Call for Papers on Deming Management

Posted on August 14, 2006 by John Hunter

The Deming Research Seminar [the broken link was removed] is accepting paper through October 2nd for presentation at the 13th annual seminar in New York City Feb 12th and 13th, 2007. To be considered, papers must be original work. Proposals of 200 words or less are due by 2 October 2006. For more information about submitting a paper see the Deming Institute website [the broken link was removed].

Papers that link Dr. Deming’s work to the academic literature or to the works of other great thinkers are particularly sought, as are papers that extend or expand Dr. Deming’s work, and those that describe applications of Dr. Deming’s management ideas in organizations.

The Annual Research Seminar brings together people from around the world, and from a variety of specialties, to develop an understanding of Dr. Deming’s theories in a wide-ranging context. See a list of topics and speakers [the broken link was removed] from the last Research Seminar.

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Eliminate Slogans

Posted on August 13, 2006 by John Hunter

De-motivation Poster

This poster may do a better job, than my posts, of showing why posters and slogan are not an effective management strategy. Text from the poster: “If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon.”

Despair (link to the motivation poster shown here), offers many such de-motivational posters and note cards – well done satire, in my opinion, but they might be too much for some.

Along the lines of our post, Stop Demotivating Employees, the founder of Despair wrote a book entitled: The Art of Demotivation.

Another poster example: Ambition – The journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly.

One of Deming’s 14 obligations of management was to eliminate slogans.

Also see:

Related: Why Extrinsic Motivation Fails – Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation – Alfie Kohn has some great books and articles on the problems with extrinsic motivation

Posted in Books, Deming, Management, Popular, Psychology, quote, Respect | Tagged , | 3 Comments

10 Kaizen Tips

Posted on August 12, 2006 by John Hunter

Kaizen Hot-Wash

Lesson 6. Pick the right lean tool for the job and use it well.
There are plenty of lean tools to choose for kaizen activities so your MUST determine the right tool and use it well. In our case, the spaghetti diagram was the best tool. It was simple to use although extremely time consuming for the large amount of travel in our process. The spaghetti diagram quickly showed the team the best areas for opportunity and was a great visual for comparison of layout options.

Lean Concepts and Tools:

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Teach, Write and Live Quality

Posted on August 11, 2006 by John Hunter

Teach, Write and Live Quality by Michelle Bangert

Quality Magazine’s inaugural Quality Professional of the Year, Roderick A. Munro, Ph.D.:

He also had the privilege of joining the Deming Study Group of Greater Detroit. “It was such an honor for me,” Munro says. The Deming Study group of Greater Detroit met every other month for almost three years. Eight people approached Deming about starting the group, and they could invite up to two others. One of the members invited Munro, but Munro initially did not think he was at that level. After the member insisted, Munro just asked when and where: “I wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth,” Munro says. Dr. W. Edwards Deming let the group do most of the talking. “He would pose questions and let us just go at it,” Munro recalls. “Dr. Deming had so much experience, lifetime applications, so much else. He didn’t have time for managers who weren’t open-minded.”
Posted in Deming, Management | 1 Comment

Competition

Posted on August 11, 2006 by John Hunter

Why I hate programming competitions [the broken link was removed] by Mike Vanier

Most aspects of Deming’s thinking seemed natural to me from the start. Some ideas have taken longer (it took me awhile to be won over to the harm caused by performance appraisals, for example). Competition is another area that I still struggle with. I have been moved greatly by my experience and the thoughts of people like Alfie Kohn (No Contest: The Case Against Competition). But I still hold more promise for some aspects of competition and I hold less concern than some about other aspects of competition. Still I agree that there is a good deal to learn about the dangers of competition which often creates havoc within a system.

As someone who loves programming and cares very deeply about teaching programming to undergraduates, I would like to express my opinions on why programming competitions are (for the most part) a bad thing, and on what I’d rather see in place of them that might serve the same end, but would more accurately reflect the bigger picture of what it means to be a good programmer.

Continue reading →

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Lean Health Care Works

Posted on August 10, 2006 by John Hunter

Lean Health Care? It Works! [the broken link was removed] by Patricia Panchak

In 1971, the U.S. spent 7.5% of its gross national product on health care — about $75 billion. We now spend 14.5%, which is about $1.3 trillion.

The article was written in 2003, by 2005 health care spending reached 15.3% of the USA economy.

A group of Iowa manufacturing executives has already taken Jimmerson’s recommendation a few steps further: They’re teaming up with their health-care providers, showing them the benefits, educating them on the principles and practices, and helping them to implement lean. “We’re doing this with the hopes that somewhere along the line, we’re going to save some money and that maybe our health-care costs won’t be so astronomical,” says David Speer, director of LeanSigma at Maytag Appliances, Newton, Iowa.

The problems to fix in health care are huge and will take a long time to fix but we need to build on the efforts of those who have been working on improvements. Read more articles on improving the health care system.

Previous posts:

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Dangers of Extrinsic Motivation

Posted on August 10, 2006 by John Hunter

The Econ 101 Management Method by Joel Spolsky. Once again Joel presents interesting ideas very well – past posts referencing Joel.

But when you offer people money to do things that they wanted to do, anyway, they suffer from something called the Overjustification Effect. “I must be writing bug-free code because I like the money I get for it,” they think, and the extrinsic motivation displaces the intrinsic motivation. Since extrinsic motivation is a much weaker effect, the net result is that you’ve actually reduced their desire to do a good job.

Alfie Kohn has some great books and articles on this, and related ideas – I know it is hard for many people to believe (the link provides some online articles that can help as well as some books).

Joel notes that relying on extrinsic motivation to drive performance is an abdication of management.

Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Toyota Supplier Relations

Posted on August 9, 2006 by John Hunter

Toyota’s relationship with vendors is an important link in its success [link broken, so it was removed] by John Torinus, CEO of Serigraph:

One of the big differentiators between how the Big Three operate and how the vaunted Toyota production system works is how they deal with suppliers. Toyota takes the stance that it competes supply chain against supply chain, so it works hand-in-hand with vendors. It’s not just what happens in its body and assembly plants.

Taiichi Ohno, the production guru at Toyota, put it this way: “Achievement of business performance by the parent company through bullying suppliers is totally alien to the spirit of the Toyota production system.”

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Interviews with Innovators

Posted on August 9, 2006 by John Hunter

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups’ Early Days by Jessica Livingston is an interesting looking book to be published in a few months. The book consists of interviews with founders of technology companies exploring the initial efforts to create a new company.

Interviews include: David Heinemeier Hansson [the broken link was removed] (who many of our readers may not have heard of but who has recently done a great web development framework [Ruby on Rails] and development philosophy very compatible with lean thinking), Evan Williams (founder of blogger), Craig Newmark (founder of Craigslist), Joel Spolsky (who we have referenced in various posts), Ray Ozzie, Paul Graham and many more. The interview of Steve Wozniak [the broken link was removed] is available online [make that was]:
Continue reading →

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Management Improvement Conferences

Posted on August 8, 2006 by John Hunter

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Calendar includes several interesting conferences and seminars [the broken link was removed] taking place the rest of this year including:

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