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Deming Electronic Network Email List

Posted on September 10, 2007 by John Hunter

The Deming Electronic Network email list 2.0 [deleted link as this is no longer online] is now live.

The aim of the Deming Electronic Network is to: “Learn, apply, and extend the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming and to help others do the same.” The DEN came out of a conversation between Myron Tribus, Tom Glenn, Del Kimbler, John Hunter, and Jim Clauson at the first Deming Institute Conference in early 1994. We envisioned using the Internet to share, network, and support activities of Deming “followers” world wide.

The email list provides some wonderful thoughts on applying Deming’s ideas. It is focused on Deming, and some might find it a bit too focused on Deming’s idea but I think it is a great resource. Jim Clauson acts as a moderator to keep the list focused (in this age of blogs many may forget, but email lists often deteriorate into fairly uninteresting person debates).

Steve Prevette’s message [deleted obsolete link] is a nice example of what you can read:

I’ve done the [red bead] Experiment for more than 2,500 people in the past 10 years. I’ve gone from my first introduction with a Fluor manager as “Steve, we don’t know why Westinghouse employed a
statistician, Fluor doesn’t do statistics” to making or overseeing more than 2,200 charts (SPC and Pareto) per month, and have reached a peak of
3,197 charts and files (including safety inspection record processing) in July 2007. Fluor is using the Deming methodology I use as a differentiator on contract proposals. And we’ve gotten results in operations, quality, and safety.

Posted in Deming, IT, Management | 5 Comments

Jim Press, Toyota N. American President, Moves to Chrysler

Posted on September 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Jim Press leaves Toyota to join Chrysler. I am surprised. I would imagine he is getting a huge amount of money. And I would guess it will encourage those that think you have to massively overpay executives or lose them to companies that will overpay them. I don’t think it is wise to pay huge sums to executives. If that means you lose some, fine, continue to manage your system well and things will still work out fine for you. And maybe pay has nothing to do with the move.

“Wow, this is a huge surprise,” said Dave Cole, chairman for the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Center for Automotive Research. “This is a real coup for the new Chrysler. I believe it will give the Chrysler turnaround significantly more credibility. Again, wow!”

Press will team with current Vice Chairman and President Tom LaSorda as Chrysler’s executive team makes a push to wring out landmark health-care and pension concessions from the United Auto Workers.

I agree getting Press could help Chrysler a great deal. If they will actually let him change the system. If they just want to hire a couple of executives and basically keep the same mentality in place it won’t work. For those convinced it must be Chrysler sees the errors of its past management I would caution you. Typical management practice is to hire people from companies that have been winning. So hiring Toyota people is no real indication that Chrysler is thinking any differently than they have before – it might or it might not.

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

Hiring – Does College Matter?

Posted on September 6, 2007 by John Hunter

Another essay by Paul Graham packed with great thoughts – this one on hiring, colleges, measuring performance of people, etc..

Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart. Even people who hate you for it believe it. But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true? We’re talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds.
…
No one ever measures recruiters by the later performance of people they turn down.
…
There’s a lot of randomness in how colleges select people, and what they learn there depends much more on them than the college. Between these two sources of variation, the college someone went to doesn’t mean a lot. It is to some degree a predictor of ability, but so weak that we regard it mainly as a source of error and try consciously to ignore it.

Posted in Data, Education, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology | Comments Off

The Siren Song of Multitasking

Posted on September 5, 2007 by John Hunter

The Siren Song of Multitasking

Yet multiple technologies often translate into multiple interruptions: On average, workers are interrupted once every ten and a half minutes, according to Gloria Mark, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, who studied the cost of worker multitasking. Once interrupted, it takes a worker 23 minutes on average to get back to the task she was working on. Open screens on desktops, files on the desk, and coworkers all distracted workers so that only 55 percent of work was resumed immediately.

Writes Mark, “This suggests a fairly high cognitive cost to resume work, as people are distracted by multiple other topics, and sometimes even nested interruptions. Our informants report that this can result in redundant work as they reorient.” Mark acknowledges that interruptions are often relevant to the work at hand, but notes that “reorientation” to the task comes at a cognitive cost. A report from Basex quantified the cost of interruptions. It found that the average knowledge worker loses 2.1 hours per day to “unimportant interruptions or distractions.”

