Tag Archives: curiouscat

Factfulness – The Importance of Critical Thinking

Posted on June 4, 2019 by John Hunter

Factfulness by Hans Roling (of TED talks and Gapminder charts fame) is an exceptionally good book. It provides great insight into how to think more effectively and how to understand the reality of the world we live in (versus the large distortions so common in most people’s view of the world). Today the people living in rich countries around the North Atlantic, who represent 11 percent of the world population, make up 60 percent of the Level 4* consumer market. … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Data, Systems thinking | Tagged critical thinking, curiouscat, Data, long term thinking, Psychology, Systems thinking | 1 Comment

Peter Scholtes on Teams and Viewing the Organization as a System

Posted on August 7, 2018 by John Hunter

In this presentation Peter Scholtes provides an explanation of teams within the context of understanding an organization of a system: We will not improve our ability to achieve our purpose by empowering people or holding people accountable. I know that those are fashionable words but what they have in common that I think is the wrong approach is that they still are focused on the people and not on the systems and processes. I’m sure that will trigger quite a … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged blame, curiouscat, Customer focus, management, organization as a system, Peter Scholtes, Psychology, respect for people, teams

Good Project Management Practices

Posted on May 2, 2018 by John Hunter

I find myself working as a project manager, or a program management consultant more frequently in the last few years. As would be expected by those reading the Curious Cat Management Improvement blog, my project management views are based on the management improvement principles I have discussed here for over 20 years. This post is in the style of my Good Process Improvement Practices and Practical Ways to Respect People posts. Good project management practices include Deliver a working solution … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged agile management, curiouscat, long term thinking, management concepts, organization as a system, prioritize, productivity, project management, Psychology, work in process | 3 Comments

Poorly Stratified Data Leads to Mistakes in Analysis

Posted on April 18, 2018 by John Hunter

Stratification can help provide insight into the nature of the real world situation. Determining what is a sensible conclusion to draw and what is not is aided by an understanding of statistics and expert knowledge of the situation the data is drawn from. Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged critical thinking, curiouscat, Data, evidence based management, management, Statistics | 2 Comments

The Importance of Critical Thinking and Challenging Assumptions

Posted on July 12, 2017 by John Hunter

There are many factors that are important to effectively practice the management improvement ideas that I have discussed in this blog for over a decade. One of the most important is a culture that encourages critical thinking as well as challenging claims, decisions and assumptions. I discussed this idea some in: Customers Are Often Irrational. There is a difference between saying people wish to have their desires met and people act in the manner to maximize the benefits they wish … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management, Process improvement, Psychology | Tagged change, critical thinking, culture, curiouscat, Data, decision making, evidence based management, problem solving, Psychology, theory of knowledge | 4 Comments

Integrating Technical and Human Management Systems

Posted on July 6, 2016 by John Hunter

ASQ has asked the Influential Voices on quality management to look at the question of integrating technical quality and human management systems. How do different systems—technical or human—work together? How should they work together? My view is that the management system must integrate these facets together. A common problem that companies face is that they bring in technical tools (such as control charts, PDSA improvement cycle, design of experiments, kanban, etc.) without an appreciation for the organization as a system. … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged ASQ Influential Voices, curiouscat, evidence based management, management concepts, management system, management tools, organization as a system, Psychology, quote | 2 Comments

Change Management: Create a Culture Seeking Continual Improvement or Use Band-Aids?

Posted on November 17, 2015 by John Hunter

Successfully shepherding change within an organization is often a challenge. Often change management strategies are mainly about how to cope with a toxic culture but exclude the option of fixing the toxic culture. Why not address the root causes instead of trying band-aids? The most effective strategy is to build an organizational culture into one that promotes continual improvement. A continual improvement culture is one that is constantly changing to improve (grounded in long term principles: respect for people, experiment, … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged change, culture, curiouscat, leadership, managing people, organization as a system, Psychology, respect for people, root cause, trust | 3 Comments

All Data is Wrong, Some is Useful

Posted on September 22, 2015 by John Hunter

From my first blog post on this blog – Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data we often fail to explore whether changes in the numbers (which we call results) are representative of the “true results” of the system or if the data is misleading. Data is meant to provide us insight into a more complex reality. We need to understand the limitations when we look at “results” and understand data isn’t really the results but a representation we … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management | Tagged curiouscat, Data, ethics, green, leadership, Statistics | 2 Comments

The Aim Should be the Best Life – Not Work v. Life Balance

Posted on May 13, 2015 by John Hunter

My father had the most job satisfaction of anyone I have known. He had no separation between work and life. We toured factories on vacation. I visited Davidson College in North Carolina because he was consulting with a client in Charlotte before we went up to Duke and North Carolina for visits and asked the CEO what school I should visit. His grad students would call the house frequently. Many of his best friends were colleagues. That is how I … Continue reading →

