John Hunter's blog posts (all time)

Improving Engineering Education

Wed, 14 Oct 2026

Olin’s aim is to flip over the traditional “theory first, practice later” model and make students plunge into hands-on engineering projects starting on day one. Instead of theory-heavy lectures, segregated disciplines, and individual efforts, Olin champions design exercises, interdisciplinary studies, and teamwork.

This requires radically changing the normal university education model. To me this is definitely a different versus better (see last post) improvement effort. It will be interesting to see the success they achieve going forward. It almost makes me want to go back to school.

Better and Different

Tue, 13 Oct 2026

The answer, as I see it, is to be better and different (when necessary).

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if you have to choose one, just being better will work most of the time. The problem is (using an example from Deming, page 9 New Economics) when, for example, carburetors are eliminated by innovation (fuel injectors) no matter how well you make them you are out of business.

Often people mistake Deming’s ideas as only about being better. He stressed not only continual improvement (Kaizen, incremental improvement, SPC) but also innovation. He stressed innovation both in the normal sense of innovating new products for customers and also innovation in managing the organization.

Forget Targets

Mon, 12 Oct 2026

While targets and goals can distract from improvement some guidance is useful. Systems thinking is important when using targets. As is an understanding of psychology (given the tendency to manage to what is measured the system can often be distorted to achieve a target). See more in: dangers of forgetting proxy nature of data.

Problems Caused by Performance Appraisal

Sun, 11 Oct 2026

People are increasingly challenging the notion that we just have to live with performance appraisal systems. As usually, I will make my suggestion that chapter 9 of the Leader’s Handbook offers great material on performing without appraisal (and the rest of the book is great too).

The Customer Knows Best?

Sat, 10 Oct 2026

Some management ideas are pretty easy and straight forward. But many management practices require knowledge and judgment to apply them successfully. Easy solutions may be desired, but, often you must choose between easy and effective (hint, I suggest effective is the better target).

Listening to customers is important but it is not sufficient.

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People could assume the numbers at Enron proved what Enron was doing was correct. But it did not prove that. Until we start to evaluate data more accurately we will continue to mistakenly see proof where it does not exist.

Management: Geeks and Deming

Fri, 9 Oct 2026

Several of Deming’s 14 obligation of management and 7 deadly diseases are noted in this quote, including: “Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work” and the disease – “Emphasis on short term profits.” Deming was a physicist so that may explain the similarity of this ideas to geek management culture.

“Geeks seek knowledge for it’s own sake” – Deming’s point 13 “Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.” Deming encouraged organizations supporting education of employees – even when unrelated to work in any direct way.
“Geeks like to experiment” – many of Deming’s ideas focus on this point, most obviously is the emphasis on PDSA
“Geeks openly debate the merits of technical ideas”

Understanding Data

Thu, 8 Oct 2026

Effective use of data is an important part of management improvement. Emphasis is needed on “effective”; data misuse is rampant and creates problems. Use of data by itself is not sufficient.

To be effective you need to learn to think about not what is printed on the page but what lies behind the numbers you see. The numbers are just proxies for the real situation.

Respect for People

Wed, 7 Oct 2026

“Ohno was absolutely ruthless, employees and suppliers lived in fear of him.” I would say that while Taiichi Ohno was truly remarkable that doesn’t mean he did everything right.

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The difference between respect and disrespect is not avoiding avoiding criticism. In fact often if you respect someone you can be much more direct and critical than you can with someone you treat as though they don’t have the ability to listen to hard truths and improve. I think we often have so little respect for people we just avoid dealing with anything touchy because we don’t want to risk they won’t be able to react to the issues raised and will instead just react as if they have been personally attacked.

It may also be that it is easier to train managers to behave in this way than to effectively deal with though issues. But that is not training them to respect people, it is your organization accepting you don’t respect your people (managers and others) so just train people how to behave in a way that avoids difficult areas.

Six Sigma and Process Drift

Tue, 6 Oct 2026

Quality Quandaries: Six Sigma, Process Drift, Capability Indices, and Feedback Adjustment by George Box and Alberto Luceno. This article is for the more statistically inclined.

