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Category Archives: Science
Getting Retweeted by Marc Andreessen Generated a Flood of Retweets
On Twitter today I was getting more than 30 times the notifications I normally get. So I took a look to see what is going on. One of my tweets was getting retweeted and liked quite a lot (nearly 100 times each, so far). I figure most likely someone with many more followers than I must have retweeted it. A bit more investigation and sure enough that is what happened. Marc Andreessen had retweeted it. He has 432,000 followers (a … Continue reading
Posted in Innovation, Science
Tagged Fun, Health care, Innovation, internet
Encouraging the Next Generation of STEM Professionals
In the most recent ASQ Influential Voices post, Bill Troy, ASQ CEO, asks: how should we encourage the next generation of STEM Professionals? I addressed a similar question in: Future Engineers and Scientists, which provides many details on this question. The advantages of gaining science, technology, engineering and math skills (STEM) are fairly well known. However, even so, that is something to emphasize in order to encourage the next generation. While it is fairly well known it still helps to … Continue reading
George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement
George Box lecture on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement at the Second International Tampere Conference in Statistics, University of Tampere, Finland (1987). Early on he shows a graph showing the problems with American cars steady over a 10 years period. Then he overlays the results for Japanese cars which show a steady and significant decline of the same period. Those who didn’t get to see presentations before power point also get a chance to see old school, hand drawn, overhead … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, Science, Statistics
Tagged control chart, Design of Experiments, Europe, experiments, George Box, interactions, learning, management history, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science, Statistics, webcast
The Art of Discovery
Quality and The Art of Discovery by Professor George Box (1990): Quotes by George Box in the video: “I think of statistical methods as the use of science to make sense of numbers” “The scientific method is how we increase the rate at which we find things out.” “I think the quality revolution is nothing more, or less, than the dramatic expansion of the of scientific problem solving using informed observation and directed experimentation to find out more about the … Continue reading
Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science, Statistics
Tagged control chart, curiouscat, Data, evidence based management, experiments, George Box, Innovation, learning, Process improvement, quote, respect for people, Statistics, technology, webcast
4 Comments
Introductory Videos on Using Design of Experiments to Improve Results
The video shows Stu Hunter discussing design of experiments in 1966. It might be a bit slow going at first but the full set of videos really does give you a quick overview of the many important aspects of design of experiments including factorial designed experiments, fractional factorial design, blocking and response surface design. It really is quite good, if you find the start too slow for you skip down to the second video and watch it. My guess is, … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Design of Experiments, Science, Six sigma, Statistics
Tagged Data, Design of Experiments, engineering, experiments, Process improvement, Science, Six sigma, Statistics, variation, webcast
6 Comments
Richard Feynman Explains the PDSA Cycle
Ok, really Richard Feynman Explains the scientific method. But his thoughts make the similarity between the PDSA cycle and the scientific method obvious. 1) Plan, hypothesis. You make a guess about a theory (in using the PDSA cycle this step is often missed, while in the scientific method this is of the highest priority). You make a prediction based on that theory. 2) Do the experiment 3) Study the results If the results disprove the theory you were wrong. If … Continue reading
Posted in Process improvement, Quality tools, Science
Tagged experiments, PDSA, Popular, prediction, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science
3 Comments
ASQ Influential Voices: Future Engineers and Scientists
As I mentioned previously, I will be posting on a topics raised by Paul Borawski, CEO, ASQ as part of ASQ Influential Voices. This month Paul’s post, New Bloggers, STEM & More, looks at the development of future engineers. How can we, those who understand, use, and love science and technology, pass it along. I have discussed this issue often, on one of my other blogs: Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog: Encouraging Curiosity in Kids, Passion for Mechanical Engineering … Continue reading
Posted in Education, Science
Tagged ASQ Influential Voices, Education, engineering, quality
3 Comments
One factor at a time (OFAT) Versus Factorial Designs
Guest post by Bradley Jones Almost a hundred years ago R. A. Fisher‘s boss published an article espousing OFAT (one factor at a time). Fisher responded with an article of his own laying out his justification for factorial design. I admire the courage it took to contradict his boss in print! Fisher’s argument was mainly about efficiency – that you could learn as much about many factors as you learned about one in the same number of trials. Saving money … Continue reading