Quite simply, people need the mental and physical space to think. In fact, the number-one predictor of job performance and satisfaction is the ability to concentrate in one’s own workplace. While work environments that include places for quiet, uninterrupted work as well as collaborative work can help a worker fight the urge to multitask, a worker’s ability to concentrate comes in part from being determined to concentrate.

via: The “multitasking” delusion

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | 5 Comments

Seth Godin on Marketing and the Internet

Posted on September 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Once again Seth Godin does a great job of explaining the dynamics of marketing on the web: Seth Godin Video on Web Marketing. In this 6 1/2 minute video he touches on various topics including:

the ease with which web users ignore ads on the web
the importance of customers marketing for you (see our previous post: Lego – Innovative Marketing Podcast)
the need to develop relationships with customers that then allow your to reach them, “permission marketing” (such as with Amazon)

Seth is asked if there is a social network that is good for marketers to help them do their jobs. He says: “Far and away it is having a blog. It’s tempting, if you’re a salesperson to go to Linked In…” I think he is exactly right: Your online brand – Blogging is Good for You. For many a “regular” web site is fine too – post some articles to give a real view of what you offer that is different from everyone else (blogs are fine but they are not the only way).

via – Seth Godin Says: You Should Be Blogging

Posted in Creativity, Innovation, IT, Management | 1 Comment

Management Improvement Carnival #18

Posted on September 3, 2007 by John Hunter

Management Improvement Carnival #18 is hosted by Ron Pereira at the Lean Six Sigma Academy. Some highlights include:

The Gemba is the Dojo by Pete Abilla from the shumla blog – “The Gemba is the Dojo — precisely because the heart and mind need to be ready for teaching; the student must be humble enough and teachable enough to be taught.”
Why You Need A Tatakidai by Jon Miller from Gemba Panta Rei – “But I will humbly submit that there is one more that should be added to your list, even at the expense of bumping one other out of your Lean vocabulary list (kamishibai is a candidate for removal). The word is tatakidai (å©ãå°). Tatakidai literally means “beating board” or chopping block.”
Will Medicare Force Hospitals to Go Six Sigma? by Michael Cyger from the iSixSigma Blogosphere. – “To me, it’s clear that Six Sigma – tied to the hospitals operating budget – is the answer. What has been done until now has not worked. It’s time for a change.”
An Error Proofing Challenge by Mark Graban from the Lean Blog – “If you absolutely needed to ensure that the pallet wasn’t double stacked, can you think of a way of error proofing that?”

Please submit your favorite management posts to the carnival. Read the previous management carnivals.

Posted in Carnival, Management | Comments Off

Six Sigma and Innovation

Posted on September 1, 2007 by John Hunter

Peter Pande adds his thoughts on how six sigma and innovation can work together. In his podcast, Innovation vs. Efficiency, he makes the argument that innovation and efficiency can work together. As I have stated many times, while bad six sigma efforts may harm innovation but there is no reason good six sigma efforts would. In fact good six sigma efforts help innovation.

Posted in Innovation, Management, Six sigma, webcast | Comments Off

Data Visualization

Posted on August 30, 2007 by John Hunter

Data is often displayed poorly, making it difficult to see what is important. When data is displayed well the important facts should leap off the page and into the viewers mind. Edward Tufte is an expert on this topic with great books. If you have not read them, you should: Beautiful Evidence, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, Envisioning Information and Visual Explanations.

Smashing magazine has some nice examples of good display techniques in Data Visualization: Modern Approaches. I don’t like all the examples they show but it does provide some help by showing some creative ways to display data.

Posted in Books, Creativity, Data, IT, Management, Psychology | Tagged charts, Data, visual communication, visual management | Comments Off

Constant Change and Growth

Posted on August 29, 2007 by John Hunter

The Toyota Secret: Constant Change And Growth by Norman Bodek

the chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation. He said, “Failure to change is a vice! I want everyone at Toyota to change and at least do not be an obstacle for someone else who wants to change.”
…
Every day the manager should look around the company, take videos and still pictures, and challenge people to grow, to eliminate non-value adding wastes, to use their brains to identify and solve problems, and to improve their skills and capabilities. Why else do we need managers? A manager’s job is to stimulate people to change for the better, every day.

Great article. Kaikaku by Bodek. via New Norman Bodek Article

Posted in Management, Psychology, Quality tools, Toyota Production System (TPS) | 2 Comments

August 2005 – Management Improvement Posts

Posted on August 27, 2007 by John Hunter

A few posts from the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog 2 years ago – August 2005:

Purpose of an Organization: “The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain – stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment – over the long term.” The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming
Managing with Control Charts
Failed Practice: Forced Ranking
Design of Experiments in Advertising

Posted in Management | Comments Off

Deming Electronic Network Email List

Jim Press, Toyota N. American President, Moves to Chrysler

Hiring – Does College Matter?

The Siren Song of Multitasking

Seth Godin on Marketing and the Internet

Management Improvement Carnival #18

Six Sigma and Innovation

Data Visualization

Constant Change and Growth

August 2005 – Management Improvement Posts

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