Tag Archives: curiouscat

Financial Market Meltdown

Posted on October 10, 2008 by John Hunter

The financial market meltdown has grown to the point where it has profound ramifications for everyone. The common wisdom for financial market variation, for most of us, is just to focus on the long term and don’t worry about short term fluctuations. That is good advice. This panic is threatening to override that wisdom however. There are at least 2 areas to consider: personal finance and business prospects (how managers need to take this crisis into account). On personal finance … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments

Motivate or Eliminate De-Motivation

Posted on October 7, 2008 by John Hunter

A huge failure I still see is managers thinking in a theory x way, 50 years after McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise. Continue reading →

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

Agile PDSA

Posted on September 16, 2008 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming encouraged the use of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle to improve. Agile Management encourages a similar mindset – to test out ideas in practice and adapt quickly. A key to both strategies is to quickly iterate over possible solutions. Tesco provides an example of this strategy: This was our first opening since we took our 12 week pause, after we had opened 61 stores at breakneck speed. We used that time to reflect on what customers had told us they … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

New Management Truths Sometimes Started as Heresies

Posted on September 7, 2008 by John Hunter

‘New’ management truths sometimes started as heresies by Cecil Johnson “The most effective management ideas follow a life cycle — from heresy to outlier (championed by a small group of people) to ingrained practice to conventional wisdom,” Kleiner writes. “In the process, if they are genuinely powerful management ideas, they distinguish the organizations that adopt them.” One of the management heresies focused upon by Kleiner that has morphed into accepted management wisdom of the highest order is the Toyota Production … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Management Articles, quote, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Do What You Say You Will

Posted on July 28, 2008 by John Hunter

In Keeping Good Employees I talked about asking some simple questions. The biggest mistake I see managers make is to fail to deliver on what they say in such meetings. There is the saying “It is better to be thought a fool than speak, and prove it.” Well it is better to be thought a pointy haired boss than to ask for feedback, then ignore it, and prove you are a PHB. This behavior is extremely common with a survey … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

Outcome and In-Process Measures

Posted on July 14, 2008 by John Hunter

An outcome measure is used to measure the success of a system. For example, the outcome measure could be the percentage of people who do not get polio (the result). An output measure, for example, would be the number of people vaccinated with the polio vaccine (the output). Often we measure inputs (amount of money spent) or outputs (number of people vaccinated). They are usually easy to measure but obviously less valuable proxies for what the objective of the system … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Better Meetings

Posted on July 7, 2008 by John Hunter

Meetings are perennial problems. People sit through meetings and then complain about how big a waste of time it was. Here are a couple very simple tips to try and actually improve (instead of just agreeing that meetings are wasteful, but doing nothing to improve). Have an agenda (with desired outcomes – decision on x, or whatever) and stick to it (I think you can successfully adapt as the meeting goes on, but be truthful, can you do so successfully … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Continual Improvement

Posted on June 10, 2008 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming used the term continual improvement (rather than continuous improvement) later in his life because that would include continuous and dis-continuous improvement (innovation, etc.). I use continual improvement for that reason also. I think the improvement process must be never ending must focus daily on how any process can be improved must focus on adopting improvement systemically (not just locally, by one person or team) must focus on discontinuous improvement which could include high energy kaizen events and dramatic … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Deming Companies

Posted on December 17, 2007 by John Hunter

I get asked for examples of Deming managed companies fairly often. And recently I have had a number of such requests. So I figured I would provide an answer as a blog post. First, Dr. Deming would respond to such questions by referring to the theory of knowledge and the fallacy of trying to learn via examples. So remember to read up on why learning from examples is dangerous before taking to much from this. I see Toyota as the … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Popular, Toyota Production System (TPS) | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Capital Crescent Trail Photos

Posted on December 10, 2007 by John Hunter

I have posted some photos from my walk last year on the Capital Crescent Trail in Washington DC. The Capital Crescent Trail goes along the Potomac River in Washington DC (on the C&O towpath). I hiked first along the Arlington, Virginia side of the Potomac (starting at the north end of the Teddy Roosevelt Island Parking lot) then crossing over at Chain Bridge and heading back down the Capital Crescent trail and over the Key Bridge to and making a … Continue reading →

Posted in curiouscat.com, Travel photos | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Bring Me Solutions Not Problems

Posted on October 1, 2007 by John Hunter

My comments on: No Problem Without a Solution [I removed the broken link] I understand that most managers feel that their employees should not bring them problems. Instead, expressed in the most positive way, employees should fix things or bring possible improvements. However, I think that is poor management. I understand there may well be more detail than you provide that adds a more sensible (but more complex) reaction that stated in your post about your situation. However, there are … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Management, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Data Can’t Lie

Posted on August 9, 2007 by John Hunter

Many people state that data can lie. Obviously data can’t lie. There are three kinds of lies: Lies, damn lies and statistics – Mark Twain Many people don’t understand the difference between being manipulated because they can’t understand what the data really says and data itself “lying” (which, of course, doesn’t even make sense). The same confusion can come in when someone just draws the wrong conclusion from the data that exists (and them blames the data for “lying” instead … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Management, Psychology | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

People are Our Most Important Asset

Posted on June 18, 2007 by John Hunter

One of the beliefs I try and get the organizations I work for to adopt is to truly value excellent people. The costs are challenges of hiring great people, to me, makes it critical to do what you can to keep your exceptional people. I probably haven’t written about this because it can conflict with my advice against performance appraisals. I do actually believe it is possible to know certain people are great and contribute greatly to the success of … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect | Tagged , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Tilting at Ludicrous CEO Pay

Posted on June 11, 2007 by John Hunter

I continue to tilt at the robber barron CEO pay packages. Hopefully, at some point, the people approving these obscene pay packages can be shamed into stopping or replaced by people with some sense of decency. I was taught in the days of robber barrons the business world was seen as an amoral place (morality did not belong in this area of human endeavor) but that over time society decided that in fact morality did apply there. It is hard … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Management, Performance Appraisal, Psychology, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 10 Comments

Information Technology and Management

Posted on May 4, 2007 by John Hunter

Dog Eat Dog [the broken link was removed, sadly even MIT can’t manage a website properly and they have broken the link] by Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson The CVS experience is a microcosm of a pervasive trend toward using IT to replicate not only digital goods and services but also business processes. This trend encompasses core activities such as customer service and order management, as well as support activities such as accounting and human resources. Once a company embeds … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Management | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Write it Down

Posted on March 1, 2007 by John Hunter

Why Write it down? The longer I pursue Lean, the more I am amazed with its fundamentals. I may write more about this in the near future. Like the emphasis to write things down. In meetings, writing down decisions (what is the issue, who is going to do what…) is very helpful. It is very easy for people to think everyone agrees to some somewhat clear statements made in the meeting. Only later it becomes obvious several people have different … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments