Tag Archives: webcast

Change How Your Business Changes

Posted on September 13, 2010 by John Hunter

[They seem to have broken the webcast so I have delete it. How sad it is how poor a job well financed organizations to at maintaining what they put online.] John Kotter believes technology and globalization are requiring us to change more rapidly. “It is very difficult to innovate without requiring people to do something different.” If an organization culture is mainly avoiding making anyone uncomfortable, innovation and improvement are quite difficult. Improvement is required to stay in business today. … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Innovation | Tagged , ,

Technical Non-Support

Posted on August 12, 2010 by John Hunter

A bit of fun from Dilbert. I have had the exact experience Dilbert does of tech support refusing to think about the actual symptoms of the problem and insisting on following some script and wasting my time – repeatedly. The second act takes on another time waster with a management tip from Dogbert: “Always postpone meetings with time wasting morons.” Dogbert hasn’t quite adopted the respect for people principle. via: The final word on making meetings better Related: Dilbert and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer focus, Fun, webcast | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Combinatorial Testing – The Quadrant of Massive Efficiency Gains

Posted on May 17, 2010 by John Hunter

My brother, Justin Hunter, gives a lightning talk on Combinatorial Testing – The Quadrant of Doom and The Quadrant of Massive Efficiency Gains in the video above. The following text is largely directly quoted from the talk – with a bit of editing by me. When you have a situation that has many many many possible parameters and each time only a few possible choices (a few items you are trying to vary and test – in his example in … Continue reading →

Posted in Quality tools, Software Development | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Nice Non-technical Control Chart Webcast

Posted on April 28, 2010 by John Hunter

This very brief introduction to control charts by PQ Systems provides a very watchable non-technical overview. Getting people to understand variation is important, and not easy. This video is one more quick reminder for those still trying to incorporate an understanding of variation into their view of the world. The idea is simple. But actually thinking with an understanding of variation people find difficult, it seems to me. It is very easy to continue to revert to special cause thinking … Continue reading →

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

Bill George on Leadership

Posted on March 15, 2010 by John Hunter

Bill George is professor of management practice at the Harvard Business School and former chairman and CEO of Medtronic, the world’s leading medical technology company. Under his leadership, Medtronic’s market capitalization grew from $1.1 billion to $60 billion, averaging 35 percent a year. He is the author of the best-selling Authentic Leadership and a board member of Goldman Sachs, Target, and Novartis. His board membership at Goldman Sachs certainly leaves him with something to answer for (which I don’t think … Continue reading →

Posted in Management | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, Fulfillment and Flow

Posted on February 24, 2010 by John Hunter

“After a certain basic point, which translates, more or less, to just a few thousand dollars above the minimum poverty level, increases in material well being don’t see to affect how happy people are.” The speech includes, the first purpose of incorporation at Sony: To establish a place of work where engineers can feel the joy of technological innovation, be aware of their mission to society, and work to their heart’s content. Excellent books by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow: The Psychology … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Creativity, Psychology, Respect, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Undercover Boss – Will They Really Change?

Posted on January 11, 2010 by John Hunter

[removed video that is no longer available] I am skeptical that this reality show (Undercover Boss) will actually do any good but the webclip looks fun. It will premier right after the Super Bowl on CBS. The concept, if done right, could actually be interesting. But even in that case, I would be skeptical it would do much good. I may be wrong, but I would think we will get a whole bunch of thoughts based on one single data … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Management, Psychology, quote, Respect | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Management Webcast: Introduction to Lean Manufacturing

Posted on November 9, 2009 by John Hunter

Webcast introduction to lean manufacturing by Ron Pereira. This is a great 9 minute introduction to the topic, for those not familiar with lean thinking. It sets the context for lean thinking and provides some history on how lean manufacturing has developed. Get videos on learning about lean from the Gemba Academy. Related: Oranges, Pebbles, and Sand [the broken link has been removed] – Dr. Russell Ackoff Webcast on Systems Thinking – An Introduction to Deming’s Management Ideas by Peter … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | Tagged , , , ,

Statistical Learning as the Ultimate Agile Development Tool by Peter Norvig

Posted on November 5, 2009 by John Hunter

Interesting lecture on Statistical Learning as the Ultimate Agile Development Tool by Peter Norvig. The webcast is likely to be of interest to a fairly small segment of readers of this blog. But for geeks it may be interesting. He looks at the advantages of machine learning versus hand programming every case (for example spelling correction). Google translate does a very good job (for computer based translation) based on machine learning. You can translate any of the pages on this … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Software Development, Statistics | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

