Tag Archives: Process improvement

Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods?

Posted on February 2, 2017 by John Hunter

It is confusing to know that better methods exist but to see those better methods being ignored. It seems that if there were better ways to manage, people would adopt those methods. But this just isn’t the case; sometimes better … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Innovation, Management, Psychology | Tagged change, Innovation, leadership, Process improvement, Psychology, sports | 5 Comments

Applying Toyota Kata to Agile Retrospectives

Posted on August 23, 2016 by John Hunter

Hakan Forss, King (interactive entertainment games), presentation at the GOTO Copenhagen 2015 conference. I strongly recommend Mike Rother’s book: Toyota Kata. Description from Workshop description “The Toyota Kata Experience” Kata means pattern, routine, habits or way of doing things. Kata … Continue reading →

Posted in Lean thinking, Process improvement, Software Development | Tagged agile management, culture, kata, Lean thinking, Process improvement, retrospective, Software Development | 3 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 … 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

The Value of Professional Conferences. Also Why Has There Been So Little Innovation?

Posted on April 28, 2015 by John Hunter

In the most recent ASQ Influential Voices post, Julia McIntosh takes a look at the costs and benefits of professionals attending conferences. I still remember being in high school and George Box talking about the primary value of conferences was … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Customer focus, Education | Tagged ASQ Influential Voices, Career, conference, Creativity, Customer focus, learning, management history, Process improvement, process thinking, technology | 5 Comments

Root Cause, Interactions, Robustness and Design of Experiments

Posted on June 18, 2014 by John Hunter

Eric Budd asked on The W. Edwards Deming Institute group (LinkedIn broke the link with a register wall so I removed the link): If observed performance/behavior in a system is a result of the interactions between components–and variation exists in … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged continual improvement, problem solving, Process improvement, process thinking, Quality tools, root cause, Software Development, Systems thinking | 4 Comments

George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

Posted on June 11, 2014 by John Hunter

George Box lecture on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement at the Second International Tampere Conference in Statistics, University of Tampere, Finland (1987). Early on he shows a graph showing the problems with American cars steady over a 10 years period. … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Data, Innovation, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, Science, Statistics | Tagged control chart, Design of Experiments, Europe, experiments, George Box, interactions, learning, management history, Process improvement, Quality tools, Science, Statistics, webcast | Comments Off

Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple

Posted on June 5, 2014 by John Hunter

Mistake proofing is a wonderful management concept. Design systems not just to be effective when everything goes right but designing them so mistakes are prevented. I have had several bad customer experiences in the short time I have had my … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement | Tagged bad customer service, Customer focus, management system, mistake-proofing, Process improvement, process thinking | 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], … 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 … 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

Resources for Using the PDSA Cycle to Improve Results

Posted on October 28, 2013 by John Hunter

Using the PDSA cycle (plan-do-study-act) well is critical to building a effective management system. This post provides some resources to help use the improvement cycle well. I have several posts on this blog about using the PDSA cycle to improve … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools | Tagged continual improvement, Deming, evidence based management, experiments, online resources, PDSA, Process improvement, Quality tools, tips | 5 Comments