Category Archives: Carnival

Listening, Responding, Refining by Matt Cutts – “But you don’t need blogs or digg-like sites in this picture to respond to feedback; those are just tools. The important thing is the process. It’s a process that many groups at Google use, and that (frankly) every team at Google should consider using.” related Curious Cat post: Dell Innovation Deming Revisited by Skip Angel – “The entire organization should look at the processes across the organization and determine if everyone is working … Continue reading →

Good is not almost as good as great by Seth Godin – “They understand what a customer wants. They’re not just better than good. They’re playing a totally different game.” Great point (says John Hunter) “Fire half your salesforce. Then, give the remainder, the top people, a big raise, and use the money left over to steal the best salespeople you can find” Not a great point (John again), instead change your system to support the behaviors you want to … Continue reading →

How are stories of successful companies leading us astray? by Karen Wilhelm – “correlation does not equal causation, a inspecting a “sample” consisting only of good parts will not yield good information about a process, and anecdotal evidence is interesting but not acceptable as proof of a hypothesis.” SBTI Response to WSJ Article by Joe Ficalora and Joe Costello – “By and large the executives who have left GE and AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) and other Six-Sigma companies who became top … Continue reading →

Management Improvement ideas from around the web: Lean Q&A by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “There is no recipe, no three-ring binder approach to lean. If someone brings you an approach and says “here is the best way to implement lean,” please, run away.” Seven steps to remarkable customer service by Joel Spolsky – “The superficial and immediate solution is just to solve the customer’s problem. But when you think a little harder you can usually find a deeper solution” The Seven … Continue reading →

New Directions, Bad Lean Strategies and Leading Lean by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “Throughout my travels, I continue to be frustrated with the lack of creative thinking that is going into lean transformation strategies… When you begin convincing yourself that you are on the journey, when you really are not, you will get disappointed in the results and not really learn what should be different.” Start with the Customer, and Work Backwards by Peter Abilla – “Describe in precise detail the … Continue reading →