Category Archives: Management

Trust Your Staff to Make Decisions

Posted on June 22, 2010 by John Hunter

The failure to give your organization the flexibility to serve customers is a big mistake. Many companies make this mistake. Often the basic problem is managers don’t trust that their systems to hire and develop people that will make good decisions. The solution to this problem is not to give your staff no authority. The solution is to manage your systems so that you can trust your people. This is not as easy to do as it is to say, … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Respect, Software Development | Tagged airlines, bad customer service, Customer focus, Process improvement, usability | 8 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #101

Posted on June 20, 2010 by John Hunter

The management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. Also visit the Curious Cat Management Library for online management improvement articles. Why C level executives don’t engage in lean by Steven Spear – “Either they’ve been led to believe that it is the work of the shop floor technocrats for which their responsibility is hiring and funding, or they’re unprepared to lead, engaged in discovery and development, as is actually required.” A Systems … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged Lean thinking, management

Southwest Not Delta or United

Posted on June 14, 2010 by John Hunter

One of the posts highlighted in the last post was one example of how Southwest behaves. It wasn’t a one time thing. It was a common result of the system Southwest has in place where they treat customers like human beings that should be respected (as Southwest does with employees). Then you have the typical horrible treatment the other airlines practice. Like this example where Delta damages this guys bike and refuses to accept responsibility. That is until they suffered … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged airlines, bad customer service, Customer focus, respect for people, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #100

Posted on June 10, 2010 by John Hunter

I started the management improvement blog carnival in 2006. At the time the number of blogs posting useful management ideas had already grown to a large number. It took years after I started my Curious Cat Management Improvement site, in 1996, to have even a handful of consistently useful web sites for those interested in improving the management of organizations. Blogs really started the explosion of good management content online. Now we have more great blogs nearly every month. This … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged blogs, Carnival, leadership, Lean thinking, management | 7 Comments

Classic Management Theories Are Still Relevant

Posted on June 7, 2010 by John Hunter

Good management is good management: it doesn’t matter if someone figured out the good idea 100 years ago or last week. Are “Classic” Management Theories Still Relevant? It did make me wonder about the staying power of management models, processes, skills, and conventional wisdom… There are way too many people in our field that are not true professionals – they don’t do their homework, and rely too much on their own personal experience. They’re the ones who tend to jump … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged commentary, management, management experts, management history, Systems thinking, tips | 6 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #99

Posted on June 1, 2010 by John Hunter

Mark R. Hamel is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #99 on the Gemba Tales blog, highlights include: The Downside of Automation by Dan Markovitz – “…When I see companies leaping at technological solutions for time and attention management, I have a feeling that they’re in for a big disappointment.” Inefficiency through Default Meeting Times by Tim McMahon – “…Who decided meetings should be 30 or 60 minutes?” Fake Lean and the Spotting Thereof by Jon Miller – “…While lean is journey … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged management

Incentivizing Behavior Doesn’t Improve Results

Posted on May 28, 2010 by John Hunter

In the webcast Dan Pink shares research results exploring human motivation and ideas on how to manage organization given the scientific research on motivation. “once a task called for even rudimentary cognitive skill a larger reward led to poorer performance” “Pay people enough to take the issue of money off the table. Pay people enough so they are not thinking about money they are thinking about the work.” “3 factors lead to better performance: autonomy, mastery and purpose” [not additional … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Deming, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Science | Tagged extrinsic motivation, management research, management webcast, managing people, motivation, Psychology, purpose | 3 Comments

Finding Great Management Articles, Posts and Resources

Posted on May 26, 2010 by John Hunter

Reddit is a web site that ranks web pages by user votes. The site uses an algorithm that has a very large timeliness factor. So top ranked links move down the list fairly quickly. This results in a nice site to look at to find links others have found interesting recently. I created a management sub-reddit (a distinct topic-focused-area on the management improvement topics covered in this blog) in 2008. The sub-reddit seems to be about ready to reach a … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles | Tagged blogs, curiouscat, management, quote | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Carnival #98

Posted on May 23, 2010 by John Hunter

Karen Wilhelm is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #98 on the Lean Reflections blog. She highlights the LeanBlog Podcast #90 featuring Tim Turner, a plant team member at Toyota Kentucky, who compiled stories from 80 fellow team members from every level of the organization about what it feels like to be part of Toyota. She also mentions the management “subreddit” which I have been encouraging people to use. The sites community votes to highlight management links they found valuable which provides … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged management

Mistake Proofing Deployment of Software Code

Posted on May 19, 2010 by John Hunter

This is a continuation of my previous post: Improving Software Development with Automated Tests. Lets look at a typical poka-yoke example. A USB connector must be put in the right way up – for the connection to work properly and the communication to occur as intended. So to mistake proof the process the connector won’t allow the USB device to be put in upside down – the hardware connection designed to not allow that type of connection. Using a deployment … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Ruby, Software Development | 6 Comments

Management Blog Posts From May 2006

Posted on May 14, 2010 by John Hunter

I think looking back at some previous posts to the blog is worthwhile. Here are links to some of the posts from May 2006. The photo shows some South American artwork at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: I took the photo on a trip to New York. Using Data Effectively Requires Thought – The numbers are just proxies for the real situation. Look beyond the numbers you see to what they mean and understand how the numbers presented may not … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged management

Interruptions Can Severely Damage Performance

Posted on May 12, 2010 by John Hunter

Interruptions can severely degrade your performance. The type of work you are doing impacts the cost greatly. I have spent some of my time programming web applications. When I am doing that interruptions are a huge drain on my performance (for me the costs of interruptions while programming are far higher than any other type of work I have done – many times higher). If the interruption disrupts my flow (an interruption needn’t necessarily disrupt it I found, instant messages … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged Creativity, curiouscat, John Hunter, management, managing people, Paul Graham, Psychology, quote, respect for people, Software Development, Systems thinking, tips | 7 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #97

Posted on May 11, 2010 by John Hunter

Mike Wroblewski is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #97 on the Got Boondoggle? blog, highlights include: Bagel with a side of Jidoka by Evan Durant – “And the more we explore the concept of Jidoka the more we are forced to challenge our assumptions about what exactly the human and machine elements are. Often there are untapped opportunities to separate the two.” The Human in the Loop by Mark Rosenthal – “If we truly want to construct a work environment where … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Tagged management | 1 Comment

Ignoring Unpleasant Truths is Often Encouraged

Posted on May 4, 2010 by John Hunter

We can’t Handle the Truth Unfortunately, the proverbial “kill the messenger” is alive and well in American business. People who speak the truth are often labeled as a non-team player, a disrupter, a trouble maker or the current tag of being “not a good fit”. … It doesn’t take much to see that the truth can get watered down, altered or hidden entirely inside a company, especially as it moves vertically up the ladder. We may believe, at least in … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, respect for people, Systems thinking | 6 Comments

Nice Non-technical Control Chart Webcast

Posted on April 28, 2010 by John Hunter

This very brief introduction to control charts by PQ Systems provides a very watchable non-technical overview. Getting people to understand variation is important, and not easy. This video is one more quick reminder for those still trying to incorporate an understanding of variation into their view of the world. The idea is simple. But actually thinking with an understanding of variation people find difficult, it seems to me. It is very easy to continue to revert to special cause thinking … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged control chart, Deming, problem solving, Process improvement, Systems thinking, variation, webcast | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Carnival #95

Posted on April 20, 2010 by John Hunter

Bryan Lund is hosting Management Improvement Carnival #95 on the Training Within Industry blog, highlights include: Kathleen Fasenella talks about “How to Sew Faster” at Fashion Incubator… Leansters will appreciate the industrial engineer that resides in Kathleen’s work – Part 4 of her “How to Sew Faster” series talks about the 4Ms: Man, Machine, Material and Machines. Kathleen’s posts often remind me of Taichii Ohno’s writings Bryan Zeigler at Lean is Good dredges up an old Deming experiment to illustrate … Continue reading →