Category Archives: Management

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 … Continue reading

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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. … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Design the Management System with an Appreciation of Confirmation Bias

To create strong organizations we must create management systems using an appreciation of psychology. We must understand that people have tendencies that must be addressed by designing a management system built to take advantage of the strength those people bring … Continue reading

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My Willing Worker Award

Here is an image of the employee of the quarter award I received from Bill Scherkenbach. I have received other awards and I don’t think those awards were given with any more understanding of the contributions to results due to … Continue reading

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20 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2018

These posts were the most popular posts on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog in 2018 (as measured by page views, as recorded by my analytics application). The Toyota Way – Two Pillars (2010) How to Manage What You Can’t … Continue reading

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Effective Change Management Strategies and Tactics

ASQ has asked their Influential Voices to respond to the question: What are some recommended strategies or tactics to help achieve successful change management? See my past blog posts as part of the ASQ Influential Voices program (I have participated … Continue reading

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

Peter Scholtes on Teams and Viewing the Organization as a System

In this presentation Peter Scholtes provides an explanation of teams within the context of understanding an organization of a system: We will not improve our ability to achieve our purpose by empowering people or holding people accountable. I know that … Continue reading

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The Best Form of Fire Fighting is None at All

The best form of problem solving is to avoid problems altogether. At the point you have a “fire” in your organizaiton you have to fight it. But it is better to create systems that avoid fires taking hold in the … Continue reading

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Good Project Management Practices

I find myself working as a project manager, or a program management consultant more frequently in the last few years. As would be expected by those reading the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog, my project management views are based on … Continue reading

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Poorly Stratified Data Leads to Mistakes in Analysis

Stratification can help provide insight into the nature of the real world situation. Determining what is a sensible conclusion to draw and what is not is aided by an understanding of statistics and expert knowledge of the situation the data is drawn from. Continue reading

Posted in Data, Management, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments