Search Results for: Spolsky

Giving Away Your Service for Free on Weekends

Posted on January 28, 2008 by John Hunter

Copilot is a cool application that lets you control someone else’s computer. So you can receive technical support remotely. You let someone access your computer and copilot takes care of the sometimes very complex task of linking the two computers … Continue reading →

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

Management Improvement Carnival #6

Posted on March 2, 2007 by John Hunter

Management Improvement ideas from around the web: Lean Q&A by Jamie Flinchbaugh – “There is no recipe, no three-ring binder approach to lean. If someone brings you an approach and says “here is the best way to implement lean,” please, … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Management | Comments Off on Management Improvement Carnival #6

Seven Steps to Remarkable Customer Service

Posted on February 20, 2007 by John Hunter

Once again Joel Spolsky spins a great post with, Seven steps to remarkable customer service. Read it. It’s crucial that tech support have access to the development team. This means that you can’t outsource tech support: they have to be … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, IT, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Psychology of Too Much Choice

Posted on January 7, 2007 by John Hunter

An understanding of psychology is one of the four components of Dr. Deming’s management system. This understanding lies behind practices such as: driving out fear, respect for people and eliminating slogans. In an organization all the components (practices, processes, investments, … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, Psychology | Tagged | 2 Comments

The IT Iceberg Secret

Posted on December 29, 2006 by John Hunter

The Iceberg Secret, Revealed by Joel Spolsky It’s pretty clear that programmers think in one language, and MBAs think in another. I’ve been thinking about the problem of communication in software management for a while, because it’s pretty clear to … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Software Development | 2 Comments

Management Improvement Carnival #1

Posted on December 7, 2006 by John Hunter

There have been a number of great post recently about management improvement: Amazon’s Long Public Haul by Kevin Meyer – “Amazon has now been around a while and has a loyal following. Their culture is apparently deep, at least for … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnival, Customer focus, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management | 5 Comments

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 … Continue reading →

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

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 … Continue reading →

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

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 … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management, Management Articles, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Interviews with Innovators

Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal

Posted on May 17, 2006 by John Hunter

People are increasingly challenging the notion that we just have to live with performance appraisal systems. As usually, I will make my suggestion that chapter 9 of the Leader’s Handbook offers great material on performing without appraisal (and the rest of the book is great too). Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Management Articles, Performance Appraisal | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments