Selected Posts: October to December 2012

New Look: Curious Cat Website - completely new design

• Circumhorizontal Arcs - Fire Rainbows - Cloud Rainbows - see some cool photos I took of this cool weather phenomenon
• Observing the Actual Use of Your Product or Service - Listening to, and appreciating the voice of the customer is critical to understanding how to improve to better meet customers needs and to innovate to provide customers new solutions they might not even realize they want.
• The most important customer focus is on the end users - You just need to be careful to understand the different needs of the various customers. But I think the ideas translate pretty well. The Customer gemba is something you should understand.
• Dr. Deming on Leadership - Dr. Deming: "The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people."
• The Greatest Waste - Hoping to capture the benefits of all the great minds working in your organization without questioning many existing practices is likely to result in minimal improvement.
• Business 901 Podcast with John Hunter: Deming's Management Ideas Today
• Maximizing Software Tester Value by Letting Them Spend More Time Thinking - Some things are just so complex or so effectively handled with well designed software people cannot compete. Designing software test plan coverage is one of those areas.
• Respect for Everyone - I value changing the system to build the capability of the enterprise. As part of that, I realize, it is important to create a system that at its core respects people.
• Eliminate Sales Commissions: Reject Theory X Management and Embrace Systems Thinking - You discourage teamwork as they have been told their value is based on their sales. You tell the rest of the organization that they are not important for sales or worthy of being rewarded for good sales...
• Long Term View of Manufacturing Employment in the USA - In 1980 manufacturing jobs accounted for over 22% of USA jobs; by 1990 that fell to 17%, by 2000 to 14% and by 2010 to 10%. Manufacturing output grew a great deal while employment total decreased.
• Withdrawing Huge Amounts of Cash From Companies You Saddle with Debt is Despicable Behavior - These are smart people. They know how to use public apathy and rhetoric to keep from discussing the important issues. It is going to take us to stop the corrupting cronyism that has taken over our political parties.
• Deming Chain Reaction - Dr. Deming explained how reducing costs through process improvement, and at the same time improving productivity and product effectiveness allows a company to benefit from the positive chain reaction.
• Capuchin Monkeys Don't Like Being Paid Less - Monkey's share our frustration at seeing what we perceive as unfair treatment.
• Follow Wise Advice - the advice itself isn't any more or less good based on whether the person giving it follows it, or not. I find it much more sensible to evaluate advice based on whether it is wise than based on whether the person providing it is wise (or foolish) enough to follow the advice.
• Manufacturing Output as Percent of GDP from 1980 to 2010 by Country - For the 10 largest manufacturing countries in 2010, the overall manufacturing GDP percentage was 24.9% of GDP in 1980 and dropped to 17.7% in 2010. The manufacturing share of the USA economy dropped from 21% in 1980 to 18% in 1990, 15% in 2000 and 13% in 2010. Still, USA manufacturing output has grown substantially: over 300% since 1980, and 175% since 1990.