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Feedback adjustment can be dangerous: tampering. In fact, I would say attempting it is likely to be tampering, unless those doing so are careful and knowledgeable. It might be wise to read Box and Luceno’s book on the topic – Statistical Control: By Monitoring and Feedback Adjustment if you are tempted to try.

Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame

Mon, 5 Oct 2026

Why did they make that error? Why did the process let them make that error? When you follow the why chain a couple more steps you can find root causes that will allow you to find a much more effective solution. You can then pilot (PDSA) an improvement strategy that doesn’t just amount to “Do a better job Joe” or “that is it Joe we are replacing you with Mary.” Neither of those strategies turns out to be very effective.

But investigating a bit more to find a root cause can result in finding solutions that improve the performance of all the workers.

Airline Quality (or Rather, Lack Thereof)

Sun, 4 Oct 2026

I flew JetBlue Airways last week. The help at the counter was polite and friendly. While this is only one data point (and hardly a “high bar” to meet) it contrasts with most of my flying experience (in my experience Southwest has a good likelihood of providing good service but few other airlines do). It would be nice if more airlines could be like Southwest...

Most Meetings are Muda

Sat, 3 Oct 2026

Have the PM email the list of resolved and new action items to all the participants.

This is an important step missed far too often. Doing so helps make sure that everyone leaving the meeting has the same understanding of what has been decided: in addition to reviewing new assignments I would suggest review all significant decisions made. Far too often, people have very different ideas on what happened in previous meetings.

Why are you afraid of process?

Fri, 2 Oct 2026

Process management is necessary for management improvement. That is true in manufacturing, service, government, research and any other environment. The way process management will be done must be modified to be effective. I believe people react negatively to the concept because they see process as the “rules” such as when the explanation for poor service is given as “that is our policy.” Don’t mix up those excuses with proper process management and improvement strategies.

Quality and Costs

Thu, 1 Oct 2026

Deming explained that increasing quality decreases costs. Page 3 of Out of the Crisis: Improve Quality –> Costs decrease because of less rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays…

Like most models this does not explain everything. Achieving some quality desires does cost more. And the article examines how to look at the issue of cost reduction in health care, where the view that higher quality costs more persists to a larger extent than elsewhere. There is significant room in health care for adopting improvement that will improve quality and reduce costs because the systems are so poorly designed they are both increasing costs and decreasing quality over what could be achieved.

Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus (2006)

Wed, 30 Sep 2026

I think most of Dell's users do not notice what Dell is doing, exactly. Reddit readers, however, by and large, do, which is one thing that makes reading Reddit fun. I find Reddit's users can point out, not just problems, but the systemic causes of those problems (so they vote up the links that do exactly this).

Most customers might not see the chain leading to their frustration but the do know they don't like that the computer is slow and they have to wade through all sorts of software (much of which they don't need or want). I think the author was exactly right that the source of the problem is Dell's monetary incentive is to get paid to add more and more stuff not to give the users what they need.

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Mainly I think these critical looks at practices are fun reading, but there is also a management issue to understand. There are many smart people who know how to voice their opinion (and the internet can connect that voice to large numbers of people). In this day and age, if you think your imperial halo with protect you from the masses you had better hope none of these people get a look at what you offer. If you are figuratively naked, they will see, and they will shout that fact from the mountain top.

PBS Documentary: Improving Hospitals

Tue, 29 Sep 2026

This rare good news documentary reports on a surprising solution to escalating costs, unnecessary deaths and waste in America’s hospitals. Doctors and nurses tell how they did their best, working overtime, while hospital conditions worsened. They were delighted to learn a new way to improve patient care dramatically and reduce unnecessary deaths, suffering, errors, infections and costs without additional resources or government regulations.

Lean Manufacturing Success

Mon, 28 Sep 2026

Not only is this a nice story but it is one small example of the good people working at GM and Ford. The problem is not the individual workers it is management. It is too bad that those companies, that did take great strides in the 1980 and early 1990s to improve (starting with Deming’s Management ideas) let those efforts fade away.