Posted in Health care, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged Bill Hunter, Career, commentary, Creativity, curiouscat, John Hunter, Joy in Work, Popular, Psychology, respect for people, Systems thinking, tips | 11 Comments

Visual Management and Mistake-Proofing for Prescription Pills

Posted on May 5, 2015 by John Hunter

Good ideas often just require some sensible thought to think of an improved approach. Management concepts can help guide such thinking, such as mistake-proofing and visual management. To apply visual management requires giving a bit of thought to how to make visually obvious what is important for people to know. Mistake proofing is often really mistake-making-more-difficult (for some reason this term of mine hasn’t caught on). I believe mistake-proofing should put barriers in the process that make a mistake hard. … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged curiouscat, Customer focus, design, Health care, health care system, management concepts, management system, management tools, mistake-proofing, Process improvement, process thinking, Quality tools, user experience, visual management | 4 Comments

Who Inspires Your Management Thinking and Action?

Posted on January 22, 2015 by John Hunter

This month Bill Troy, ASQ CEO, asked ASQ Influential Voices bloggers: “who influenced or inspired your management thinking and in what ways?” He discussed Paul O’Neill’s influence on his thinking [the broken link was removed – so many websites have no evidence of long term thinking]; I agree that Paul has done some very impressive work in health care. I have written about my management influences in the past: Active Management Improvement Leaders (2006) and Who Influences Your Thinking? (2005). … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged curiouscat, George Box, John Hunter, leadership, Madison, management, William Hunter | 6 Comments

Out of Touch Executives Damage Companies: Go to the Gemba

Posted on August 20, 2014 by John Hunter

When your customer service organization is universally recognized as horrible adding sales requirements to customer service representatives jobs is a really bad practice. Sadly it isn’t at all surprising to learn of management doing just that at our largest companies. Within a system where cash and corruption buys freedom from market forces (see below for more details) such practices can continue. Such customer hostile practices shouldn’t continue. They shouldn’t be allowed to continue. And even though the company’s cash has … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Data, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged bad management, business, commentary, curiouscat, Customer focus, customer service, Economics, executives, gemba, Google, government, internet, leadership, management, Psychology, regulation, respect for people, sales, targets

Building a Great Software Development Team

Posted on May 29, 2014 by John Hunter

Elliot: I worked with some of the best programmers I’ve ever known at the tiny, obscure ASEE Adam Solove: Why do you think that happened? They hired for passion, rather than experience? If I had to pick one thing, passion would likely be it but really it is a complex assortment of things. Passion for the right things, based on what we aimed to be, mattered a great deal. That took the form of being passionate about the user experience, … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management, Popular, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged curiouscat, hiring, John Hunter, managing people, organization as a system, Popular, Psychology, Software Development, teams | 4 Comments

Interview on PDSA, Deming, Strategy and More

Posted on May 8, 2014 by John Hunter

Bill Fox interviewed me and has posted part one of the interview on his web site: Predicting Results in the Planning Stage (sorry, the link has been hijacked to forward to an unrelated page [so obviously I removed the link], I have posted the interview which can now be reached here): Bill: John, what is your best process improvement strategy or tactic that has worked well for you or your clients? John: I would say the PDSA improvement cycle and … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools | Tagged curiouscat, Deming, experiments, interview, John Hunter, learning, management system, management tools, PDSA, Process improvement, Quality tools, strategy | 5 Comments

Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran

Posted on March 31, 2014 by John Hunter

This webcast shows an interesting interview with Steve Jobs when he was with NeXT computer. He discusses quality, business and the experience of working with Dr. Juran at NeXT computer. The video is likely from around 1991. America’s in a tough spot right now, I think. I think we have forgotten the basics. We were so prosperous for so long that we took so many things for granted. And we forgot how much work it took to build and sustain … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Respect | Tagged Apple, business, continual improvement, curiouscat, Customer focus, management, marketing, Process improvement, quality, respect for people, webcast | 3 Comments

Deming and Software Development

Posted on March 17, 2014 by John Hunter

I am sometimes asked about how use Deming’s ideas on management in a software development context. My belief is Deming’s ideas work extremely well in a software development context. The main issue is often unlearning some assumptions that people might have about what the Deming management system is. It really is surprising to me how many “knowledge workers” respect Deming’s ideas but then say his attempts to treat factory workers as thoughtful people who should be respected and involved in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, IT, Management, Popular, Process improvement, Respect, Software Development | Tagged build capability, commentary, Creativity, curiouscat, Deming, John Hunter, managing people, Popular, Software Development, Systems thinking, technology | 7 Comments