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Post highlightsby tag:process improvementDeminglean manufacturinglean managementquality toolsmanagementcontinual improvementrespect for peoplemore tags
- Lessons on Competition from Mother Nature
Too often I see simplistic thinking used to accept that the results were good so what we did was wise or the results were bad so what we did was unwise. Sometimes those conclusions have merit. Sometimes they don’t. The results matter but understanding the nature of those results is important. Was it due to luck (did our company due well because the overall market boomed and we were taken along for the ride). Was it due to taking risks that happened to work out well now but is likely to result in bad results in the future? Is it just random variation that we attribute to good luck?
- Interactions Among the Four Fields in Deming's System of Profound Knowledge
... 2 quick examples
Distorting the System to meet a target
This certainly is about the interaction of understanding variation (in this case people not understanding data well enough and being mislead), psychology (how people respond to pressure to meet goals), theory of knowledge (not understanding the difference between the proxy value of data and the underlying truth) and systems thinking (how a system is likely to react to meet goals - distorting data and distorting the system, and using simple measures where those things work to get numbers).
Create a System That Lets People Take Pride in Their Work ... - Testing Smarter with Matt Heusser
Hexawise: You have written about the benefits of lean thinking in software testing. What advantages do organizations gain when they adopt a lean thinking view of software testing?
Matt: You know that thing that happens, where you can't do your job because you filed a ticket and it will take the DBA's a week to add a column to a table, so you can't do your job, for a week?
Or whatever else it is? Right now I've got a contractor billing on my team with no laptop. He'll have it nine days after he started ... if we're lucky.
Typically, when a company goes to lean thinking, that kind of stuff stops happening.
- New International Banking Solution for Small Business and Digital Nomads
One of the significant hassles of a the new digital economy is that national borders are largely irrelevant to digital businesses but the banking infrastructure is still stuck in the past. Dealing with international payments is a hassle and can be expensive.
New businesses are disrupting the old banks.
- Improving Management with Tools and Knowledge
Both the tools and the underlying principles are catalysts to better management. Alone each can result in a bit of improvement. But when they are used together is when you see remarkable improvement. The effective integration of the principles and the tools is what separates the remarkable companies we respect (and maybe envy) from all the others that are having some success but that are also struggling in many ways.
- The Johor Bahru, Malaysia Luxury Condo Market Needs the MRT to Singapore to be Completed Quickly
In 2015 the timeline for extending the Singapore MRT to Johor Bahru was extended to 2020. Now, the latest I have read is that it is being delayed further – until 2022. There is likely no other factor more important to reduce the supply demand imbalance for luxury condos than getting a good MRT solution into operation. Next would likely be a 3rd road link. Next is the need for adding many more high paying jobs in Johor Bahru than has been the case so far. These 3 areas should be the main areas of focus.
- Organizations as Social Systems
Organizations are social systems made up of people.
Social systems often amplify what happens.
If good things happen, more good things often follow.
When bad things happen, more bad things often follow.
To improve it is wise to this into account and design elements of the management system to encourage the amplification of what is good and that seeks to stop what is bad from being amplified.
- Testing Smarter with Ajay Balamurugadas
Ajay:
To be convincing, you might have to work on your reputation first. Work on it. People most of the times say "No" until they are convinced. Once you highlight the benefits of pairing and collaboration, people will listen.
- Creating a Deep Commitment to Delighting Customers
Those organizations that can delight customers today and take the steps today that position the organization to delight customers in the future will prosper and grow. But building and maintaining a management culture that reinforces delighting customers and long term thinking is quite difficult.
...
Successfully delighting customers requires much more than a wish that customers were delighted with our organization. It requires knowing what your customers want and creating system that can reliably delivering that to customers.
- The Transformation is Everybody’s Job
There are quotes you can pick to make it seem like executives are responsible for the system and individuals workers have little impact on overall results – “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” This shows the limitation of isolated quotes more than anything else.
Complex systems have many leverage points and can be influenced in many ways. It is unreasonable to have a broken management system and blame those working within it for the naturally poor results than such a system creates. And executives have more authority and thus more responsibility for creating a good management system that is continually improving. But such a management system requires that everyone in the organization is contributing.
Those with authority must modify the management system to allow everyone to contribute. But that doesn’t mean everyone else just sits by waiting for those with more authority to transform the organization. Transformation doesn’t work that way. It is a dynamic, interconnected process. It isn’t as simple as turning on a light (or declaring this is our new transformed management system).
- We are Not Us Without The Microbes Within Us
Avoiding bacteria is not feasible. Our bodies have evolved with this constant interaction with bacteria for millions of years. When we are healthy bacteria have footholds that make it difficult for other bacteria to gain a foothold (as does our immune system fighting off those bacteria it doesn’t recognize or that it recognized as something to fight).
Human health is a fascinating topic. It is true antibiotics have provided us great tools in the service of human health. But we have resorted to that “hammer” far too often. And the consequences of doing so is not understood. We need those scientists exploring the complex interactions we contain to continue their great work.
- Robots for Health Care from Toyota
Most often innovation efforts take the form of understanding the jobs your customers are using your products and service for now and developing new solutions to delight those customers. This is difficult for companies to pull of successfully.
Occasionally innovation involves meeting completely new needs of customers. For example Toyota started as a loom company and is now known as a car company. Making such a radical change is not often successful.
Will Toyota be able to add robots to the products it produces successfully? I believe they have a chance. But it won’t be easy.
- Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Wisconsin
Photos from my visit to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore in northern Wisconsin. The park on the shores of Lake Superior provides some wondeful hikes and boat rides to take in the natural world.
- Testing Smarter with Michael Bolton
Michael Bolton is a consulting software tester and testing teacher who helps people solve testing problems that they didn’t realize they could solve. He is the co-author (with senior author James Bach) of Rapid Software Testing, a methodology and mindset for testing software expertly and credibly in uncertain conditions and under extreme time pressure.
- Using Scientific Knowledge to Drive Policies that Create a Better World
We can’t afford to elect people that don’t have an understanding of how to make wise decisions or how to ensure scientific knowledge forms the basis of policy when it should, such as: overfishing, pollution, global warming, the health care benefits vaccines provide when they are used properly, the dangers of abusing antibiotics, etc..
We need to elect leaders like those that took the steps to have the EPA clean up the incredibly polluted USA. We need to elect leaders that put the policies in place to reduce the overfishing in our waters. We need to elect leaders that care about our country and will learn what they need to from those that know the science.
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Articles
- Good Process Improvement Practices
- How to Get a New Management Strategy, Tool or Concept Adopted
- Building a Great Software Development Team
- Using Quality to Develop an Internet Resource
- Encouraging Curiosity in Kids
- Purpose of an Organization
- How to Effectively Use of the PDSA Improvement Cycle
- Financial Market Meltdown
- Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership
- The Toyota Way - Two Pillars
- Diplomacy and Science Research
- Dangers of Forgetting the Proxy Nature of Data
- Awesome Cat Cam