Category Archives: IT

What Kind of Management Does This?

Posted on August 31, 2005 by John Hunter

Already Mired in Sales Slump, Gap Closes Two Most Popular Internet Stores Both Gap.com and OldNavy.com have been closed for the past week, driving frustrated shoppers like Kira Storch of San Francisco to other Web sites to buy clothes. … Hoping to minimize the customer inconvenience, Gap waited until after most back-to-school shopping had been finished before launching a “soup-to-nuts” overhaul of its major e-commerce sites, said company spokeswoman Kris Marubio. She said the changes were too complex to enable … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development | 1 Comment

Indian Firms Learning From Toyota

Posted on August 15, 2005 by John Hunter

Taking A Page From Toyota’s Playbook [the broken link has been removed], Business Week: The goal for Wipro is to become the Toyota of business services. Toyota preaches continuous improvement, respect for employees, learning, and embracing change. “It’s the soft stuff that makes a big impact on the hard numbers,” says Kurien, a cheerful 45-year-old. There is plenty of hard-edged analysis, as well. To embrace Toyota’s methods, Kurien last year assigned teams to examine business processes, break them into discrete … Continue reading →

Posted in India, IT, Management, Process improvement, Respect, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

What Business Can Learn from Open Source

Posted on August 9, 2005 by John Hunter

What Business Can Learn from Open Source by Paul Graham As usual Paul Graham’s new article is a great read. I think the most important of the new principles business has to learn is that people work a lot harder on stuff they like. Well, that’s news to no one. So how can I claim business has to learn it? When I say business doesn’t know this, I mean the structure of business doesn’t reflect it. … When I’m writing … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development | 5 Comments

Agile Management

Posted on July 19, 2005 by John Hunter

David Anderson publishes the Agile Management Blog, wrote the Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results, and works for Microsoft. Robert Scoble, technical evangelist [the broken link was removed], also with Microsoft, has posted an online video interview with David Anderson [the broken link was removed] on Microsoft’s Chanel 9 online. Quote by David Anderson, from the video: “My work focuses on applying the teachings of two management science gurus, one is Eli Goldratt … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Software Development, webcast | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Wikipedia and Anti – Elitism

Posted on January 3, 2005 by John Hunter

re: recent post by by Larry Sanger, co-founder of Wikipedia: Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism Wikipedia is an awesome example of the power of the internet. Essentially it is a freeware, open source encyclopedia. The results are amazingly good, still it could be improved. Many have knocked the Wikipedia because they can’t believe a project that allows anyone to edit the content could possibly work. I must admit I am amazed how well it does work. Larry’s long post … Continue reading →

Posted in IT