Category Archives: Management

Interview of Bill Hunter: Statistical Variability and Interactions

Interview of Bill Hunter on Statistical Variability and Interactions by Peter Scholtes, 1986:

In this interview Bill Hunter describes how results are made up of the impact and interactions of many variables. Many of those variables we don’t know about or account for. What we normally do is try to figure out the most important variables for processes and then experiment with those variables to find the best options given what we are trying to achieve.

Often the description of what is going on in such cases is that there is arbitrary error or random variation that influences the final results. What Bill discusses in this interview is that what is seen as arbitrary or random is often identifiably caused by specific variables. But often we don’t know what those variables are or how they are varying while we are getting different results over time.

He discusses how many research efforts seek to find the most important 2 variables and create a model based on those 2 variables to predict results. Even in PhD level research that is often done. He then discusses how to deal with other important variables.

He discusses the real world problems businesses must face in creating solutions that work.

If they are going to sell the product in Mississippi, and they are going to sell in Arizona and North Dakota, they have to have a robust product that will work in all these different conditions… It is not good enough for them to have a model that works sometimes… they’ve got to probe deeper and learn how relative humidity affects things and build that into the whole system in a different kind of way… they have to try and dig out the effects of these other x’s

So the business has to figure out the impact of many more variables in order to create reliable and robust products and services. This example is about variables that impact the use of the product by a customer, but the same concept applies to processes within your business.
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Profound Podcast with John Hunter, Part Two

John Willis interviewed me for his Profound podcast series, this posts is about part two of the interview (listen to part two of the podcast, John Hunter – Curious Cat). See my post on part one of the interview.

photo of John Hunter in front of graphic for Plan Do Study Act cycle

John Hunter presenting at Deming Institute management seminar in Hong Kong

This post provides links to more information on what we discussed in the podcast. Hopefully these links allow you to explore ideas that were mentioned in the podcast that you would like to learn more about.

Find more interviews of John Hunter.

Profound Podcast: John Hunter – Curious Cat

John Willis interviewed me for his Profound podcast series (listen to part one of the podcast, John Hunter – Curious Cat)

This post provides links to more information on what we discussed in the podcast. Hopefully these links allow you to explore ideas that were mentioned in the podcast and that you would like to learn more about.

We also talked about six sigma a bit on the podcast. While I believe six sigma falls far short of what I think a good management system should encompass I am less negative about six sigma than most Deming folks. I discussed my thoughts in: Deming and Six Sigma. In my opinion the biggest problems people complain about with six sigma efforts are about how poorly it is implemented, which is true for every management system I have seen. I have discussed the idea of poor implementation of management practices previously also: Why Use Lean (or Deming or…) if So Many Fail To Do So Effectively.

I will add another blog post for part two of the interview when I get a chance.

Listen to more interviews with me.

Interview of Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes on Better Management Practices

Interview with Bill Hunter, Brian Joiner and Peter Scholtes (listen to the interview) on a Public Affair, National Public Radio about improving management practices in the USA. The interview is over 30 years old now but the better management ideas are as true today as they were then.

Sadly we have not improved management practices based on these ideas very much. There have been improvements in how many organizations are managed but those improvements are so slow that fundamental problems remain serious problems decades later.

Brian Joiner

Brian Joiner (quotes from the interview):

You cannot really produce quality in any cost competitive way by relying on inspection to achieve quality. The only way you can really achieve quality in the modern sense is by improving all the processes that go to deliver that product or service. And that requires that you study those processes. And when you study them you very often need to collect and analyze data to find what are the causes of problems.

[We place] a great deal of emphasis on identifying the causes of problems rather than shooting from the hip and jumping to solutions before you really know what the problems are…
Many many dollars, many many hours of time are wasted on “solutions” that are not really solutions.

Bill Hunter:

The problem that employees at Motor Equipment were aware of at the very beginning of this whole business, and for a long time previous – I mean years, was that the city of Madison did not have a preventative maintenance program for vehicles because a mayor said, many years ago said “we fix trucks and other things when they break and then we will save money because we don’t be fiddling with them before.