Problems with Bonuses

Sun, 27 Sep 2026

Commission pay and bonus often set up a conflict between what is in the interest of the company and the employee. They lead to bunching of orders around quarterly quotas, deadlines and competitions. They lead salespeople to think their job is to sell whatever pays them the most not to assist the customer.

A Company’s Purpose is to be Useful to Society

Sat, 26 Sep 2026

(Toyota President, Katsuaki Watanabe) eschews the normal management mantra of shareholder value above all. A company’s purpose, Watanabe insists, is to be useful to society.

Which, of course, echoes W. Edwards Deming's words on the purpose of a business.

People: Team Members or Costs

Fri, 25 Sep 2026

Both Toyota and GM seek to use technology to improve but Toyota sees the technology as useful to help people to be more efficient, eliminate menial repetitive tasks, eliminate tasks that cause injury… and it seems to me GM saw technology as a way to eliminate people. The action showed a company that viewed people as a cost to be eliminated. GM did not act as though people were their “most important assets” as we so often hear, but see so little evidence of in the action of companies.

Toyota does try to reduce overall costs (including labor costs) by continually improving and making cars more and more efficiently (so they can produce cars using fewer hours of labor in the future than they need today). Trying to become more efficient by engaging everyone in the effort is a part of the system of management at Toyota. The current Toyota employees are an important part of the system and are not viewed as a cost to eliminate.

Good Customer Service Example

Thu, 24 Sep 2026

Recently I bought a new digital camera, Canon A700. Part of the reason I bought it was I had heard they actually provided customer service – you could call them and they answered and helped (plus they have long practiced good management improvement concepts, in general).

Well I received my camera and I could not open the battery compartment: which was quite frustrating. I tried following the instructions but I couldn’t get it to open. So I tried calling Canon and I got a person on the phone within 30 seconds (there was system to direct me to the right person but it was as speaking the answer to a couple questions).

Within a couple minutes the service person (based in Virginia and a Canon employee, as I understand it) had picked up a Canon A700 and explained how to open the door.

Good Customer Service Example

Thu, 24 Sep 2026

I received my camera and I could not open the battery compartment: which was quite frustrating. I tried following the instructions but I couldn’t get it to open. So I tried calling Canon and I got a person on the phone within 30 seconds

Secrets of the World’s Best Companies

Wed, 23 Sep 2026

As Dr. W. Edwards Deming said there is no instant pudding for management (no quick fix). And management requires customization to the organization. You cannot just copy management practices from one place, where they are successful, to another. You can learn from what has been successful and adopt it to your organization if you have knowledge and theory and know how to test (pdsa) the effectiveness of new ideas in your organization.

I don’t find many of the “secrets” mentioned in the article to be the greatest ideas for management (the best ideas I find among the thoughts of Deming, Ackoff, Ohno, Provost, Csikszentmihalyi, Hoerl, etc..

Still, I believe it is good to learn about what others are doing.

Secrets of the World’s Best Companies

Wed, 23 Sep 2026

... great management ideas are found in the thoughts of leading management thinkers (now it is true most I think most “writings or speeches of gurus and consultants” don’t provide much use but the right thinkers do offer great value).

As Dr. W. Edwards Deming said there is no instant pudding for management (no quick fix). And management requires customization to the organization. You cannot just copy management practices from one place, where they are successful, to another. You can learn from what has been successful and adopt it to your organization if you have knowledge and theory and know how to test (PDSA) the effectiveness of new ideas in your organization...

Fear Remains a Toyota Motivator

Wed, 23 Sep 2026

First, don’t let the title fool you, this is not an indication Toyota is going against Deming’s obligation of management to “Drive out fear and build trust so that everyone can work effectively”.

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Rather than being drawn to improve it is most often stated as being scared that if we don’t we will have to pay for failing to improve. Thus the reference to fear.

Lean Thinking and Management

Tue, 22 Sep 2026

I agree that we should acknowledge the paucity of success stories for improving the practice of management. The failures of management are not minor. The problems are large and the successes seem limited. The biggest thing I think we need to learn from this is that improving management is not easy. The concepts may seem simple but most of us can look around and see much more Dilbert Boss behavior than lean thinking behavior. And the gap between those two types of behavior seems to rise as you go “up” the organization chart.

Using Design of Experiments

Mon, 21 Sep 2026

Design of Experiments can seem complicated but at the core it is fairly simple and powerful. By applying the proper techniques it allows you to gage the effect of several variables and, very importantly, the interactions of those variables with a small number of experiments (or tests or pilots).

George Box is a wonderful author (and friend) who can write for mangers who are not knowledgeable about statistics and statisticians. Statistics for Discovery does a good job of explaining how organizations should use experiments to improve.

Deming and Toyota

Mon, 21 Sep 2026

I believe Toyota applied Deming’s ideas to create a management system and continued to develop that system to create the Toyota Production System (also known as lean manufacturing).

Using Design of Experiments

Mon, 21 Sep 2026

Six Sigma Won’t Fix Bad Management?

Sun, 20 Sep 2026

Like most management concepts how it is applied varies tremendously. If one just uses some tools that are part of the “Six Sigma tool kit” (mostly tools from TQM and the like) then you might improve bad management only marginally.

But if you read the work of Roger Hoerl, Soren Bisgaard, Forrest Breyfogle III… and learn and apply what they talk about as Six Sigma you will definitely have to address bad management practices. Their Six Sigma is definitely a management improvement system (you can’t apply their concepts of Six Sigma without fixing many bad management practices).

Six Sigma Won’t Fix Bad Management?

Sun, 20 Sep 2026

But if you read the work of Roger Hoerl, Soren Bisgaard, Forrest Breyfogle III… and learn and apply what they talk about as Six Sigma you will definitely have to address bad management practices...

Improving the 401(k) System

Sat, 19 Sep 2026

Many people don’t even take advantage of a 401(k) to save for their retirement. From a public policy perspective it creates a huge long term problem. The economy will end up with millions of people that didn’t save for retirement and will be a drain on those who did save for retirement and the rest of the economy.

So Congress actually passed a good revision to the law. Employers will now be required to default to having employees save for their retirement in 401(k) plans. The employee still has the option to decline doing so, but now, without such a choice, they will automatically save for retirement.

Not Lean Retailing

Fri, 18 Sep 2026

Nothing is wrong with major decisions being made by the leaders but the article leaves the impression many non-major decisions are cetralized too. That is a problem for those who believe in management improvement ideas including lean thinking.

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Again moving away from good lean management ideas such as: longevity of management, focus on value of employees rather than cost of employees…

Theory in Practice

Thu, 17 Sep 2026

Knowledge is built upon theory… Rational prediction requires theory and builds knowledge through systematic revision and extention of theory based on comparison of prediction with observation.

W. Edwards Deming, page 102, The New Economics

Is Made in the USA Back In Vogue? (2006)

Thu, 17 Sep 2026

This example provides more evidence of the benefits of "lean manufacturing," though it seems they are getting only a few benefits (reduction of waste, faster resupply of "hot items") and they may well not know about <a href="http://curiouscat.com/management/leanthinking.cfm">lean thinking</a>. By studying and applying lean ideas they should be able to reduce the 45 day turn-around time. Perhaps they should read the Fashion Incubator blog...

Innovation at Toyota in Developing the Prius

Wed, 16 Sep 2026

By the end of 1993 the development team had determined that higher oil prices and a growing middle class around the world would require the new car to be both roomy and fuel-efficient. Other than that, they were given no guidance. “I was trying to come up with the future direction of the company,” says Watanabe, who headed corporate planning at the time. “I didn’t have a very specific idea about the vehicle.”

Investing in innovation is risky. If successful, the benefits can build a competitive advantage that is difficult for others to eliminate. However, others will try and if you fail to execute as well in the future those benefits can disappear quickly. Toyota shows few signs of letting others catch up though.

Innovation at Toyota

Wed, 16 Sep 2026

While targets and goals can distract from improvement some guidance is useful. If the desire to is have incremental improvement one strategy may be reasonable but if the desire is to aim for huge improvement another strategy is likely required...

Quality Customer Focus

Tue, 15 Sep 2026

Customers expectations change over time. Often what was once enough to delight a customer (remote control for a TV) becomes expected. Once a feature is expected the organization gets no credit for providing it they only risk a negative reaction if they fail to provide it.

Quality Customer Focus

Tue, 15 Sep 2026

Kano model of Customer Satisfaction: Kano saw three types of customer satisfaction: required (basic quality also threshold requirements), more is better (performance quality) and delighter (excitement quality).

Customers expectations change over time. Often what was once enough to delight a customer (remote control for a TV) becomes expected...

Visible Data

Mon, 14 Sep 2026

Take the time to find the important measures and then don’t keep data hidden in some drawer or computer file out of people’s view and therefore out of mind. Post the important data for everyone to see. Review the data as changes are made and see that the changes had the desired result.

Visible Data

Mon, 14 Sep 2026

Performance Appraisal Problems

Sun, 13 Sep 2026

There are no easy answers, but what it should be about is managing the system to produce the best results. My best advice is to read chapter 9 of The Leader’s Handbook and read the rest of the Leader’s Handbook and other great management improvement books. And manage using the ideas of Deming, Ackoff, Scholtes, McGregor, Ohno…

Organization, Systems and Culture

Sat, 12 Sep 2026

Management improvement is mainly about using great ideas that have been around for years and decades.

Useful, innovative new management ideas are great. But far too much effort is placed in trying to package "systems" (or copyrighted terms) as some new breakthrough in management when most often they offer little of value.

Toyota Special Report: Thinking Production System

Sat, 12 Sep 2026

Minoura warns “simply introducing kanban cards or andon boards doesn’t mean you’ve implemented the Toyota Production System, for they remain nothing more than mere tools. The new information technologies are no exception, and they should also be applied and implemented as tools.”

Early in his career, Minoura worked under Taiichi Ohno, recognized as the creator of the Toyota Production System. Ohno, through tireless trial and error, managed to put into practice a “pull” system that stopped the factory producing unnecessary items. But Minoura observes that it was only by developing this “loose collection of techniques” into a fully-fledged system, dubbed the Toyota Production System or TPS, that they were able to deploy this throughout the company

Toyota Special Report: Thinking Production System

Sat, 12 Sep 2026

This short article is peppered with many great quotes as section headers:

In TPS, the T also stands for Thinking
To cut lead-time, cut out all the bits that don't add value.
The line must stop if there is a problem.
Ask yourself Why? five times.
Develop people who can come up with unique ideas.

Learning, Systems and Improvement

Fri, 11 Sep 2026

Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.

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The corrective action is itself the result of a decision. A record of this decision should be made and treated as the original decision. In this way the process can not only yield learning but also learning how to learn.

A record of the entire process (all four steps) should be made and stored for easy access by those who may later be confronted by the need to make a similar type of decision.

Russel Ackoff

Learning, Systems and Improvement

Fri, 11 Sep 2026

Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.

Russel Ackoff

Change is not Improvement

Thu, 10 Sep 2026

We trained hard… but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion; inefficiency, and demoralization.

These lines, from the Satyricon of Petronius written 2,000 years ago…*

* Unfortunately it seems this quote is not actually his.

Change is not Improvement

Thu, 10 Sep 2026

The Improvement Guide: the Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance, is an excellent handbook on making changes that are improvements rather than just a way to create the illusion of progress. The book uses three simple questions to frame the improvement strategy.

What are we trying accomplish?
How will we know that a change is an improvement?
What changes can we make that will result in improvement?

Management Excellence

Wed, 9 Sep 2026

Most management practices cannot be plugged into any organization and work well. That practice must be applied in a sensible way given the organizational system. Learning how lean ideas (or other good ideas) are applied in varying systems can provide insight into how to integrate ideas for organizational improvement from those applying lean practices.

Management Excellence

Wed, 9 Sep 2026

I think the question of what other companies have management practices worth studying is interesting. The answer could be very helpful as others could learn from what those organizations do. There are at least two difficulties in identifying those organizations: 1) defining what set of criteria would indicate successful organizations 2) most often even companies that are doing many things well leave much to be desired...

Great Charts

Tue, 8 Sep 2026

Karl Hartig displays some excellent charts that he created (for the Wall Street Journal) on his web site. The charts seem very similar to what would result from applying Edward Tufte’s ideas. Rarely do I see charts that do such a good job of visually displaying data. The lack of such effective visual display of information is another example of how much improvement could be made just by applying ideas that are already published.

Zero Defects

Tue, 8 Sep 2026

I do not believe you succeed by declaring your goal to be zero defects. You succeed by creating a culture of never ending improvement, of customer focus, of fact based decision making, of learning, of “empowerment”…

Part of that improvement is reducing variation, reducing defects, implementing smart new mistake proofing but innovation is too. Effectively zero defects is not really achievable in most cases. Defects are largely a matter of definition. As performance improves expectations will often rise. When you eliminate anything you would have called a defect years ago, standards are higher and things that would not have been called defects are no longer acceptable. At some point the system process advances to such a level where zero defects is possible in some cases but in many (say medical care, air transportation, education, computer software, restaurants, government, management consulting, civil engineering, legal services…) I really think it is basically impossible.

Zero Defects

Tue, 8 Sep 2026

I agree that eliminating defects that get to customers (and even those that don’t) is wise. But I think that doing so is the result of continually improving your processes. I do not believe you succeed by declaring your goal to be zero defects. You succeed by creating a culture of never ending improvement, of customer focus, of fact based decision making, of learning...

Management Improvement Leaders

Mon, 7 Sep 2026

Russell Ackoff – frankly I find it difficult to imagine a list management thought leader list, not including his name. Organizational development, systems thinking, management improvement, planning, policy deployment, learning.
George Box: statistics, design of experiments, finding solutions (problem solving, process improvement), learning, management improvement

Public Sector Management (part II)

Sun, 6 Sep 2026

Deming did acknowledge that the United States government was not designed to be as efficient as possible. From page 198 of Out of the Crisis “Government service is to be judged on equity as well as on efficiency.” He then quotes Oscar Ornati “We have forgotten that the function of government is more equity oriented than efficiency oriented.”

Deming did not focus on the nature of government extensively, but my recollection is that he acknowledged the wisdom of the American style of government (with checks and balances and fairly complex process for creating legislation) even though parts of that system intentionally makes change difficult.

Customer Service is Important

Sat, 5 Sep 2026

My experience did not give me the impression they were focused much on what was important to me as a customers. The service I received seemed to be what I would expect from a company very focused on the idea that the objective of the company is to increase profits at the expense of everyone else. Two models of organization provide a very different customer experience. One that sees customers as fools to be fleeced seems common among USA arilines, health care providers, cable companies, large banks, car dealers and phone companies. The idea that organizations exists to provide customers value and the company takes a profit for providing that value sadly seem rare in the USA (though some organizations behave this way: Trader Joe's, many credit unions, many small restaurants and Apple (though some may disagree with me placing them here).

Agility vs. Six Sigma

Fri, 4 Sep 2026

Some people dislike the idea of managing processes. In my experience they then invent the idea that slow, boring process improvement is an alternative to innovation. That is just wrong. Process improvement should be part of a well run system, as should innovation. Deming, who many believe focused only process improvement, knew the importance of both. See several of Deming’s ideas on innovation.

Public Sector Management Using Deming's Ideas

Thu, 3 Sep 2026

Madison’s quality improvement efforts began after then-Mayor James F. Sensenbrenner and his staff were exposed to the teaching of W. Edwards Deming in 1983. A pilot project at the motor equipment division made substantial improvements in prioritizing repairs, improving communications with customers, reducing steps in the inventory purchasing process and, ultimately, reducing vehicle down time, all of which saved money and improved service at the same time. Based on the success of the pilot, it was decided to expand the philosophy throughout city government.

Goofy but Widespread Thinking

Wed, 2 Sep 2026

I can’t really understand why people seem unwilling to do the simple known things to improve performance. But there does seem to be the attitude that we need to find secret or fantastic new ideas in order to improve.

People seem to think: “I can't just read some idea in a book published 30 years ago and improve. If it were that easy everyone would be doing it.” Well it isn’t quite that easy but it is close.