Tag Archives: productivity

Design Your Organization to Serve Customers Well

Quality is a Journey to Excellence is a 2 day management seminar that Bill Hunter (my father) recorded in 1985 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The embedded clip shows the second section of a the seminar discussing customers and how to … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Deming, Management, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Good Project Management Practices

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 … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Magnetic White-Board Kanban Card Options

Just some quick ideas for Kanban whiteboard magnetic card options from a question I answered on Reddit. Here is the best lean solution: Trying Out My Agile Kanban Board from Jon Miller. Why, well mainly I am kidding about it … Continue reading

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Executive Leadership

Senior executives must lead management improvement efforts. When senior executives only give lip service to management efforts the result is normally the same: little happens. When Dr. Deming was working with companies after the 1980’s NBC white paper, If Japan … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Management, Psychology, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Management Improvement Blog Carnival #183

The Curious Cat Management Carnival is published twice each month. 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: Deming, innovation, lean manufacturing, … Continue reading

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Management Improvement Carnival #133

The Curious Cat management blog carnival is published 3 times a month with select recent management blog posts. I also collect management improvement articles through Curious Cat Management Articles, you can subscribe via RSS to new article additions. Why I … Continue reading

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Productivity Improvement for Entrepreneurs (and Everybody Else Really)

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 … Continue reading

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

What to Wear to an Interview

Response to What to Wear for an IT Job Interview?. Is this just a huge bit stereotypical? Who can blame them for not wanting to bother with their wardrobes? Fashion is fickle. Fashion is expensive. Fashion requires imagination and inspiration, … Continue reading

Posted in Career, IT, Psychology, Software Development | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Managing Passionate Employees

Passion vs. Productive There are actually few organizations that can support passionate employees – even if they say they want them. That’s because the original industrial revolution was designed to support productivity. Productivity means you produce. That’s how you’re measured. … Continue reading

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Joel Management

Topic: Management Improvement, Lean Thinking Joel Spolsky writes the excellent Joel on Software blog and runs Fog Creek Software. Recently he has been writing about process improvement of the order fulfillment process for a movie on the experience of interns … Continue reading

Posted in Management, Process improvement | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments