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Monthly Archives: May 2012
Customers Are Often Irrational
Penney Pinching “The first rule is that there are no irrational customers,” Drucker wrote in Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices. “Customers almost without exception behave rationally in terms of their own realities and their own situation.” “in terms of their own realities and their own situation.” is a huge caveat. Essentially plenty of customers behave irrationally – by any sensible definition of rational. I agree, to make them customers and keep them as customers you need to develop theories that can … Continue reading
Better Management in Government
This month Paul Borawski (CEO of ASQ) has asked the ASQ Influential Voices to share their thoughts on quality management in the public sector. I have been involved in quality improvement in government at the Office of Secretary of Defense Quality Management Office and the White House Military Office and elsewhere. Transformation and Redesign at the White House Communications Agency by March Laree Jacques provides a nice look at some good efforts. I also was on the board of the … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Public Sector
Tagged ASQ Influential Voices, government, leadership, management, Public Sector
2 Comments
Management Improvement Blog Carnival #167
The Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Carnival has been published since 2006. We find great management blog posts and share them with you 3 times a month. We hope you find these post interesting and find some new blogs to start reading. Follow me online: Google+, Twitter, instant management consulting, and more. Celebrate Learning, Not Success or Failure by Jurgen Appelo – “Failure and success are orthogonal to learning. What you learn from are the experiments and tests that you … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival
Tagged management
Richard Feynman Explains the PDSA Cycle
Ok, really Richard Feynman Explains the scientific method. But his thoughts make the similarity between the PDSA cycle and the scientific method obvious. 1) Plan, hypothesis. You make a guess about a theory (in using the PDSA cycle this step is often missed, while in the scientific method this is of the highest priority). You make a prediction based on that theory. 2) Do the experiment 3) Study the results If the results disprove the theory you were wrong. If … Continue reading
Posted in Process improvement, Quality tools, Science
Tagged experiments, PDSA, Popular, prediction, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science
3 Comments
Management Improvement Blog Carnival #166
Tim McMahon is hosting the Management Improvement Blog Carnival #166, highlights include: Performance Organizations – Art Smalley answers why is there such a resistance to creating learning organizations and why are leaders letting the future deteriorate without doing anything about it. Trust – Cornerstone of Performance – George Rathburn explains that teams lose trust in their leaders when they fail to show trust and respect in their teams. Lean Snake Oil Cures What Ails Ya – Mike Wroblewski takes some … Continue reading
Posted in Carnival, Lean thinking, Management
Tagged Lean thinking, management
Lean Manufacturing and the Toyota Production System
In this post I explore my thoughts about what lean (lean manufacturing, lean thinking…) means. The way I think about it is that lean manufacturing sprung from Toyota. It seems to me the lean manufacturing name was meant to capture the entire Toyota Way. Capturing the whole of what that encompasses isn’t possible in 1 or 2 or even 10 books so it wasn’t done completely. To me the difference between lean manufacturing described early on by Womack and Jones … Continue reading
Management Improvement Carnival #165
Matt May is hosting the 165th Management Improvement Carnival. He takes a look at the wonderful manifestos posted at ChangeThis. ChangeThis really is wonderful, if you haven’t already been looking at what they offer you are in for a treat (and have quite a bit to keep you busy for awhile). Highlights from this management carnival edition include: How Habits Work (and How They Change) by Charles Duhigg. His point: “Most of the choices we make each day may feel … Continue reading
Long Term Thinking with Respect for People
Toyota nearly went bankrupt near 1950 and had to lay off a third of their employees. A huge focus of the Toyota Production System as envisioned by Taiichi Ohno was to secure the long term success of the company. The priority of doing so is easier to see when you respect people and are in danger of witnessing the destruction of their careers. I can’t find the quote (maybe Jon Miller, or someone else, can provide one), but I recall … Continue reading →