Category Archives: Carnival

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Some theoretical thinking by John Dowd – “Deming was fond of saying, ‘management is prediction‘ and, in this, I think he was exactly right. Management never takes action or makes decision to affect what happened yesterday, but rather to bring about what is hoped to be a desirable outcome tomorrow.” TPM Excellence: Visual Equipment Management by Mike Gardner – Visual aids must be clear to be … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Is it Scrum or Lean? by Jeff Sutherland – “A thoughtful analysis of the relationship between complex adaptive systems and Lean will show that both Scrum and Lean are instantiations of complex adaptive systems theory.” Deming’s Inconvenient Truth by Shaun Sayers – “Deming actually believed that a lot of important management information is not only unknown, but also unknowable.” (See Curious Cat on: “most important figures … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Assessing Results vs. Reflection by Mark Rosenthal – “Your plan for the year consisted of a designed experiment. ‘If we do these things, we expect this results.’ Then do that thing, and check that you actually did it. Compare your actual result with the expected result. Explain any difference. Learn.” – This process is key to improving, see my previous post: Predicting Improves Learning John Leadership … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. How Many People Did You Cut? by Mike Wroblewski – “As lean thinkers, we should focus on our growth strategy. With a growth strategy, we reassign people from kaizen to perform other tasks that add value to our customer.” (this is so important – lean companies do not have layoffs, companies lead by poor mangers do- John) Do You Understand the System of Profound Knowledge? by … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Leadership by Ron Pereira – “5. Learn. I recently discussed the importance of having mentors in your life. I also believe it is important for a leader to continue learning him/herself.” Prioritizing the Elimination of the 7 Types of Waste by Jon Miller – “Priority #1. Overproduction is the worst of the wastes because a) it multiplies the other 6 wastes, and b) it hides your … Continue reading →

Read the previous management carnivals. The Management Improvement Carnival #20 is hosted by Evolving Excellence, some of the highlights include: Elegance Offsets at Elegant Solutions. If carbon offsets are viable, then why not lean offsets, feature creep offsets, and even PowerPoint offsets? Pushback at DailyKaizen. “… in the Toyota Motor company, staff understand why a certain thing needs to be done a certain way because it is explained to them as part of the process of training.” Top 10 Success … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Why Does Bad Management Thrive So Much? by David Maister – “My question is: why hasn’t this egregiously bad management been driven out competitively? How do firms like this stay in business?” Kanban Systems for Software Development (four posts) by Corey Ladas – “Work-in-process is limited, and cycle time can be managed. Most importantly, it is a highly transparent and repeatable process with all of the … Continue reading →

Management Improvement Carnival #18 is hosted by Ron Pereira at the Lean Six Sigma Academy. Some highlights include: The Gemba is the Dojo by Pete Abilla from the shumla blog – “The Gemba is the Dojo — precisely because the heart and mind need to be ready for teaching; the student must be humble enough and teachable enough to be taught.” Why You Need A Tatakidai by Jon Miller from Gemba Panta Rei – “But I will humbly submit that … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals. Take your friends to the Gemba with you by Lee Fried – “Over the last six months we have been developing and refining visual systems to support standard work, communication, leveling and problem solving. The staff and managers have worked hard on their systems and their work is beginning to show fruits of their labor.” Opportunity Calls by Mike Wroblewski – “‘Mike, we have some problems.’ … Continue reading →

Management Improvement Carnival #16 is hosted by Mark Graban at the Lean Blog. Some highlights include: How Toyota Handles Disaster, by Matthew May at “Elegant Solutions”: “Sometimes the Wall Street Journal has at best one use: wrapping fish. To wit, their ignorant article on the front page of the Marketplace section: “A Key Strategy of Japan’s Car Makers Backfires.”… Long story short: Toyota’s been there, done that. Read on if you want the story.” More Lean Companies, by Kevin Meyer … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. John Kotter on Change Management by Lauchlan Mackinnon – “Kotter therefore suggests an 8-stage process for managing organisational change that addresses each one of these concerns and turns them around to a key stage in the successful management of change” Six Sigma and Innovation by James Todhunter – “while classical Six Sigma is primarily a statistically driven approach to system performance optimization, there are opportunities at every phase within the methodology … Continue reading →

Management Improvement Carnival #14 is hosted by Kevin Meyer at Evolving Excellence. Some highlights include: Reducing Waste for Shoppers at Lean Blog. “The traditional grocery store is to spread out common items to force you to walk the whole store – that’s waste for the customer. Target is trying a new approach.” 10 Common Misperceptions About Lean Manufacturing at Gemba Panta Rei. “There is nothing inherently Japanese about Lean manufacturing, nor are Japanese people naturally better at Lean than any … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Outrageously Good Customer Service by Steven Levitt – “I would trade it all for a few more instances in which the airline does something out of the ordinary to get me home faster to see my wife and kids.” Reflections on the Role of Technology in the Lean Workplace by Richard Tucker – “Observe the actual people, doing actual work, in the actual workplace. Second, Kaizen the process before implementing an … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Employee Driven Improvement at Southwest by Mark Graban – “It’s not called Lean, nor does it reference Toyota, but it sounds like Lean. It’s always nice to see management taking that approach with employees, since most of the airline industry seems to treat employees like a cost, rather than an asset (or real human beings).” SPESA Trip Report by Kathleen Fasanella – “I keep saying over and over till I’m blue … Continue reading →

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Deming Point 2 – Adopt a philosophy of cooperation where everyone wins and teach it to everyone by Josh Nankivel – “The win-win environment spearheaded by the project manager and sponsor should make everyone think about issues and conflicts in terms of what is the best method of dealing with it for the whole project and everyone involved.” The wanderings of a lean hitchhiker by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “These are great … Continue reading →