Blog posts on critical thinkingPosts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - How to Build a Great Software Development Team
 "Without confidence, honest debate about ideas is suppressed as people are constantly taking things personally instead of trying to find the best ideas (and if doing so means my idea is criticized that is ok).
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This is also one of many areas where the culture within the team was self reinforcing. As new people came on they understood this practice. They saw it in practice. They could see it was about finding good ideas and if their idea was attacked they didn’t take it nearly as personally as most people do in most places." continue reading: How to Build a Great Software Development Team - Learning, Systems and Improvement
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 continue reading: Learning, Systems and Improvement - Theory in Practice
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
continue reading: Theory in Practice - Lean Thinking and Management
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. continue reading: Lean Thinking and Management - Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus (2006)
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. continue reading: Dell, Reddit and Customer Focus (2006) - Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame
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. continue reading: Find the Root Cause Instead of the Person to Blame - Understanding Data
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. continue reading: Understanding Data - Management: Geeks and Deming
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”
continue reading: Management: Geeks and Deming - The Customer Knows Best?
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. continue reading: The Customer Knows Best? - Lean, Mean, Six Sigma Machines
What management claims as the reason for results is not necessarily actually the reason (and this is true not just if they say forced ranking is good [which I disagree with] or lean thinking is good [which I agree with]).
A great difficulty in evaluating management concepts is that the complexity (including interaction) makes it very difficult to determine the results of specific management decisions (separating out the effects of one or several decisions from the hundreds that were made and outside influences, etc.). How much of the success of Google is due to the 20% “engineer time.”Can you calculate the return? I don’t think so. But you can make a judgment that it is a benefit. continue reading: Lean, Mean, Six Sigma Machines - Management Advice Failures
I share this frustration with declaring old ideas new: Management Improvement, Better and Different, Quality, SPC and Your Career, Deming and Six Sigma, Management Lessons from Terry Ryan, Everybody Wants It, Toyota’s Got It, Fashion-Incubator on Deming’s Ideas and on and on.
Why does this matter? Two reasons, most importantly to me is that when we fail to value the best ideas, instead valuing the new ideas, we are not as effective as we could be. We often accept pale copies of good old ideas instead of going to the good old ideas – which will often lead to a much richer source of knowledge. When I compare copyrighted versions of management thinking to ideas from people like Ackoff, Deming, Ohno, Scholtes, McGreggor the depth and richness of those I admire is much greater than the packaged solutions as I see it (and they are often more concerned with furthering the practice of management than further their brand). Second, it is often dishonest, or at least sloppy thinkers, that don’t acknowledge the history of management ideas. continue reading: Management Advice Failures - More on Obscene CEO Pay
 Unfortunately this reverse robin hood (steal from the workers, stock holder, customers…) and give to the CEO tale continues. Hopefully someday soon we can at least turn the momentum in the right direction (stopping these incredibly excessive “pay” packages). Even then it will take quite a deal of reducing these ridiculous “pay” packages to reach some sense of decency. continue reading: More on Obscene CEO Pay - Gas Tax (2006)
Gross Domestic Product would decline by $6.5 billion per year, in real terms, from 2005 to 2014. In other words, this $131 billion in government revenues would shrink the economy by $65.5 billion.
There would be, on average, 37,000 fewer job opportunities each year. That works out to one lost job for every $351,000 in new taxes, which is equal to 11 years of work at average yearly wages.
Sure sounds bad. This quote was written in 2004 opposing a 5.45 cent increase in the gas tax. Of course gas price have gone up more than 10 times that amount [at the time I wrote this post in 2006]. Those increased prices have the same negative impact of a tax increase but the increased prices paid go to foreign producers and the oil companies instead of the taxpayers. We would have been better off increasing the gas tax 50 cents a gallon and cutting the huge deficit instead of accepting such arguments.
Opposing gas taxes because someone has to pay them, while raising the debt which hurts everyone that will have to fund those debts is not a sensible plan. Voting against pork spending so you don't need to raise gas tax or pass on you unpaid obligations to the future is fine. Or deciding you would rather tax income than gas is another perfectly fine choice. There are good reasons to tax gas but the decision to prefer taxing income to taxing gas use is certainly a fair choice. Saying you are against taxes while increasing spending on the other hand is just dishonest. continue reading: Gas Tax (2006) - New Look American Manufacturing
Many factors determine whether the USA will continue to lead the world in manufacturing. The USA has to continue to support a dynamic economic system, maintain a transportation system, improve the health care system, improve the educational system, maintain the rule of law, reduce excessive legal costs, improve the management of manufacturers etc.. Each country has to work on these and other systems to stay competitive globally.
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Excessive regulation compared to what countries – China, India, Germany, Japan? If you are talking about environmental regulation, the USA has more than China less than Germany or Japan. If you are talking about permits to get things done I think the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) needs to go try to do business in Japan, China, India, Thailand, Mexico… and see how easy it is to navigate the undocumented processes.
And does NAM think the USA is good at nothing? Don’t manufacturers here benefit from being the USA? What cost advantages does that give them? I think being a manufacturer in the USA offers huge advantages as well as some challenges. The prospects are good. continue reading: New Look American Manufacturing - Quality and Innovation
I really don’t understand how people can talk about innovation as if it were some new discovery. Yes I understand we can bring a different focus to innovation. We can reconfigure management structures to encourage and support innovation. That is good. And new ideas are being developed, but the innovation fad is silly. And accepting the notion that this innovation stuff is some new idea will make managers less effective than if they understand the past.
New Economics by W. Edwards Deming, published in 1992, page 7:
Does the customer invent new product of service? The customer generates nothing. No customer asked for electric lights… No customer asked for photography… No customer asked for an automobile… No customer asked for an integrated circuit.
Innovation has long been important to those interested in management improvement. continue reading: Quality and Innovation
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