These normally take the form of conference call presentations (similar to a podcast) followed by some question and answers. The consistently get remarkable people like, Gerald Suarez, and earlier: Peter Scholtes and Brian Joiner. Gerald Suarez is kicking off the new InThinking Network monthly webinar series. I worked for Gerald at … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Public Sector, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #155

Posted on January 22, 2012 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with hand picked recent management blog posts. I also collect select management improvement articles and blog posts in the Curious Cat management article library. The annual management blog roundup event covered #151 – #154, so this is #155. We Don’t Know quote by David York, via Mike Wroblewski- We don’t know what the problems are…..that’s why we make them visible. We don’t know what the root causes of … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , | 1 Comment

USA Spent $2.6 Trillion, $8,402 per person,17.9% of GDP on Medical Expenses in 2010

Posted on January 19, 2012 by John Hunter

The federal government financed 29% of total health spending in 2010, a substantial increase from its share of 23% in 2007. Meanwhile, the shares of the total health care bill financed by state and local governments (16%), private businesses (21%), and households (28%) declined during the same time period. Continue reading →

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

Trust But Verify

Posted on January 16, 2012 by John Hunter

The following are my comments, which were sparked by question “Trust, but verify. Is this a good example of Profound Knowledge in action?” on the Linked In Deming Institute group. Trust but verify makes sense to me. I think of verify as process measures to verify the process is producing as it should. By verifying you know when the process is failing and when to look for special causes (when using control chart thinking with an understanding of variation). There … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

2011 Management Blog Roundup Completed

Posted on January 11, 2012 by John Hunter

The 2011 Management Blog Roundup has been completed. I hope you enjoyed it and learned from the great posts highlighted by all the participants in this effort. The final group of posts to be added are: Mark Hamel at Gemba Tales added his 2nd and 3rd reviews of: A Lean Journey and Steven Spear. Hank Anderson, at Stats Made Easy, offered up some great posts by Jurgen Appelo at the oddly named NOOP.NL, but nevertheless excellent, blog on managing software … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | Tagged

2011 Management Blog Roundup: Stats Made Easy

Posted on January 8, 2012 by John Hunter

The 4th Annual Management blog roundup is coming to a close soon. This is my 3rd and final review post looking back at 2001, the previous two posts looked at: Gemba Panta Rei and the Lean Six Sigma Blog. I have special affinity for the use of statistics to understand and improve. I imaging it is both genetic and psychological. My father was a statistician and I have found memories of applying statistical thinking to understand a result or system. … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Data, Six sigma, Statistics | Tagged , , ,

More 2011 Management Blog Roundup Posts Added

Posted on January 3, 2012 by John Hunter

As we start 2012, the 4th Annual Management Blog Roundup continues. Once again some of the most popular management bloggers are taking a look back at the last year in the management blogging world. The following reviews have been added since my last update: Jamie Flinchbaugh, on his blog of the same name, took a look at 3 blogs, including this one, Curious Cat Management Improvement, as well as: Old Lean Dude and Brad Power’s posts at the Harvard Business … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged , | 2 Comments