Tag Archives: blogs

20 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2017

These posts were the most popular posts on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog in 2017 (as measured by page views, as recorded by my analytics application).

PDSA Improvement cycle graphic from my book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

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RSS feed for Management Improvement Blog Posts

You may have noticed that recently I am not publishing new blog posts as often as I have previously. This less frequent publishing schedule is likely to continue. I have added a service to allow you to read Curious Cat Management Improvement blog posts more frequently – even though I will not be publishing new posts as often.

I have created a RSS feed for select blog posts from the start of the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog in 2004 (as well as other posts I have made on management improvement on other blogs). Subscribe to the John Hunter management improvement RSS feed. Doing so will add a post each day to your RSS feed reader from my past blog posts. Of course, the normal RSS feed for this blog will continue to provide access to the new blog posts that I publish.

Some of the recent posts in the RSS feed include:

I hope you find this feed of my posts on management improvement over the last 12 years to a useful resource.

As I have mentioned before, using a RSS feed reader is the best way to manage your use of blogs.

I also have a RSS feed on my posts on all topics (management improvement and also investing, travel, software development, engineering…) for those of you who are interested.

20 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2016

These posts were the most popular posts on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog in 2016 (as measured by page views, as recorded by my analytics application).

John Hunter, Frijoles Canyon, Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, USA.

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Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog Ranking

I created a ranking of top management improvement blogs for fun. There is no way to objectively rate blogs by how worthy or valuable they are. I just wanted to create a listing that ranked blogs I thought were worth reading using a collection of metrics that I think have some merit (even if that merit is fairly limited).

Here are the top 10 as of now (it will change over time):

The most important factor is my selection of what blogs to include in the first place. Then I rank them using several other factors: link popularity (how many links to the sites, with more authoritative links carrying more weight), a subjective ranking by me, traffic (using an admittedly pretty flawed measure of traffic – but again this is just for fun so…), Twitter authority of the author, domain authority (based on links, not just to the blog, but the web site overall).

I have also created a ranking for personal travel blogs, leadership blogs and will add a few more.

I hope you enjoy the ranking and really hope you find a few new blogs you benefit from reading. There are quite a few interesting management improvement blogs, though honestly there are many fewer good posts than there were 5 years ago. Most of the best active blogs from 6 or 7 years ago are either much much less active today or are gone altogether. But even so there are still quite a few valuable blogs for managers to read.

20 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2015

This is a list of the 20 most popular posts on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog last year (as measured by page views, as recorded by my analytics application).

John Hunter with snow covered mountains in the background

John Hunter, Hurricane Ridge Trail, Olympic National Park

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Most Popular Links on Management Sub-Reddit in 2015

I created the management sub-reddit many years ago. The management sub-reddit provides links to worthwhile management content and the members indicate those links they liked. Here is a list of the most popular links added in the last year.

People Don’t Fail, Processes Do by Terry Smith on The Lean Post
The common objection to seniority pay is, “It’s rewarding dead wood!” My response is, “Why do you hire dead wood? Or why do you hire live wood and kill it?” – Peter Scholtes by John Hunter on The W. Edwards Deming Institute Blog
If you adopt only one agile practice, let it be retrospectives. Everything else will follow. by Woody Zuill on the Mob Programing blog
People who believe they can manage everything often prove themselves capable of managing nothing. by Henry Mintzberg on his blog.
Culture is what culture does. Culture isn’t what you intend it to be. by David Heinemeier Hansson on Signal v. Noise
Lean Knowledge Work by Bradley Staats and David Upton on Harvard Business Review
The more you learn and the more you improve, the more you understand how far away perfection really is. by Kevin Meyer on the Gemba Academy blog
Working at Netflix by Brendan Gregg on his blog
Hospitals Can’t Improve Without Better Management Systems by John Toussaint on Harvard Business Review
Seven Agile Best Practices by Esther Derby on her blog.
The Aim Should be the Best Life – Not Work v. Life Balance by John Hunter on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog (this blog, obviously)
Don’t “Defeat” Your Customers (and Yourself) by Jim Womack on Planet Lean

view of Borobudur temple with hills in the background

Photo by John Hunter of Borobudur temple in Indonesia.

It isn’t like “most popular” is some important ranking; but it does seem likely the links that many people in the community liked will be of interest to many of the readers of this blog.

10 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2014

Here is a list of the 10 most popular posts on this blog last year (as measured by views counted by my analytics applications). The posts were published in 2010 (4 posts), 2013 (2), 2014 (2), 2005 (1) and 2012 (1).