Well the people out there realized the city was just losing money with this policy so they gathered data, they put it together, they put together a solid case that nobody could argue with that the city should have a preventative maintenance program.

They were able to put together a presentation to the mayor and city council people making their case that there should be a preventative maintenance program. The mayor and the city council people there listened to this presentation of the data and they conclusion was a good proposal.

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How to Lead From Any Level In the Organization

This was originally published on the Aileron blog; since it has been deleted from the blog I have reposted it here.

In looking to create great results, we have to balance getting results in the near-term with building our organization’s capability to maximize results in the long-term.

But what are the methods and ways in which we can help encourage this kind of continual improvement within our organization? And how can anyone, no matter their role or authority level, create value and shape their influence so that the company can amplify positive results?

To answer these questions, we asked John Hunter, a Senior Facilitator for the W. Edwards Deming Institute. John has also written a book called Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability, a book that provides an overview for using a systems view of management.

The Art of Influence in an Organization

John says that in Steven Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, there are three concepts brought up: the circle of control, the circle of influence, and the circle of concern. When it comes to leading and influencing other people in an organization, these concepts provide an effective framework to look at how you can influence decisions over time.

The circle of concern is what we are concerned with at work. “Our circle of concern covers those things we worry about. Often, we believe because we worry, that we should find solutions,” explains John. For example, an employee who regularly has face-to-face interaction with customers might have a sphere of concern that is centered on pleasing customers.

In your circle of control, you have much more autonomy—and much more perceived control. “The idea is that this domain is totally within your control, you don’t have to worry about convincing other people,” he says.

“This is a useful construct, but it is often much more complex than it sounds. What it really comes down to is almost everything is in your sphere of influence. When you’re talking about organizations—which are made up of people—nearly everything is about sphere of influence. Even the stuff that’s called circle of control is largely influence,” says John.

Recognize that you can change (and grow) your sphere of influence over time

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Learning from Customers

Don’t make it hard for customers to be heard.

Provide training and tools to employees to document customers voices. Train employees to learn as much as possible from customers. Value the time employees spend listening to customers and learning from them.

Most customers won’t speak up, those that do speak up provide valuable insight. Don’t waste what they offer.

graphic with the quote - The quality revolution is nothing more, or less, than the dramatic expansion of scientific problem solving using informed observation and directed experimentation to find out more about the process, the product and the customer. by George Box

Create a management system focused on continual improvement that is engaged in seeking out customer feedback and continually improving the value provided to customers.

Most organizations do the opposite of this. They make put many barriers in the way of customers speaking to anyone that will listen. They put systems in place to discourage feedback from customers.

Those organizations use surveys of customers that seek to limit customers voices to a few well defined paths that don’t learn from customers at all. How large USA companies design customer surveys.

  1. Did you think we were great, very good, good or other?
  2. If you didn’t think we were great which front line employees should we blame?

Sure they word it a little bit differently, but that is close to what I see almost every time I get a survey to complete. And there is no room to explain that the problems are not the fault of front line employees but decisions by the company to waste customers time. A few organizations behave differently. But not many.

Related: Customer delight requires understanding your customers needs and desires – Don’t Ignore Customer Complaints – Customer Focus by Everyone – Stated Versus Revealed Preference – Quality of the Entire Customer Experience

Interview of Bill Hunter: Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations

Interview of William G. Hunter on Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations by Peter Scholtes.

Bill taught a course at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations, which was co-sponsored by the business school, statistics department and industrial engineering department.

There were a few undergraduate students, more graduate students and even more students who were working full time (many of whom only took this course – they were not pursuing a degree at the university). The course met 7 to 9:30 PM (often going longer) once a week. The main focus of the course was projects undertaken at banks, industry, city government, etc..