Posted in Data, Design of Experiments, Popular, Quality tools, Science, Six sigma, Statistics
Tagged Design of Experiments, guest post, Popular, Quality tools, Science, Six sigma, Statistics
6 Comments
Factorial Designed Experiment Aim
Multivariate experiments are a very powerful management tool to learn and improve performance. Experiments in general, and designed factorial experiments in particular, are dramatically underused by managers. A question on LinkedIn asks? When doing a DOE we select factors with levels to induce purposely changes in the response variable. Do we want the response variable to move within the specs of the customers? Or it doesn’t matter since we are learning about the process? The aim needs to consider what … Continue reading
Problems With Student Evaluations as Measures of Teacher Performance
Dr. Deming was, among other things a professor. He found the evaluation of professors by students an unimportant (and often counterproductive measure) – used in some places for awards and performance appraisal. He said for such a measure to be useful it should survey students 20 years later to see which professors made a difference to the students. Here is an interesting paper that explored some of these ideas. Does Professor Quality Matter? Evidence from Random Assignment of Students to … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Education, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Science
Tagged Customer focus, Data, Deming, Education, experiments, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Science, system thinking
2 Comments
Incentivizing Behavior Doesn’t Improve Results
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
Video Overview of the PDSA Cycle
Robert Lloyd, PhD From the IHI Open School‘s, presents a nice overview of the PDSA Cycle (plan-do-study-act). The webcast includes an example of using PDSA to improve the discharge process for a hospital. As I have said many times the keys to success are to turn the PDSA cycle rapidly, predict the results in advance, and analyze the results to continually improve. the Improvement Handbook is an excellent resource. The IHI Open School is a great resource and exactly the … Continue reading
Posted in Deming, Health care, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science, webcast
Tagged Deming, Health care, management webcast, Process improvement, Quality tools
2 Comments
Extrinsic Incentives Kill Creativity
If you read this blog, you know I believe extrinsic motivation is a poor strategy. This TED webcast Dan Pink discusses studies showing extrinsic rewards failing. This is a great webcast, definitely worth 20 minutes of your time. “you’ve got an incentive designed to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity and it does just the opposite. It dulls thinking and blocks creativity… This has been replicated over and over and over again for nearly 40 years. These contingent motivators, if you … Continue reading
An Introduction to Deming’s Management Ideas by Peter Scholtes (webcast)
An Introduction to Deming’s Management Teaching and Philosophy by Peter Scholtes – webcast from the Annual W. Edwards Deming Institute conference in Madison, Wisconsin, November 9th, 2008. My previous post on this speech: 6 Leadership Competencies. Next month, the Annual Deming Institute conference will be held at Purdue on Oct 10th, 2009. Related: Peter Scholtes’ Life – Curious Cat’s Deming on Management – The Leader’s Handbook – Performance without Appraisal
Posted in Creativity, curiouscat.com, Deming, Education, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Performance Appraisal, Popular, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Science, Systems thinking, webcast
Tagged curiouscat, Deming, Innovation, management, management webcast, Performance Appraisal, Peter Scholtes, Popular, quote, respect for people, Systems thinking, webcast
4 Comments
YouTube Uses Multivariate Experiment To Improve Sign-ups 15%
Google does a great job of using statistical and engineering principles to improve. It is amazing how slow we are to adopt new ideas but because we are it provides big advantages to companies like Google that use concepts like design of experiments, experimenting quickly and often… while others don’t. Look Inside a 1,024 Recipe Multivariate Experiment A few weeks ago, we ran one of the largest multivariate experiments ever: a 1,024 recipe experiment on 100% of our US-English homepage. … Continue reading
Posted in Customer focus, Data, Design of Experiments, Google, IT, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Science, Software Development, Statistics
Tagged curiouscat, Customer focus, Data, Design of Experiments, experiments, Google, Innovation, internet, management, Science, Software Development, Statistics
2 Comments
Statistical Engineering Links Statistical Thinking, Methods and Tools
In Closing the Gap Roger W. Hoerl and Ronald D. Snee lay out a sensible case for focusing on statistical engineering. We’re not suggesting that society no longer needs research in new statistical techniques for improvement; it does. The balance needed at this time, however, is perhaps 80% for statistics as an engineering discipline and 20% for statistics as a pure science. True, though I would put the balance more like 95% engineering, 5% science. There is a good discussion … Continue reading →