Category Archives: Management

Management Improvement Carnival #106

Posted on August 10, 2010 by John Hunter

Jon Miller hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #106 on his blog, highlights include: 3 Observations of Healthcare vs. Construction by Mike Lombard. Lombi gives us his fresh view on the differences between construction businesses and healthcare organizations, two months after moving to a healthcare lean leader position. Culture is all about people and how they look at the world. I’m looking forward to more observations from Lombi on the culture in healthcare as he continues to explore and support process … Continue reading →

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Build an Environment Where Intrinsic Motivation Flourishes

Posted on August 8, 2010 by John Hunter

50 years after Douglas McGregor’s classic, The Human Side of Enterprise, too many managers still have not learned that using extrinsic motivation is not an effective way to manage complex human systems (organizations). The issue is important to me because their is a huge amount of poor management based on this thinking (focused on how people need to be fixed/motivated) instead of fixing what management really needs to fix. You can succeed as a manager, and progress in your career, … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Stop Starting and Start Finishing – Jason Yip

Posted on August 5, 2010 by John Hunter

Jason Yip explores the value of reducing work in process and reducing context switching costs to optimize throughput. By designing processes to work on projects serially instead of in parallel we reduce context switching, and other costs, of multitasking. Related: Multi-Tasking: Why Projects Take so Long – The Importance of Making Problems Visible – One piece flow (continuous flow) – Kanban

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

How to Manage What You Can’t Measure

Posted on August 4, 2010 by John Hunter

In Out of the Crisis, page 121, Dr. Deming wrote: the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable (Lloyd S. Nelson, director of statistical methods for the Nashua corporation), but successful management must nevertheless take account of them. So what do you do then? I am a strong advocate of Deming’s ideas on management. I see understanding system thinking, psychology, the theory of knowledge and variation as the tools to use when you can’t get … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Popular, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #105

Posted on August 1, 2010 by John Hunter

The management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. Also try our collected management articles and blogs posts at: Curious Cat Management articles. Instead of a Layoff by Gregg Stocker – “Everyone has a stake in the company. When a company has a history of layoffs, though, people feel powerless, disconnected, and expendable. The organization’s leaders send a very clear message that employees are not important when jobs are cut in response to … Continue reading →

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Delighting Customers

Posted on July 26, 2010 by John Hunter

If you have customers that see you as adequate you will keep customers based on inertia. But you have several big problems awaiting you. Those trying to win your customers business only have to overcome inertia – which can be very low hurdle (saving a small bit of money, some minor additional feature). If your customers are delighted they won’t leave (by and large) without significant reasons to. Also your attempts to increase price are very likely to lead to … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Customer focus, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Actionable Metrics

Posted on July 22, 2010 by John Hunter

Metrics are valuable when they are actionable. Think about what will be done if certain results are shown by the data. If you can’t think of actions you would take, it may be that metric is not worth tracking. Metrics should be operationally defined so that the data is collected properly. Without operationally definitions data collected by more than one person will often include measurement error (in this case, the resulting data showing the results of different people measuring different … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #104

Posted on July 21, 2010 by John Hunter

Wally Bock hosts his first carnival for us, Management Improvement Carnival #104, on the Three Star Leadership Blog. He has long posted his Leadership Reading to Start Your Week and Midweek Look at the Independent Business Blogs that also highlight great posts. Highlights for this carnival include: From Mary Jo Asmus: Coaching Others: Short Term Pain for Long Term Gain “One of the biggest pushbacks I get from those I teach almost always has to do with the time that … Continue reading →

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The Problem is Likely Not the Person Pointing Out The Problem

Posted on July 19, 2010 by John Hunter

I believe the problem is likely not the person pointing out the problem. Now granted I have often been that person. Part of what I have been tasked with doing in various jobs is finding ways to improve the performance of the organization. I was told the managers wanted to hear about problems from someone working there, so I was asked to do so. What it often meant was they wanted someone to fix the problems they thought existed not … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Building on Successful Improvement

Posted on July 13, 2010 by John Hunter

Do ‘Quick Wins’ Hurt Lean Initiatives? This becomes very difficult, since in many organizations these executives have the strategic attention span equivalent to the life-cycle of a mayfly. When the ‘quick win’ approach is taken, the savings / impact becomes like a drug to the executives. They see the benefit and they want more – NOW. Usually they are able to get this for a while, since they are very interested in the program at the beginning and show their … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #103

Posted on July 10, 2010 by John Hunter

Jamie Flinchbaugh hosts the Management Improvement Carnival #103 on his blog, highlights include: How do you change a culture? – Obviously a big question and one I spend considerable time on, but LeanRI.org throws in on a challenging and important question. Spot the Northwest Flight Attendant – Simon Sinek demonstrates how pervasive culture can be and how it impacts customer service, and even customer culture. UK Government Wants Lean and Six Sigma or Just Cost Cutting – Mark Graban takes … Continue reading →

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Involve IT Staff in Business Process Improvement

Posted on July 6, 2010 by John Hunter

I started out basically working on management improvement from the start of my career. My makeup (I am never satisfied and figure things should always be better) along with a few traits, experiences and probably even genes made this a natural fit for me. I tend to take the long view and find fire fighting a waste of time. Why fix some symptom, I want to fix the system so that problem doesn’t happen again. My father worked in statistics, … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, IT, Management, Popular, Process improvement, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Improving the Recruitment Process

Posted on July 3, 2010 by John Hunter

I have thought the recruiting process for hiring staff was very inefficient. I still think it is very inefficient. Not only do companies waste time or resources we also do not do a good job systemically placing the right people in the right jobs effectively. So there is waste is the process of hiring and also a huge amount of waste in not doing well at finding the best fits for people and jobs. So we have lots of jobs … Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Carnival #102

Posted on July 1, 2010 by John Hunter

12 Things Good Bosses Believe by Robert I. Sutton – “My success – and that of my people – depends largely on being the master of obvious and mundane things, not on magical, obscure, or breakthrough ideas or methods.” [I think this is so true. Ever manager should repeat this over and over every day until they give the boring details the attention it deserves over the flashy stuff – John]. Should You Use a Business/IT Liaison Person? No! by … Continue reading →

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The Illusion of Knowledge

Posted on June 28, 2010 by John Hunter

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J. Boorstin Great quote on a topic I discussed in, How We Know What We Know. Dr. Deming included the theory of knowledge as one of the 4 pillars of his management system. When you do not question what you think you know, and conventional thinking, that will keep you from discovery. Now much of conventional wisdom is right, so you often do well … Continue reading →

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Management Blog Posts From June 2006

Posted on June 26, 2010 by John Hunter

Management Advice Failures – It is amazing to me how often we accept non-solutions. If someone objects that we have tried that “solution” and it didn’t work they are often shut down with a version of: “don’t be negative” or “I don’t want to hear we tried that before and it didn’t work” (we are different now) or “we need team players” or “if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem”… Edward Tufte’s new … Continue reading →

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