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Posts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs

• Floating Down River in Yangshuo, China on a Bamboo Raft

  The scenery in Yangshuo (near Guilin), China was great. Floating down the river on bamboo rafts was wonderful. I floated down a second river the day after the first because I liked it so much.

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• "I Know"

  My preferred countermeasure to the "I know" mentality is to ask a question. You can quickly learn you don't know as much as you thought you did when you try to explain what you know.

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• A Vision can be a Powerful Driver but Most Often It is Just a Few Pretty Words

  When the vision is merely a pretty collection of words that doesn’t drive decisions and behavior it is pointless. When it does drive behavior it is powerful. Sadly that is rarely the case.      

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• Thinking Required – Not Just a Recipe to Follow

  One of the most powerful aspects of Deming’s management ideas also frustrates some people. Dr. Deming didn’t believe in simple guides telling managers what to do – his ideas are not prescriptive. The challenges of management don’t lend themselves to simple instructions spelling out exactly what steps managers need to take. What managers need to do depends on the organization and current state.

  There are general principles such as respect for people and understanding variation...

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• Children are Amazingly Creative At Solving Problems

  “The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance – it is the illusion of knowledge.” Daniel Boorstin

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• Children are Amazingly Creative At Solving Problems

  Understanding the limits of our knowledge and our tendency to become rigid in our thinking can help us avoid blinding ourselves to options. Our brains overrule options without us consciously even knowing that is happening; it takes effort to overcome this tendency.

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• Angkor Wat, Cambodia

  Angkor Wat is the largest Hindu temple complex in the world, situated at Angkor, Cambodia, built by King Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city.

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• Create a Continually Improving Management System - not the Perfect Management Solution

  In most instances I think a PDSA approach to the approach to use it best. Test out various options in parts of the company. See what works. Build and improve the process and spread it more widely.

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• Root Cause, Interactions, Robustness and Design of Experiments

  A single root cause is rare. Normally you can look at the question a bit differently see the scope a bit differently and get a different “root cause.” In my opinion “root cause” is more a decision about what is an effective way to improve the system right now rather than finding a scientifically valid “root cause.”

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• George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

  With experimentation we are looking to find clues for what to experiment with next. Experimentation is an iterative process. This is very much the mindset of fast iteration and minimal viable product (say minimal viable experimentation as voiced in 1987).

  There is great value in creating iterative processes with fast feedback to those attempting to design and improve.

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• George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

  There is great value in creating iterative processes with fast feedback to those attempting to design and improve. Box and Deming (with rapid turns of the PDSA cycle) and others promoted this 20, 30 and 40 years ago and now we get the same ideas tweaked for startups. The lean startup stuff is as closely related to Box’s ideas of experimentation as an iterative process as it is to anything else.

  continue reading: George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement
• George Box Webcast on Statistical Design in Quality Improvement

  There is great value in creating iterative processes with fast feedback to those attempting to design and improve. Box and Deming (with rapid turns of the PDSA cycle) and others promoted this 20, 30 and 40 years ago and now we get the same ideas tweaked for startups. The lean startup stuff is as closely related to Box’s ideas of experimentation as an iterative process as it is to anything else.   

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• The Education System

  “I read them. Not to grade them. No, I read them to see how I am doing. Where am I failing?”

  W. Edwards Deming.

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• A Healthy Lifestyle is More About Health Care than the Sickness Management That We Call Health Care Is

  It really is important for giving yourself the best chance for health by taking sensible steps to exercise based on your own situation

  ...

  Doing small things like using a treadmill while you watch TV or taking the stairs instead of the elevator for short trips can help. Another option is to walk instead of driving your car, or if you drive parking a few blocks away (or at the far side of the parking lot) walking, or if you are running several errands walk between those that you can even if you are using your car. Biking to work is another healthy lifestyle choice (if you city has made this safe – too often they fail to do sensible things).

   

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• Practicing Mistake-Promoting Instead of Mistake-Proofing at Apple

  Mistake proofing is a wonderful management concept. Design systems not just to be effective when everything goes right but designing them so mistakes are prevented.

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  But guess what, the unnecessary steps Apple decided to force me through are broken so I can’t just waste my time to make them happy. No. They have created a failure point where they never should have forced the customer in the first place.

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