Tag Archives: Process improvement

Interviewing: I and We

Posted on October 4, 2011 by John Hunter

In response to: say “I” — not “we” — in your interviews If you are a manager you need to lead teams, lead projects and improve work systems. In an interview I believe you need to say specifically what you did but also talk about what the team accomplished. A manager needs to have successful project and make other people successful. To me the important thing is getting great long term results, not doing lots of tasks themselves. Often figuring … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Factorial Designed Experiment Aim

Posted on April 25, 2011 by John Hunter

Multivariate experiments are a very powerful management tool to learn and improve performance. Experiments in general, and designed factorial experiments in particular, are dramatically underused by managers. A question on LinkedIn asks? When doing a DOE we select factors with levels to induce purposely changes in the response variable. Do we want the response variable to move within the specs of the customers? Or it doesn’t matter since we are learning about the process? The aim needs to consider what … Continue reading →

Posted in Design of Experiments, Management, Manufacturing, Process improvement, Quality tools, quote, Science, Six sigma, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Why Lean is Different

Posted on April 12, 2011 by John Hunter

[the broken link to the embedded video was removed] Short webcast by Michael Ballé discusses what makes lean manufacturing different: going to where the work is done, standardize processes (from the gemba view), practice respect for people and continually improve. Lean thinking focuses on achieving better results and through that process improves trust and teamwork internally, as well as better supplier and customer relationships. Related: Non-technical Control Chart Webcast – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, Fulfillment and Flow – lean management, books, … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, Respect, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Quality is Made in the Board Room

Posted on April 8, 2011 by John Hunter

Dr. Deming stated “Quality is made in the board room,” page 202 Dr. Deming: the American who taught the Japanese about quality. I believe, once the board and executive leadership has put in place the right management system (one that respects people, continual improves using a standardized improvement process (that itself is being improved), practices evidence based management, focuses on customer value, improves processes rather than blames people, builds the capacity of the organization over time…) then quality is everyone’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Productivity Improvement for Entrepreneurs (and Everybody Else Really)

Posted on March 14, 2011 by John Hunter

The 3 Factors That are Limiting Your Productivity [the broken link has been removed] by Evan Carmichael Elimination is at the core of every successful business. You have to focus on what you’re really good [at], what drives your business forward, and what you’re legally required to do in order to stay in business. Everything else should be eliminated. … Just because everyone else does it or because you’ve always done it that way, it doesn’t mean you have to … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Management, Process improvement, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Learn by Seeking Knowledge – Not Just from Mistakes

Posted on March 7, 2011 by John Hunter

Being open to new ideas and new knowledge is what is needed to learn. Experimenting, seeking out new knowledge is even better. You can be successful and see an even better way to do things and learn from it. This seems the best way to learn to me – not to just learn from mistakes. Of course this means your goal has to be improvement not just avoiding more mistakes than before. Your actions are based on theories (often unconsciously): … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Creativity, Deming, Innovation, Process improvement, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

How to Get a New Management Strategy, Tool or Concept Adopted

Posted on December 6, 2010 by John Hunter

Often when learning about Deming’s ideas on management, lean manufacturing, design of experiments, PDSA… people become excited. They discover new ideas that show great promise to alleviate the troubles they have in their workplace and lead them to better results. But how to actually get their organization to adopt the ideas often confounds them. In fact, I believe most potential improvements efforts may well fail even before they start because people can’t get past this problem. I believe the way … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Popular, Process improvement, Psychology, Quality tools, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

Good Process Improvement Practices

Posted on November 8, 2010 by John Hunter

Good process improvement practices include: standardized improvement process (pdsa, or whatever) Going to the gemba – improvement is done where the work is done. You must go to the where the action is. Sitting in meeting rooms, or offices, reading reports and making decisions is not the way to improve effectively. evidence based decision making, data guides decision making rather than HiPPO broad participation (those working on the process should be the ones working on improving it and everyone in … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, quote, Respect, Six sigma, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Management Improvement Internal Experts

Posted on November 3, 2010 by John Hunter

Having a group of internal experts in Deming, lean thinking, six sigma, etc. can be an good way to help the organization transform but they must 1) practice respect for people and 2) focus on building organizational capacity. Having, for example a few experts that are very focused on lean thinking and can be tapped by others in the organization I think can be very useful. That group might well also serve as “change agents” which can make some people … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Process improvement, Six sigma | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Managing Our Way to Economic Success

Posted on August 23, 2010 by John Hunter

From Managing Our Way to Economic Success, Two Untapped Resources by William G. Hunter, my father. Written in 1986, but still plenty relevant. We have made some good progress, but there is much more to do: we have barely started adopting these ideas systemically. there are two enormously valuable untapped resources in many companies: potential information and employee creativity. The two are connected. One of the best ways to generate potential information to turn it into kinetic information that can … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Economics, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect, Statistics, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

Stop Starting and Start Finishing – Jason Yip

Posted on August 5, 2010 by John Hunter

Jason Yip explores the value of reducing work in process and reducing context switching costs to optimize throughput. By designing processes to work on projects serially instead of in parallel we reduce context switching, and other costs, of multitasking. Related: Multi-Tasking: Why Projects Take so Long – The Importance of Making Problems Visible – One piece flow (continuous flow) – Kanban

Posted in Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Software Development, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Delighting Customers

Posted on July 26, 2010 by John Hunter

If you have customers that see you as adequate you will keep customers based on inertia. But you have several big problems awaiting you. Those trying to win your customers business only have to overcome inertia – which can be very low hurdle (saving a small bit of money, some minor additional feature). If your customers are delighted they won’t leave (by and large) without significant reasons to. Also your attempts to increase price are very likely to lead to … Continue reading →

Posted in Competition, Customer focus, Deming, Management, Process improvement, quote | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Problem is Likely Not the Person Pointing Out The Problem

Posted on July 19, 2010 by John Hunter

I believe the problem is likely not the person pointing out the problem. Now granted I have often been that person. Part of what I have been tasked with doing in various jobs is finding ways to improve the performance of the organization. I was told the managers wanted to hear about problems from someone working there, so I was asked to do so. What it often meant was they wanted someone to fix the problems they thought existed not … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Involve IT Staff in Business Process Improvement

Posted on July 6, 2010 by John Hunter

I started out basically working on management improvement from the start of my career. My makeup (I am never satisfied and figure things should always be better) along with a few traits, experiences and probably even genes made this a natural fit for me. I tend to take the long view and find fire fighting a waste of time. Why fix some symptom, I want to fix the system so that problem doesn’t happen again. My father worked in statistics, … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Deming, IT, Management, Popular, Process improvement, quote, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Trust Your Staff to Make Decisions

Posted on June 22, 2010 by John Hunter

The failure to give your organization the flexibility to serve customers is a big mistake. Many companies make this mistake. Often the basic problem is managers don’t trust that their systems to hire and develop people that will make good decisions. The solution to this problem is not to give your staff no authority. The solution is to manage your systems so that you can trust your people. This is not as easy to do as it is to say, … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Respect, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Mistake Proofing Deployment of Software Code

Posted on May 19, 2010 by John Hunter

This is a continuation of my previous post: Improving Software Development with Automated Tests. Lets look at a typical poka-yoke example. A USB connector must be put in the right way up – for the connection to work properly and the communication to occur as intended. So to mistake proof the process the connector won’t allow the USB device to be put in upside down – the hardware connection designed to not allow that type of connection. Using a deployment … Continue reading →

Posted in Management, Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments