Category Archives: Systems thinking

Management Training Program

Posted on October 28, 2005 by John Hunter

Fog Creek Software Management Training Program by Joel Spolsky: Finally, when you’re really really good, they let you hang around with Yussef on the ovens. Yussef was about 100 years old and so good at running the ovens it was scary. When Gabbi tried to show me how to solve the problem of bread sticking to the conveyer belts on the way out of the oven, he ran back and forth like a lunatic for ten minutes, turning knobs, pulling … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Toyota Manufactures More Itself

Posted on October 27, 2005 by John Hunter

Bucking the trend, Toyota controls quality, cost by making many parts in house [the broken link was removed], AutoWeek via Lean Manufacturing Blog: On one hand, the company sees parts making as a critical piece of its overall quality-control program. Toyota argues that keeping some parts in-house actually makes it more efficient. Outsourcing parts simply to meet the changing industry norm is viewed warily by Toyota executives. “I don’t believe we can outsource our responsibility to the customer,” Seizo Okamoto

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Management Articles, Manufacturing, Systems thinking, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 1 Comment

Marketing in a Lean Company

Posted on October 20, 2005 by John Hunter

Where Is Marketing In All of This? [the broken link was removed]: The problem with all of this is that it is based on the idea that sales and manufacturing are distinct entities, with a one way flow between them, rather than hopelessly intertwined elements of the same complicated business. … An essential element of lean manufacturing is a level loading of demand – or at least reasonably level. Toyota uses pricing to accomplish this. … It is becoming more … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation

Posted on October 16, 2005 by John Hunter

Six Keys to Building New Markets by Unleashing Disruptive Innovation by Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Scott D. Anthony in Harvard Management Update: Companies have two basic options when they seek to build new-growth businesses. They can try to take an existing market from an entrenched competitor with sustaining innovations. Or they can try to take on a competitor with disruptive innovations that either create new markets or take root among an incumbent’s worst customers. Our research overwhelmingly … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Ford and Managing the Supplier Relationship

Posted on October 1, 2005 by John Hunter

There have a been a number of articles (Ford to slash vendors of key parts [the broken link was removed] – Ford Rethinks Supply Strategy and posts (A “Kinder and Gentler” Lean Supply Base? – Ford Adopts Toyota-style Supplier Strategy [the broken link was removed]) about supplier management, many springing from Ford’s announcement [the broken link was removed]. My first thought on reading the stories about the press release was, didn’t Ford already say they were going to do this … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Manufacturing, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Healthcare Costs Spike Again

Posted on September 14, 2005 by John Hunter

Healthcare Costs Spike Again [the broken link was removed] by Jeanne Sahadi, CNN/Money: The premium growth rate this year – 9.2 percent – outpaced by miles both the growth in wages (2.7 percent) and inflation (3.5 percent) … since 2000 premiums for family coverage have gone up 73 percent. During the same period, wages rose just 15 percent. This is not sustainable. I feel like Brad Setser talking about the USA trade deficiets (by the way if you have any … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Health care, Systems thinking | Tagged | 2 Comments

Purpose of an Organization

Posted on August 16, 2005 by John Hunter

W. Edwards Deming described the purpose of an organization in New Economics, on page 51, as: The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain – stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment – over the long term. Like so much of what Deming said that makes sense to me. It is my sense the “conventional wisdom” would state something more along the lines of the purpose of a company is to make money. I do not … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Popular, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 23 Comments

Saving Lives: US Health Care Improvement

Posted on July 16, 2005 by John Hunter

8 part special report by US News and Word Report on improving the US Health Care system. Join IHI in an ambitious initiative called the 100K Lives Campaign. Its goal is to save 100,000 hospital patients’ lives by 9 a.m. on June 14, 2006, exactly 18 months from Berwick’s call to arms, by introducing six changes in hospital procedures. Each change addresses a problem, such as deaths from infections following surgery, and presents an arsenal of weapons to fight it, … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Health care, Management Articles, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged | 10 Comments