An Introduction to Deming’s Management Ideas by Peter Scholtes (webcast)

Posted on September 14, 2009 by John Hunter

An Introduction to Deming’s Management Teaching and Philosophy by Peter Scholtes – webcast from the Annual W. Edwards Deming Institute conference in Madison, Wisconsin, November 9th, 2008. My previous post on this speech: 6 Leadership Competencies. Next month, the Annual Deming Institute conference will be held at Purdue on Oct 10th, 2009. Related: Peter Scholtes’ Life – Curious Cat’s Deming on Management – The Leader’s Handbook – Performance without Appraisal

Posted in Creativity, curiouscat.com, Deming, Education, Innovation, Lean thinking, Management, Performance Appraisal, Popular, Process improvement, Psychology, quote, Respect, Science, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Dr. Deming Webcast on the 5 Deadly Diseases

Posted on August 26, 2009 by John Hunter

The W. Edwards Deming Institute has posted Dr. Deming’s 1984 video on the 5 deadly diseases of western management. Lack of constancy of purpose Emphasis on short term profits – “creative” accounting, focus on quarterly profits Annual Performance Appraisals – management by objective, management by fear Mobility of management – [see Toyota for a great example of a company that operates on different principles – where the leadership has been with Toyota for decades] Running a company on visible figures … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, Economics, Lean thinking, Management, Performance Appraisal, Popular, quote, webcast | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Lean Manufacturing Webcast from India

Posted on July 28, 2009 by John Hunter

This lean thinking webcast from India actually does a pretty decent job of providing an overview (for a business TV channel) even if they get some things a bit confused. The discuss TQM in India preceding lean which is an accurate view in my opinion – quality management shared many lean principles. They even talk of lean at Ford doing lean first. But they get the decades for that a bit off. They seem to mash together the “quality is … Continue reading →

Posted in Deming, India, Lean thinking, Management, Toyota Production System (TPS), webcast | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Three Years of Real-World IT Projects In Ruby

Posted on July 16, 2009 by John Hunter

Nice webcast by Martin Fowler, Three Years of Real-World Ruby. This talk is probably only of interest to those of you in software development, but for them I think it is an excellent presentation. At work we have been use Ruby for the last 3 years and have found it to be a powerful language that helps make writing software applications fun. And that is important. By providing a powerful language and a rails framework that takes away much of … Continue reading →

Posted in IT, Software Development, webcast | Tagged , , , , , ,

United Breaks Guitars

Posted on July 7, 2009 by John Hunter

Unfortunately companies like United have created cultures where people take pride in doing their job poorly. And the continued long term customer hostility companies take shows no sign of letting up. My suggestion is to take Southwest or Jet Blue (or Singapore Airlines or Cathay Pacific). Unfortunately sometimes you need to travel somewhere that no airline that cares about customer service flies. Then just hope somehow the broken system you must trust to get you someplace somehow doesn’t fail you … Continue reading →

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

The Myth of the Genius Programmer

Posted on June 29, 2009 by John Hunter

Nice talk on fear of looking foolish. The speakers discuss the idea that visibility is good. Don’t hide. Make everything visible and the benefit from many people’s ideas. The talk focuses on software development but is true for any work. “criticism is not evil” – Very true. “At Google we are not allowed to submit code until there is code review.” At the bottom line they are repeating Deming’s ideas: improve the system – people are not the problem, bad … Continue reading →

Posted in Google, Psychology, Respect, Software Development, Systems thinking, Theory of Constraints, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Dr. Russell Ackoff Webcast on Systems Thinking

Posted on May 13, 2009 by John Hunter

Dr. Ackoff is one of two management thinkers that any manager, that is serious about improving management results in their organization, should study (the other is Dr. Deming). There are plenty of others that are also great resources. From part 2 of his talk: “Why-questions, about objects called systems, cannot be answered by the use of analysis… The product of explanation is understanding… The product of analysis is how things work, never why they work the way they do. Explanations … Continue reading →

Posted in Creativity, Deming, Management, quote, Science, Systems thinking, webcast | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments