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• Curious, Joyful, Happy Kids Grow Up: Unfortunately

  I must admit I find the wonder kids have amazingly refreshing. When I was a kid I just took it for granted. Now, unfortunately surrounded by way too many incurious, blasé, dreary adults I realize the kids really have a much better idea how to live than we adults do.
  
  Have some fun. Have some fun with a cardboard box and a stick. Or a plastic dinosaur and a small firetruck. Or just reading a book, for the 56th time this year, about how some cat goes to the store.

  Meanwhile I think an alien could appear on the subway and most of my fellow passengers would only be concerned if it was taking up too much space or blocked their exit, and if not, maybe not even notice it.

  ...

  Just watching the faces of adults and kids is amazing. Adults, by and large show no joy. A kid's face will show more joy when they see their Mom for the 8th time today than an adult will in the entire month. I just have to believe that is not a good sign.

  continue reading: Curious, Joyful, Happy Kids Grow Up: Unfortunately
• Aligning Marketing Vision and Management

  Why do so many companies market one thing and provide something else? I know it might be easier to sell something different than what you offer your customer today. But if you decide to market one vision, why don’t you change your organization to actually offer that?

  ...

  Treating a marketing message as something separate from management is a serious problem. When your marketing message says one thing and your customers get something else that is a problem. I think the message is often based on what the executives wish the company was (and the outsourced marketers think it should be), but it isn’t the customer experience the management system provides.

  If you believe the vision of your marketing then make sure your organization has embraced those principles.

  continue reading: Aligning Marketing Vision and Management
• Improving Software Development with Automated Tests

  ... Thus automated testing mistake proofs the process. Now the mistake proofing is only as good as the test that are added. Software development is complex and if the code has an error (based on the business rules) that is not tested then the code can be deployed to production and affect customers. Automated software testing tools are a huge help in preventing many errors from affecting customers.

  It seems pretty obvious but until the widespread adoption of agile software development techniques and frameworks that make it easy to adopt automated testing (like Ruby on Rails) this sensible process improvement tool was used far less often than you would think.

  continue reading: Improving Software Development with Automated Tests
• Short Term Investing Focus

  Decades ago Dr. Deming said short term focus was one of the seven deadly diseases of western management. Unfortunately we have made very little progress on the deadly diseases.

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• More Reasons to Avoid Layoffs

  there is a growing body of academic research suggesting that firms incur big costs when they cut workers. Some of these costs are obvious, such as the direct costs of severance and outplacement, and some are intuitive, such as the toll on morale and productivity as anxiety (“Will I be next?”) infects remaining workers.

  …

  research paints a fairly consistent picture: layoffs don’t work.

  continue reading: More Reasons to Avoid Layoffs
• Circle of Influence

  You should remember, that there is a temporal component to your circle of influence. On some current issue, I may have a very low chance of success for getting the organization to adopt an improvement I think is best. But certain actions can build the understanding that will allow me later to have more influence. This can even be completely separate from how people normally think of circle of influence. By building an organization that moves toward data based decision making and therefore reduces HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) decision making I increase my ability to influence decision making in the future.

  Long term thinking is a very powerful, and much under-practiced, strategy. Your influence within an organization is limited today but has great potential to expand, if you act wisely.

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• Understanding Psychology: Slogans – Risky Tools

  Slogans mainly are bad. But like most things they can be used in ways that help or hurt. The main problem is when they substitute for a method to achieve the aim (most of the time). If the slogan serves like a mission statement to focus people on something useful to focus on and it is one minor part of a system to achieve a result it can be fine and even useful.

  continue reading: Understanding Psychology: Slogans – Risky Tools
• Future Directions for Agile Management

  Agile management (agile software development specifically) is something that makes a big difference in my work life.

  ...

  Deliver working systems quickly (with limited features, add features based on user needs) – [management improvement practice: PDSA, pilot ideas on a small scale, go to the gemba...

  continue reading: Future Directions for Agile Management
• Gobbledygook

  How is this for Gobbledygook? Your home banking access code is expired! You must change your access code at this time. Your access code:

  * may be between 4 and 20 characters in length
  * must not have been changed within the last 0 days
  * may not be one of 3 previously used access codes
  * must not repeat the same character more than 0 times
  * must not contain 0 characters from previous access code
  ...

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• Lean Management in Policing

  Hiring of school crossing guards made more expedient. “This one’s amazing,” Sheriff Rutherford chuckles. “It was taking us 68 days to hire someone from our eligibility list because we were sending candidates all over for different parts of the interview process. Now it takes us just three days to make a decision because we’re practicing ‘one-stop hiring.'”

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• Don’t Do What Your Users Say

  You must focus on customers but you must bring thought into how you react. Just doing what they say is likely a bad idea. Ignoring them is also bad. But listening and learning and then adjusting is good.

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• Toyota Winglet – Personal Transportation Assistance

  The Winglet consists of a body that houses an electric motor, two wheels and internal sensors that constantly monitor the user’s position and make adjustments in power to ensure stability. Meanwhile, a unique parallel link mechanism allows the rider to go forward, backward and turn simply by shifting body weight...

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• Individual Bonuses Are Bad Management

  The idea that bonuses are bad management is one of the more difficult management improvement ideas for people to accept. See related post links for much more on the problems with them and what to do instead...

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• How to Develop Thinking People

  “Developing people requires physical endurance.” Frequent follow up is necessary, in person. It is not acceptable to give an assignment and follow up or scold only after three months, during a progress report meeting. Specific actions and detailed follow up are necessary.

  continue reading: How to Develop Thinking People
• Multitasking Decreases Productivity

  The problems with multitasking are becoming more and more well know, thankfully. Here is another article on the lower productivity multitasking produces...

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