Management is Prediction

Posted on July 14, 2005 by John Hunter

re: post on prediction [link broken, so removed] on the Deming Electronic Network, Petter Ogland wrote: …that intelligence more or less boils down to updating a predictive model of the world. As far as I can see, this is the C.I. Lewis epistemology that Shewhart and Deming based their philosophy upon. …but is there any kind of operational definition for ‘prediction’ that would explain what Deming means when he uses this word in various contexts? I think your first point … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt

Posted on July 14, 2005 by John Hunter

Fast Company Interview: Jeff Immelt, CEO, GE. What makes a growth leader today, and how does that differ from the sort of leader who was effective at GE in the past? GE has always been a believer in leadership development. When the economy was growing 5% a year, when oil was $14 a barrel, and when the world was at peace, the science of management was all about the how-to. That was the how-to generation. You didn’t have to think … Continue reading →

Posted in Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote, Six sigma, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Millennium Development Goals

Posted on July 9, 2005 by John Hunter

re: Six Sigma Training for the G-8? Interestingly Prime minstrel Blair recently showed an understanding of systems thinking (specifically how targets can result in worse performance, when targets result in distortion of the system rather than improvement). In the targets in health care case the easy “politics of the warm fuzzy feeling” would be to declare victory in setting targets. In that case PM Blair realized that while the data might look better the actual results might not necessarily be … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Health care, Management, Six sigma, Systems thinking | Tagged

Targets Distorting the System

Posted on June 13, 2005 by John Hunter

I still remember Dr. Brian Joiner speaking about process improvement and the role of data well over a decade ago. He spoke of 3 ways to improve the figures: distort the data, distort the system and improve the system. Improving the system is the most difficult. There is an interesting article on the effects of distorting the system: Tony Blair says he will ensure NHS targets do not stop people from seeing their GPs when they want to, from BBC … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking

Posted on June 9, 2005 by John Hunter

The Ackoff Center has posted a presentation, From Mechanistic to Social Systemic Thinking (pdf format), given by Russell Ackoff in November 1993 at the Systems Thinking in Action Conference. As usual he presents many great ideas well. And ten years later the ideas presented are still fresh and worth reading. The ideas are more familiar than they were in 1993 but are still powerful. The presentation concluded with Now, I don’t want to take any more of your time, but … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Systems thinking | 2 Comments

SEC chief quotes Deming

Posted on May 16, 2005 by John Hunter

Security and Exchange Chairman William H. Donaldson Speaks At Chartered Financial Analysts Institute Annual Conference [broken link removed]: This approach will, ultimately, better serve investors, and it will also gradually temper the pressures on some corporate executives to fudge the numbers. It would behoove us all to remember the words of W. Edwards Deming: “People with targets, and jobs dependent on meeting them, will probably meet the targets – even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it.”

Posted in Deming, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Traffic Congestion and a Non-Solution

Posted on May 9, 2005 by John Hunter

Topic: Management Improvement, Problem Solving I read, Study: Nation’s Traffic Jams Worsening [the broken link was removed], today on CNN.com. That same headline could have appeared in newspapers every day for the last few years. For decades traffic congestion has been a problem in American cities and one that has continued to get worse. The typical proposed solution is to increase the number of roads. The theory behind this solution is not normally stated but, I believe, it amounts to: … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Designing a New Organization

Posted on January 22, 2005 by John Hunter

re: What about Designing New Organizations? [the broken link has been removed] Guidance for “designing a new organisation and not for analysis of an existing one?” (edited) I would add Russell Ackoff to the top of the list of those to consult. Start with his book Re-Creating the Corporation and continue to quite a few of his other books. After Ackoff, I would look to Deming and Senge. Other interesting folks would be Dee Hock, Brian Joiner, Peter Scholtes, Robert … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 1 Comment