Monthly Archives: December 2012

Curious Cat 5th Annual Management Blog Review – Part 1

Posted on December 26, 2012 by John Hunter

This is the 5th year in which multiple management blogs have participated in reviewing the year in management blogging. Once again we have many great blogs reviewed. Each year a few blog authors stop, or nearly stop publishing, but each year more great new management blogs start. Here are links to the reviews that have been posted so far with the number of years each author has participated in the annual review. Years Author of blog blogs reviewed 5 Kevin … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival | Tagged | 3 Comments

Customers

Posted on December 12, 2012 by John Hunter

Customer focus is critical to succeed with management improvement efforts. Few argue with that point, though my experience as a customer provides plenty of examples of poor systems performance on providing customer value (usability, managing the value stream well, etc.). At times people get into discussion about what counts as a customer. Are customers only those who pay you money for a product or service? What about internal customers? What about users that don’t pay you, but use your product … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Using Incentives to Guide Social System Improvements

Posted on December 5, 2012 by John Hunter

When confronted with the challenge of managing a social system (or market) I like to find ways to use a few simple rules that will guide the system to find improvements. I favor allowing participants in complex social system to determine how to adapt. So I support, for example, a carbon taxes where the market can decide where it is most effective to invest to reduce carbon use (both to reduce our depletion of the resource and to reduce pollution … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Public Sector, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #183

Posted on December 2, 2012 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Carnival is published twice each month. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996: Deming, innovation, lean manufacturing, customer focus, leadership, six sigma, respect for employees… How would you explain what Lean is to a 7-year-old? by Ron Pereira – “Daddy tries to teach people how to work faster and make less mistakes. And, most importantly, we also … Continue reading →

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