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

• Creating Low-cost Construction Materials Using Recycled Plastic Waste

  Nzambi Matee is a materials engineer and head of Gjenge Makers (in Kenya), which produces sustainable low-cost construction materials made of recycled plastic waste and sand. For her work, Nzambi Matee was recently named a Young Champions of the Earth by the United Nations Environment Programme.

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• Interview of Bill Hunter: Improving Quality and Productivity in Organizations

  Bill discusses the parallels to how a manager applying management improvement principles is very similar to an educator facilitating adult learning. Rather than an authoritarian approach where the boss tells subordinates what to do a manager helps employees achieve better results by supporting their efforts.

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• Photos of China in 1982

  My father, Bill Hunter, taught summer courses on statistics and industrial engineering in China when China was still mostly closed to foreigners. After the courses he took a week or two vacation to visit a China few foreigners had seen to that point. See photos of China in 1982.   

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• Finding Great Investments Keeps Getting Harder

  In some ways investing recently has been pretty easy, anything you have bought (almost) goes up – and usually goes up a lot. But when looking for bargains to invest in, it just keeps getting more and more difficult in my opinion.

  ...

  Overall I am going much more into cash as a safe haven than I have before. Normally I am extremely overweight stocks. Even today I am still overweight stocks compared to the conventional wisdom

  ...

  While the markets are giving investors great returns finding good buys is becoming more and more difficult (at least for me). For example, my 10 Stocks for 10 Years (2018 version) has done very well. But several of those stocks are much less a bargain today that they were. Apple is up from $225 to $450. Danaher from $103 to $206. Amazon from $2,000 to $3,150. Tencent from $43 to $68...

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• I Have Published an Update to Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability

  I have published some edits and additional content for my book – Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability.

  One of the things I really like about how I have published the book (with Leanpub) is that anyone that has previously purchased the book gets these, and all future, updates for free. So if you have purchased it, go get your free update. If you haven’t purchased it, please consider buying a copy...

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• US Savings Bonds – Actually a Good Investment Option

  I will admit I have only recently looked at US Savings Bonds as an investment option. Series I USA savings bonds are based on the inflation rate and given how strongly the Fed has been surpassing interest rates this offers an option to get a higher rate of interest.  The rate is calculated as follows:

  Composite rate = [fixed rate + (2 x semiannual inflation rate) + (fixed rate x semiannual inflation rate)]

  2.22% = [0.0020 + (2 x 0.0101) + (0.0020 x 0.0101)]

  This is calculated based on a fixed rate of .2% (showing how depressed interest rates are) and 1.01% inflation rate for a 6 month period (which also is low but compared to interest rates pretty high).

  You may buy series I US savings bonds online via TreasuryDirect. In a calendar year, you can acquire up to $10,000 in electronic I bonds.

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• Huge Growth in USA Corporate Debt from 2005 to 2020

  There are many problems with the extremely low interest rates available in decade since the too-big-to-fail financial crisis. The interest rates seem to me to be artificially sustained by massive central bank actions for 12 years now.

  Extraordinarily low rates encourage businesses to borrow money, after all how hard is it to invest in something that will return the business more than a few percent a year (that they can borrow at). Along with the continued efforts by the central banks to flood the economy with money any time there is even a slowdown in growth teaches companies to not worry about building a business that can survive bad times. Just borrow and if necessary borrow more if you are having trouble then just borrow more.

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• Retirement Portfolio Allocation for 2020

  The markets continue to provide difficult options to investors. In the typical market conditions of the last 50 years I think a sensible portfolio allocation was not that challenging to pick. I would choose a bit more in stocks than bonds than the commonly accepted strategy. And I would choose to put a bit more overseas and in real estate.

  But if that wasn’t done and even something like 60% stocks and 40% bonds were chosen it would seem reasonable (or 60% stocks 25% bonds and 15% money market – I really prefer a substantial cushion in cash in retirement). Retirement planning is fairly complex and many adjustments are wise for an individual’s particular situation (so keep in mind this post is meant to discuss general conditions today and not suggest what is right for any specific person).

  This post was written before #covid19 became the enormous economic clamity it has become. Based on the poor preparation to fight Covid19 by the USA and Europe I sold some stocks and reduced global exposure and emeriging market exposure.  I didn't reduce it to zero or anything close to that, but as I say I am usually overweight stocks and I had reduced how much I was overweight due to high stock valuations and with the likely Covid 19 problems I further reduced stocks to make my portfolio probably even a little bit underweight stocks (but still over 50% stocks).

  I am more active than most people should be with their investments (I think it works for me but maybe I should be less active too, I just pay much more attention than most people and feel I can make some adjustments that are sensible.).

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• Tencent Gaming

  Tencent is one of the stocks in my 10 stocks for 10 years portfolio. In fact it is my largest holding (when you consider that Tencent shares owned by Naspers. Some others have performed better since my reboot of the portfolio in August of 2018: Apple (from 225 to 318) and Danaher (from 103 to 162) and Naspers (33 to 34, which might not seem so great but 2 spinoffs provide another 15) but I still like Tencent a great deal for the next 8 to 10 years.

  Tencent has quite a few huge global businesses. One of the most promising areas is Tencent Gaming. Tencent has ownership in many of the largest computer gaming companies globally...

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• Hey Siri, You Can Do Better

  Software testing is more than just automated testing. While checking that specific details work as expected in specific situations with automated testing is very useful it is far from sufficient way to test if software will delight users.

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  software testing also requires thoughtful analysis of the experience of the user and how that is at risk with the current iteration of the software (Software Testers Are Test Pilots). Automated testing is critical as you can create checks for thousands of situations to run extremely quickly each time any changes are made to the software. But it is not sufficient. Many situations can only be explored and experienced by a thinking software tester that uses the software and thinks about how a user might react and how that user could be confused or disappointed by the existing user experience.

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• 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)

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• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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.

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  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.

   

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• 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...

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