PDSA Improvement cycle graphic from my book – Management Matters

One of the things this illustrates is why it is so important to have urls (web addresses) live forever. The idea that ancient (in web thinking) content doesn’t matter is not accurate. My site is a tiny population and shouldn’t be used to make a judgement but from what I have read is this is very common for sites with high quality content. If the content is good, the shelf live usually isn’t just 1 week (or even 1 decade).

Looking at the top 10 posts by year, gives a view of the data that shows 2010 seems to be special. But I think it is just random variation at play. Or maybe 2010 me deserved a big bonus for such great writing?

Posts in early 2014 have an advantage in making the list. There is a big spike in views in the first couple weeks. So if the post gets to count those and has a long time in 2014 it is more likely to make the top 10 (if it is later in the year though the advantage of the spike is offset by only having a portion of the year to gain views). Both 2014 posts in the top 10 were from March. In the next 10 most popular posts 5 were from 2014 (2010 had 2 and 2008, 2009 and 2011 had 1 each).

Curious Cat Blog Network

I recently created one RSS feed for all the Curious Cat Network blogs (which also includes other blogs I author). Of course, you can also subscribe to the RSS feed for this blog by itself: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog RSS feed. RSS readers are by far the best way to read blogs; if you want some more information here is a post on RSS feed readers and how to use them.

The Curious Cat blog Network includes many blogs on topics including: management, investing, travel, engineering and technology. My most recent addition is the Curious Cat Travel Destinations Blog.

John Hunter at Bandelier National Monument, New Mexico, USA.

You may also find several other Curious Cat web sites worthwhile, such as: Management and Leadership Quotes, Curious Cat Management and Curious Cat Investing Resources.

The Benefits of Blogging

ASQ interviewed me, and several other ASQ Influential Voices bloggers for an article published in the current issue of Quality Progress magazine: The Blog Boom.

A couple of my quotes from the article:

I have been blogging for 10 years, which is more than enough time to convince me it is right for me. Blogging fits my personality—I like short delivery cycles. I don’t like the idea of working on a project that takes a year to reach the audience or customers. With blogging, I can have an idea, and in an hour I can share that with people across the globe. Blogging is similar to agile software development in this way: minimize work-in-progress and deliver working software—or in blogging, text—to users as quickly as possible. Then iterate and extend.
…
One of the benefits I didn’t appreciate before I started was how blogging helps build your knowledge and understanding—in the same way teaching helps you learn the topic you are discussing in a deeper way.

I find myself more thoughtful and engaged with ideas because I think about how I can build on those ideas in a blog post. When I start writing, I sometimes realize I don’t actually understand the idea or topic as well as it seemed I did. So I must think about it more to be able to understand it well enough to write about it.

See the whole article to see the rest of my responses and thoughts from Mark Graban, Jennifer Stepniowski, Jimena Calfa and Daniel Zrymiak. The article is available for free, though you do have to register to view that article (registering will also let you view the other articles ASQ has made available to non-members).

Management Improvement Carnival #200

The Curious Cat Management Improvement Carnival has been published since 2006 and this is the 200th edition. The posts selected for the carnival focus on the areas of management improvement I have focused on in the Curious Cat Management Improvement Guide since 1996 (17 years now, which I find pretty amazing): Deming, lean thinking, leadership, innovation, respect for people, customer focus, etc..

Eiji Toyoda – the Master Innovator by Bill Waddell – “He was a master innovator in the days when innovation wasn’t cool, and his focus was not so much on the product as it was on the processes – on management.”
The Man Who Saved Kaizen by Jon Miller – “Eiji Toyoda led from the front. His message to leaders within Toyota: ‘I want you to use your own heads. And I want you actively to train your people on how to think for themselves.'”

photo of Bill and John Hunter balancing on a log on a beach in Malaysia

Dad, Bill Hunter and me in Malaysia.

The consumer is the most important point on the production-line by John Hunter – “The continued view of the organization as a hierarchical pyramid of authority and responsibility hides the connection of the customer/user to the processes in our organizations.”
Lean IT at Toyota by Pierre Masai – “educate yourself on the subject, since so many stories of dramatic or step-by-step improvements do exist out there. Then, soon after, experiment yourself. This is the basis of TPS. Make sure you also get enthusiastic people on board, and take the support of experienced external coaches if you need this to get started. Create a culture within your company where the principles of lean become embedded in everything you do.”

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