Tag Archives: Systems thinking

Respect People: Trust Them to Use good Judgment

Nordstrom’s employee handbook used to be presented on a single 5 x 8 card: Welcome to Nordstrom We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and … Continue reading

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

A Theory of a System for Educators and Managers

Excerpts from The Deming Library Volume XXI, Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Russell Ackoff and David Langford demonstrate that educators can begin a quality transformation by developing an understanding of the properties and powers of systems-oriented thinking. You can order … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Education, Management, quote, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Build an Environment Where Intrinsic Motivation Flourishes

50 years after Douglas McGregor’s classic, The Human Side of Enterprise, too many managers still have not learned that using extrinsic motivation is not an effective way to manage complex human systems (organizations). The issue is important to me because … Continue reading

Posted in Career, Deming, Management, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments

Stop Starting and Start Finishing – Jason Yip

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: … Continue reading

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

How to Manage What You Can’t Measure

In Out of the Crisis, page 121, Dr. Deming wrote: the most important figures that one needs for management are unknown or unknowable (Lloyd S. Nelson, director of statistical methods for the Nashua corporation), but successful management must nevertheless take … Continue reading

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Delighting Customers

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 … Continue reading

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

Involve IT Staff in Business Process Improvement

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 … Continue reading

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

Southwest Not Delta or United

One of the posts highlighted in the last post was one example of how Southwest behaves. It wasn’t a one time thing. It was a common result of the system Southwest has in place where they treat customers like human … Continue reading

Posted in Customer focus, Management, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Classic Management Theories Are Still Relevant

Good management is good management: it doesn’t matter if someone figured out the good idea 100 years ago or last week. Are “Classic” Management Theories Still Relevant? It did make me wonder about the staying power of management models, processes, … Continue reading

Posted in Deming, Management, quote, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Interruptions Can Severely Damage Performance

Interruptions can severely degrade your performance. The type of work you are doing impacts the cost greatly. I have spent some of my time programming web applications. When I am doing that interruptions are a huge drain on my performance … Continue reading

Posted in Creativity, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect, Software Development, Systems thinking | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments