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Post highlightsby tag:process improvementDemingmanagementlean managementlean manufacturingquality toolscontinual improvementrespect for peoplemore tags
- Business 901 Podcast with Me: Deming’s Management Ideas Today
Here are some links related to items I mention in the podcast:
- The W. Edwards Deming Institute Blog
- William Hunter, my father. Link to paper with Easaw Chacko on Building a Quality Movement within a developing nation, 1972. Developing Children’s Numeracy Using Dice
- Shoichiro Toyoda, Honorary Chairman and director of Toyota: “There is not a day I don’t think about what Dr. Deming meant to us. Deming is the core of our management.”
- Statistics for Experimenters by George Box, Bill Hunter and Stu Hunter.
- City of Madison applying Deming’s management ideas...
- Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog in 2019
14 posts are repeats from the 2018 top 20 list. Of the new top 20 posts 3 were published in 2010, 1 in 2008 and 2 in 2019. The long term value of good blog content is overlooked by many people. I have a historical Curious Cat management RSS feed to help you view that content (also see other Curious Cat RSS feeds).
- The Toyota Way – Two Pillars (2010)
- Keys to the Effective Use of the PDSA Improvement Cycle (2012)
- How to Manage What You Can’t Measure (2010)
- 94% Belongs to the System (2013)
- Stated Versus Revealed Preference (2013)
- Classic Management Theories Are Still Relevant (2010)*
- One factor at a time (OFAT) Versus Factorial Designs (2011)
- The Importance of Critical Thinking and Challenging Assumptions (2017)
- Management Improvement System Flavors
There are many useful concepts, tools and practices within what people refer to as agile software development. And the same can be said for lean. But they are distinct approaches (the links in this post flush out this idea more for those interested in learning more on that topic). That isn’t to say an organization cannot design their own solution that adopts ideas found in each approach. In fact doing so for software development makes sense in my opinion.
- Photos from my trip to New York City
Photos from my trip to New York City include: The Cloisters (part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art – though located far uptown) art and architecture of medieval Europe, the remodeled Museum of Modern Art, Rockefeller Center, Empire State Building and Flatiron Building.
- The World’s Smallest Mobile Color Printer
Cool gadget: PrinCube is a tiny handheld, portable printer: it fits in the palm of your hand. It works over wifi with your phone to easily upload any text, image, or design and instantly print onto virtually any object or surface at the touch of a button.
It makes precise prints on virtually any materials including paper, metal, textiles, plastics, wood, leather and other building and artistic materials.
- Bill Hunter and the Quality Movement
In the presentation George Box discusses interesting student design of experiments projects; read more on those efforts in 101 Ways to Design an Experiment, or Some Ideas About Teaching Design of Experiments.
...
George's closing statement:
We carry in our hearts the inspiring memory of not only a scholar but a man that was resourceful, warm, skillful, courageous, optimistic, helpful, enterprising and generous. His career was whole and balanced in a way that is rare and as we grieve his death we also celebrate the life of a remarkable man.
- Deming on Management: Psychology
Within Deming’s SoPK the psychology component includes an appreciation of:
- how will people are influenced by management policies (for example, targets or a culture of blaming individuals)
- the innate desire people have to take pride in their work
- how people resist change (and how to reduce that resistance)
- confirmation bias (one way our brains can lead us astray)
- what drives people to behave as they do
- and much more - continue reading the rest of the post to learn more...
- The Joy of Work
We spend much of our life at work: we deserve to have pride in what we do and even enjoy it (shocking I know). Read the respect for people posts for some ideas on how to make your workplace better.
- Alley Spring Mill Trail, Missouri
The Alley Spring Mill is in the Ozark National Scenic Riverway (part of the National Park system). The mill itself looks wonderful next to the pond and also has some interesting details inside.
Corn and wheat was loaded at the ground level of the building and moved up to the top via the tiny buckets driven by the water wheel. Then the grain was filtered and ground using the water wheel as the source of power (moving up via the mini bucket elevators and down shoots to the machines on the ground level in sequence)...
- How to Successfully Lead Change Efforts
In order to lead efforts to improve the management of an organization understanding how people will react to change is critical. For that reason I have written about change management often on this blog since I started publishing it in 2004.
In, Why Do People Fail to Adopt Better Management Methods?, I wrote:
It seems that if there were better ways to manage, people would adopt those methods. But this just isn’t the case; sometimes better methods will be adopted but often they won’t. People can be very attached to the way things have always been done. Or they can just be uncomfortable with the prospect of trying something new.
Leading change efforts requires paying attention to the existing conditions: the culture, the motivation to adopt this change and/or the motivation to resist it, the history of change where the change is being attempted and the reasons the change is desired (by at least you and hopefully others). And then you need to build a case for the change and manage the process.
- Human Resources in the Post Deming Era
There are many ways in which the management of our organizations needs to improve (understanding how to use data effectively, systems thinking…) and one of those important areas is in managing people. Managers spend far too little time learning about the existing conditions the people in the organization face, coaching those employees and working on improving the management system to help employees do great work.
- Deming on Management: PDSA Cycle
Blog posts
- What are We Trying to Accomplish?“In The Improvement Guide, the authors add 3 questions to the PDSA cycle: What are we trying to accomplish? – How will we know that a change is an improvement? – What change can we make that will result in improvement?”
- Keys to the Effective Use of the PDSA Improvement Cycle
- Do the experiment
...
- Factfulness – The Importance of Critical Thinking
I have come to see a willingness to value critical thinking, even when it means forcing the organization to address tough issues, as one the differences between organizations that succeed in applying management improvement methods and those that fail. In many organizations that fail, more weight given to making things easy for your bosses versus continual improvement in providing value to customers (which often requires challenging existing processes, beliefs and power structures in the organization).
Challenging the status quo is difficult and most organizations prefer to maintain a culture that takes an easier path. Management improvement often requires a willingness to encourage challenges to the status quo. The importance of challenging the status quo in your organization and in your own thinking is under appreciated.
- Parfrey’s Glen, Wisconsin
Parfrey’s Glen is about an hour outside of Madison next to the Ice Age National Scenic Trail. The trail covers over 1,200 miles throughout Wisconsin.
- Leading The Transformation Process
Transformation starts with the individual but as they change they can run into organizational barriers and resistance to change. Similarly if the organization institutes changes without helping people change their own understanding and views those people resist the changes in the organization.
Deming’s management system provides a view of the organization as a system, including the people in that organization, and ideas for how to manage the transformation as an integrated system. The interactions between the components of the system and people must be considered and managed to transform. And those interactions continually change as the overall system evolves.
