Category Archives: IT

IT Outsourcing Slowing

Posted on July 15, 2006 by John Hunter

Outsourcing bubble getting Busted: What should India do? – commenting on the 2006 Global IT Outsourcing Study Essentially the study says the outsourcing IT will continue to grow though more slowly than it has. It also states the benefits of outsourcing have not reached the level that was predicted for a number of reasons. The study predicts vastly increased competition from China for IT outsourcing work (which reinforces the general consensus). Perhaps most interesting, however, is the phenomenal growth in … Continue reading →

Posted in China, Economics, India, IT, Management | 2 Comments

Usability Failures

Posted on July 15, 2006 by John Hunter

‘Smart’ phones, stupid punters? A survey* of 15,000 “faulty” devices by mobile data provider WDSGlobal found 63 per cent of the one in seven new phones which are returned have nothing wrong with them. I believe one in seven is the model of phone. I guess if you operationally define “nothing wrong” as a failure to work as the manufacturer intended that would be true. But is that what really matters? What is the number of defects that should be … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

How Google Works

Posted on July 9, 2006 by John Hunter

How Google Works [the broken link was removed] by David F. Carr An interesting look at the technology system behind Google. “But this is the start of the story,” he adds, part of an approach that says “don’t necessarily do it the way everyone else did. Just find some way of doing it cheap and effectively—so we can learn.” Google was driven from the beginning by engineers that sought to do what was best. Since those engineers were the founders … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Innovation, IT, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged | 4 Comments

Our Policy is to Stick Our Heads in the Sand

Posted on June 28, 2006 by John Hunter

Conversation with Boston Volkswagen [the broken link was removed] by Paul Graham I recently looked into getting a new car. The Kafkaesque conversation that resulted would have been funny if it were happening to someone else. If only Volkswagen could redesign the sales process to be as good as their cars…. For me it did happen to someone else so it is funny 🙂 However, I run across similar thinking and “customer service” and then I don’t find it as … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Innovation, IT, Management | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Innovation Example

Posted on June 27, 2006 by John Hunter

Farecast is a cool internet application, and one that might actual save you money to buy, say a digital camera. Farecast provides data and analysis to those looking to purchase airplane tickets. The graph above shows ticket prices for tickets between Boston and Washington DC over the last 60 days. I have thought for quite some time I need better data to make the best purchase decisions. Farecast seems like a great fit.

Posted in Fun, Innovation, IT, Systems thinking | 3 Comments

Toyota IT for Kaizen

Posted on June 22, 2006 by John Hunter

How Toyota Uses Information Technology (IT) for Kaizen [the broken link was removed] by Jon Miller. He quotes Toyota’s CIO from the Japanese article: Part of my job as CIO is to take on these company-wide issues and use this data to make improvement suggestions when I have an opportunity to meet with the managing executives. Of course, it requires more than me making suggestions for Toyota to make good use of IT. The departments who are the users of … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus

Posted on April 13, 2006 by John Hunter

Reddit is a site for what’s new and popular on the web (votes by the user community rate web links). That user community is highly skewed toward software engineers who are a bit irreverent (as some of the language in this post shows). Today Reddit linked to: Introducing the Dell De-Crapifier… [the broken link was removed] which is essentially a tool to help you get rid of all the extra software you get with the Dell computer. Dell gets paid … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Deming’s 14 Obligations of Management

Posted on February 25, 2006 by John Hunter

Deming and his 14 Points [the broken link was removed] with comments from the Random Thoughts from a CTO blog. Curious Cat’s Deming on Management Deming’s 14 Points on the Curious Cat site 2 minute webcast of Deming (and Robert Reich) on constancy of purpose [the broken link was removed] Constancy of Purpose definition

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Management Articles | Tagged

Planet Kaizen

Posted on December 18, 2005 by John Hunter

Toyota has a section on their web site called Planet Kaizen [the broken link to www.toyota.com/planetkaizen was removed, this is a rare instance where they are doing us a favor by removing this poorly designed application from the internet]: “what happens when you dig a little deeper and peel back the sheet metal to discover what makes a Toyota a Toyota.” It requires Flash to view Planet Kaizen. I think it has amazingly bad visual controls (as do many flash … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bad Visual Controls – Software

Posted on December 18, 2005 by John Hunter

Bad Visual Controls Example: Software via Lean Manufacturing Blog. Funny example. If I had to use it I might use a different adjective. In the example, the software uses icons that are not obvious. The user has pasted labels on their monitor with text description of each icon. The labels are smaller than the icons. Some resources for web usability and software usability “A user interface is well-designed when the program behaves exactly how the user thought it would.” (that … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, IT, Lean thinking, Management, Software Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

IQ and Muda: Information Quality Eliminates Waste

Posted on December 1, 2005 by John Hunter

IQ and Muda: Information Quality Eliminates Waste [the broken link was removed] by Larry English The article provides an explanation of each of these 9 types of muda and relates them to information quality: There are nine types of muda in information quality: Muda of overproduction Muda of inventory Muda of repair/rejects Muda of motion Muda of processing Muda of transport Muda of waiting Muda of process failure caused by defective information Muda of wrong or suboptimized decisions caused by … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, IT, Management | Tagged ,

Management Science for Software Engineering

Posted on November 19, 2005 by John Hunter

Management Science for Software Engineering [the broken link was removed]: using the Theory of Constraints 5 focusing steps and the drum-buffer-rope solution for production flow problems, it was possible to increase the productivity of a sustained engineering department by more than 200%. In the final, quarter of the study period, a 25% increase (elevation) of the capacity constrained resource, produces a 25% increase in overall system throughput – just as the theory and model would predict. Read the full paper … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management Articles, Software Development, Theory of Constraints | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Management Training Program

Posted on October 28, 2005 by John Hunter

Fog Creek Software Management Training Program by Joel Spolsky: Finally, when you’re really really good, they let you hang around with Yussef on the ovens. Yussef was about 100 years old and so good at running the ovens it was scary. When Gabbi tried to show me how to solve the problem of bread sticking to the conveyer belts on the way out of the oven, he ran back and forth like a lunatic for ten minutes, turning knobs, pulling … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Lean Manufacturing Webinar

Posted on October 15, 2005 by John Hunter

Plant Design for Lean Manufacturing – view webinar archive [I removed the broken link] This webinar archive is a series of slides with an audio track (my guess is the slides should be flipped as you listen though this didn’t happen for me). Use of webinars to present management improvement content over the web is fairly limited at this time. And archived webinars that are available on the public web (not hidden behind locked doors (login required) – whether they … Continue reading →

Posted in India, IT, Lean thinking, Management | Tagged ,

Innovation in Software Development Process

Posted on October 5, 2005 by John Hunter

Innovation in MSF v4.0 [the broken link was removed] The Work Remaining report uses a cumulative flow chart developed for Lean Manufacturing. Work-in-progress and queuing can be monitored with this report in order to identify bottlenecks and address issues which are affecting throughput and reducing capacity. … MSF takes advantage of trustworthy transparency by focusing on the use of reports to drive objective, rational management decisions and interventions. MSF metrics have been selected to be simple, self-generating, relevant and leading … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Software Development | Tagged

Car Navigation Systems

Posted on September 7, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement Thinking About in-car Navigation Systems by Robert Scoble: What’s frustrating is there’s no way to report a mistake. So, everyone who has Toyota’s system is doomed to repeat the same errors. While Toyota is doing great things they still have things to learn. As the quote above indicates they don’t think like software companies. Software companies have learned to take every advantage of the internet to collect feedback. And those used to such system will find fault … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management