The course was designed with an understanding of how adults learn. The interview includes a discussion of andragogy, pedagogy and how to facilitate learning by adults. The course was designed to let students apply the ideas on management improvement in real organizations while learning about the principles.

Bill discusses the parallels to how a manager applying management improvement principles is very similar to an educator facilitating adult learning. Rather than an authoritarian approach where the boss tells subordinates what to do a manager helps employees achieve better results by supporting their efforts.

A student mentioned a common objection that managers have to adopting the management improvement methods that promote respect for people:

[Applying these management methods] requires that the workers care about what they are doing, to contribute ideas, to get involved, to be enthusiastic and to try and make things work better and to improve productivity. They are not going to do that, I mean, they come and they are sort of in prison from the time they come to work until they go home. It is when they leave work that they get to live and enjoy themselves. Going to work is just getting a paycheck… It is simply not going to work.

Bill talks about the experience with Joe Turner and Terry Holmes at the City of Madison First Street Garage. Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming includes a couple pages on a project involving them (and Bill Hunter and Peter Scholtes). The bottom line is those two gave a presentation to the class sharing how the attitude in the question was overcome at their unionized workplace.

This question though is a challenging one. The problem is that overcoming decades of bad management practices that lead many people to think in the same way this questioner did is not easy. I have written several posts related to this topic, including: Effective Change Management Strategies and Tactics, People Take Time to Believe Claims of Changed Management Practices, How To Create a Continual Improvement Culture and A Practical Approach to Change: Some Strategies and Tools, a presentation by Peter Scholtes. Sadly you don’t have a huge advantage that the City of Madison project had, the involvement of Bill Hunter and Peter Scholtes.

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Management Improvement System Flavors

ASQ has asked their Influential Voices to explore the question “Is Agile the new Lean?” I have participated with the program since 2012: see my past blog posts as part of the ASQ Influential Voices program.

No Agile is not the new Lean.

On this blog, in 2008, I wrote about Future Directions for Agile Management:

As I learned about agile software development, what I saw was a great implementation of management improvement practices focused on software development that was very compatible with Deming’s management philosophy and lean thinking practices.

There are many useful concepts, tools and practices within what people refer to as agile software development. And the same can be said for lean. But they are distinct approaches (the links in this post flush out this idea more for those interested in learning more on that topic). That isn’t to say an organization cannot design their own solution that adopts ideas found in each approach. In fact doing so for software development makes sense in my opinion.

I have written about why trying to find a management recipe to follow is a very bad idea. You need to learn, experiment, adjust and keep iterating doing those 3 things.

Another way agile and lean are similar is that often organization try adopting the slogan name (agile or lean) and a couple concepts or practices they haphazardly pick from those methods and then create a management system that is not good.

What those seeking to improve management should do is to study concepts like lean and agile and then create a management system that works in their organization. To transform to what I would consider real lean or agile (instead of just using the name) requires that how management operates, and how work gets done, changes. This rarely happens other than in a small, though sometimes visible ways. Successful transformation requires continual iteration of improvements to the management system itself.

In my opinion the best starting point is to study W. Edwards Deming’s ideas and use that to create a management system that is continually improving. But I believe lean is the next best starting point and for software development I believe agile is the next best starting point.

If you decide to transform your management system using lean management practices as a focus I think you can do great things. I would delve deeply into lean and also learn about Deming and agile software development. And if you decide to create an agile styled management system then do that and learn from Deming and lean as you continually improve. In either case continually iterate and improve they management practices that are used.

In 2014 I wrote about my efforts to manage using ideas from Deming, agile and lean in: Building a Great Software Development Team.

I have explored agile and lean in previous posts: No True Lean Thinking or Agile Software Development (2010) – Agile Software Development and Deming (2014) – Applying Toyota Kata to Agile Retrospectives (2016) – Management Improvement Flavors (2005)

Bill Hunter and the Quality Movement

Watch this presentation by George Box at the 1st Annual Hunter Conference on Quality: Bill Hunter and the Quality Movement.

