Category Archives: Management

From Lean Tools to Lean Management

Posted on November 22, 2006 by John Hunter

From lean tools to lean management (link broken by site so I removed it) by Jim Womack: Only management by science through constant experimentation to answer questions can produce sustainable improvements in value streams. (Toyota’s A3 is a wonderful management tool for putting science to work and I’ll have more to say about it in the next few months.) Please understand: Lean tools are great. We all need to master and deploy them, and our efforts of the last 15 … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Quality tools, Systems thinking

More Lean Podcasts

Posted on November 22, 2006 by John Hunter

New from the Lean Blog: Jamie Flinchbaugh on Educating Leadership Previously: Jim Huntzinger on Lean Accounting, Norman Bodek on Toyota’s recent quality issues and lean leadership and Jamie Flinchbaugh on Lean Leadership. As expected these are well worth listening to. Related: management webcast posts – lean thinking articles and online resources – Toyota production system posts – articles by Jamie Flinchbaugh

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, webcast

European Blackout: Human Error-Not

Posted on November 18, 2006 by John Hunter

German utility E.On says major European blackout was caused by human error [the broken link was removed] Germany utility E.On AG said Wednesday that a European-wide blackout earlier this month that left millions without power was the result of human error and not any technical glitches. The Duesseldorf-based company said the power outage, which led to blackouts in parts of Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Spain on Nov. 4, was not caused by a lack of proper maintenance or … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Fast Company: What drives Toyota?

Posted on November 16, 2006 by John Hunter

Very good article – What drives Toyota? [the broken link was removed] by Charles Fishman: So a team of assembly employees made a real decision. Don’t make the worker pick the parts; let him focus on installing them. The idea seems obvious in retrospect: Deliver a kit of presorted visors and seat belts–one kit per car, each containing exactly the right parts. The team applied the simplest technology available, the blue Rubbermaid caddy. “We went just down the road to … Continue reading →

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

Sub-Optimize

Posted on November 15, 2006 by John Hunter

From the “you call this agile?” department by Joel Spolsky: Yes, context switching is painful. Yes, you need to take into account the costs of context switching when you interrupt someone’s work. But every decision has pros and cons and when I hear a manager who is just talking about the cons without considering the pros, that manager is not doing their job. This is a simple article about basically choosing to sub optimize a part to optimize the whole. … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Software Development, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

TPS and Jidoka

Posted on November 15, 2006 by John Hunter

TPS & Jidoka, interview of Tomo “Tom” Harada by Art Smalley: There are two different parts to Jidoka. The first meaning is to separate man from machine. It was normal in the original parent company for a single young woman to operate many machines since they were automated. So when Mr. Ohno came to the automotive company after WWII and saw one man operating one machine tool he thought that it was strange and inefficient. He embarked upon a path … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Manufacturing, Quality tools, Toyota Production System (TPS)

Ackoff’s F-laws: Common Sins of Management

Posted on November 11, 2006 by John Hunter

Russ Ackoff once again does a great job of providing insight into management. I highly recommend A Little Book of f-Laws [the broken link was removed] where Ackoff, with Herbert Addison and Sally Bibb, present 13 common sins of management, such as: Managers who don’t know how to measure what they want settle for wanting what they can measure See: Deming’s thoughts on unknown and unknowable figures. A book with over 80 management flaws (er I mean f-Laws) will be … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Management Articles, quote | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Information Quality In Health Care

Posted on November 11, 2006 by John Hunter

The Life and Death Results of Information Quality by Doug Johnson: I believe poor information and the inability to make medical decisions with correct, complete and timely information kills more people than any single disease in the United States. In the same way we have tagged diabetes with the term “the silent killer,” poor information quality creeps into our decision-making capabilities like a thief in the night. When patients die because their blood glucose levels get too high after surgery, … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Health care, Management

Lean Education Meeting Slides

Posted on November 10, 2006 by John Hunter

Presentation slides from the joint The Lean Aerospace Initiative [the broken link was removed] and LEAN joint meeting (October 16-18, 2006) are available [the broken link was removed – the links that relied on MIT to retain historical information using technology over the long term failed. It is sad MIT doesn’t understand how to manage information using technology more effectively. They really should learn how to do the extremely basic tasks of combining technology and management if they expect to … Continue reading →

Posted in Education, Management

Amazon Innovation

Posted on November 9, 2006 by John Hunter

I believe Amazon uses technology very well. They have done many innovative things. They have been less successful at turning their technology into big profits. But I continue to believe they have a good shot at doing so going forward Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, Management, Popular | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

Five Pragmatic Practices

Posted on November 8, 2006 by John Hunter

Becoming a Great Manager: Five Pragmatic Practices by Esther Derby [the broken link was removed] 1) Decide What To Do and What Not To Do Deciding what to do and what not to do helps focus efforts on the important work – work that will contribute to the bottom line of the company. Articulating a mission has another benefit: When everyone in your group knows the mission and how the work they do contributes to it, they will be able … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Investing in Six Sigma

Posted on November 5, 2006 by John Hunter

Bank of America: Investing in Six Sigma [the broken link was removed] by Thomas Hoffman: To help the bank’s IT organization align more strategically with its businesses, Desoer has challenged her IT staff to learn more about the bank’s external customers and their needs. “The voice of the customer is what you start with when you embark on a Six Sigma piece of work,” she says. I think in reality there are several things needed at the starting block but … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, IT, Management, Six sigma, Software Development | Tagged ,

Respect for Workers

Posted on November 4, 2006 by John Hunter

Respect at “In-N-Out” Burger: They start employees at almost $10, quite a premium over all the other fast food places that are trying to get the cheapest labor possible. … But the thing that really jumped out at me was a brief exchange with a college-age worker who left a job with a law firm to work at In-N-Out. Not only was the pay better, but they treat him with RESPECT at In-N-Out. NPR podcast: Pay Helps Keep Workers at … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

No Customer Focus

Posted on November 3, 2006 by John Hunter

John Battelle writes the excellent searchblog. A recent post, Rant: The Comcast HD DVR Is Simply, Terribly Awful, provides another example of a company lacking customer focus. See the comments for even more confirmation of the lack of customer focus. The interface is simply abominable. Unintuitive and careless, it copies the major features of Tivo’s approach but fails at every single detail – and in UI design, everything is in the details. No surprisingly, it utterly misses the core purpose … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, IT, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

What is Wrong with MBA’s

Posted on November 2, 2006 by John Hunter

Two interesting posts from Compound Thinking: What is Management? [the broken link was removed – this is one of many examples of a good blog’s domain lapsing and being bought by someone to promote unrelated items.]: Management is helping others become great. Well said. As Deming would say management’s responsibility is to work on improving the system (to allow everyone in the system to do great work). This encompasses a wide variety of things, including: creating sensible hiring processes designing … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Education, Management | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Simple Cell Phone

Posted on October 31, 2006 by John Hunter

Awhile back we posted about the lack of simple phones now Motorola is looking at this market. See: Motorola’s Dumb Phone: Looking for more customers, the company did extensive market research in poor countries. The result: the company’s slimmest phone yet, boasting cutting-edge technology that–rather than adding complexity–extends battery life and makes the phone simpler to use. I don’t think these features are only desired in poor countries, but I am not basing that on any market research just my … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management