In the presentation George discusses interesting student design of experiments projects; read more on those efforts in 101 Ways to Design an Experiment, or Some Ideas About Teaching Design of Experiments.

To read more about the quality management efforts in Madison, Wisconsin see: Doing More With Less in the Public Sector: A Progress Report from Madison, Wisconsin and Quality In The Community One City’s Experience. Madison played a special role in the quality management movement in the USA. Those efforts made a visible difference in the practice of management we see in the world today.

George quoted a passage from Out of the Crisis by W. Edwards Deming that quotes Mayor Joe Sensenbrenner (who gives the introduction in the video) after the city mechanics convinced him of the need for a comprehensive preventive maintenance program:

You know how to find problems, you know how to solve them, and you wish to solve them. We should get out of your way and let you do it. I am very impressed with what you have shown us here today, and we are going to extend these methods to other departments in the city. I see no reason why they should not also be used in state and federal government.

George also discussed the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement (that Bill and George established at the University of Wisconsin). Reports by George and Bill that were published by the Center are available online.

George’s closing statement:

We carry in our hearts the inspiring memory of not only a scholar but a man that was resourceful, warm, skillful, courageous, optimistic, helpful, enterprising and generous. His career was whole and balanced in a way that is rare and as we grieve his death we also celebrate the life of a remarkable man.

George also spoke at the speaker’s dinner for this conference and his remarks were published as William G. Hunter: an Innovator and Catalyst for Quality Improvement.

Special announcement: I will be speaking at George Box’s Centenary Celebration, 18 October 2019 in Madison, Wisconsin. The UW Department of Statistics will be hosting the one-day conference.

Related: Comments from others on working with Bill Hunter – My (John Hunter) start with quality management – Quality Comes to City Hall – The Aim Should be the Best Life, Not Work versus Life Balance – Positivity and Joy in Work

How to Successfully Lead Change Efforts

ASQ has asked their Influential Voices to explore the question “How can an individual become a successful Change Leader?” I have participated with the program since 2012: see my past blog posts as part of the ASQ Influential Voices program.

In order to lead efforts to improve the management of an organization understanding how people will react to change is critical. For that reason I have written about change management often on this blog since I started publishing it in 2004.

In, Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods?, I wrote:

It seems that if there were better ways to manage, people would adopt those methods. But this just isn’t the case; sometimes better methods will be adopted but often they won’t. People can be very attached to the way things have always been done. Or they can just be uncomfortable with the prospect of trying something new.

Leading change efforts requires paying attention to the existing conditions: the culture, the motivation to adopt this change and/or the motivation to resist it, the history of change where the change is being attempted and the reasons the change is desired (by at least you and hopefully others). And then you need to build a case for the change and manage the process.

photo of John Hunter

John Hunter, Frijoles Canyon, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, USA.

In some case it isn’t that complicated, there is interest in the change from a critical mass of people, the change isn’t that difficult, the advantages are obvious to many people and no one has a strong interest in resisting the change (that has the power to make adopting the change difficult). In that case you are lucky, but that is often not the case, even though many attempts to change are managed with the hope that no real effort will be needed to get the change adopted.

Those that successfully lead change efforts know when to invest the effort in getting the change adopted. They study (and often can sense) where the effort will need to be placed in this particular effort and plan ahead to support the adoption of the change and to avoid problems that can greatly set back the efforts to improve the existing system.

And they put effort into creating a culture that will make change efforts easier going forward. We need continual improvement of how we work and that requires continual change. We need to build systems that support that and coach people so they are comfortable with that.

I included some ideas on how to grow your circle of influence: which would be useful development strategies for someone seeking to become a successful change leader.

Communication is an Important Part of Any Change Effort

I believe the best way to communicate such changes is to explain how they tie into the long term vision of the organization. This requires that such a vision actually exists (which is often not the case). Then all strategies are communicated based on how they support and integrate with that vision. In addition that communication strategy incorporates an understanding about what weaknesses with past practices are addressed by this new strategy.

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