Blog posts on systems thinkingPosts selected fromManagement Blog - Engineering Blog - Investing Blog and other blogs - A Programmers Take on Agile Software Development
- Who Inspires Your Management Thinking and Action?
- Quality Beginnings: Deming and Madison, Wisconsin
David Couper: "Deming’s teachings had a strong influence in Madison. Under Mayor Joseph Sensenbrenner (1983-1989), there was a near-total involvement by city employees in applying Deming’s work to city government. These were Madison’s golden years as government, business, and educational institutions worked together to make quality an organizational lifestyle in Madison. Deming helped us to see police work as a system capable of being improved.
We also learned the value of collaborating with and learning from others outside of law enforcement. We came to see that the systems for which we were responsible, were dependent on others around us (like when we realized the important systems-link between poverty, jobs, education, and crime). Most of all we saw the work we did as a system – and a system that could be improved." continue reading: Quality Beginnings: Deming and Madison, Wisconsin - The Importance of Working with Suppliers Over the Long Term
Working together in partnership is a much more complex matter than saying you will cooperate. Sadly many companies are willing to say they will cooperate with suppliers over the long term, many fewer companies are willing to follow through with the actions needed to make that a reality. continue reading: The Importance of Working with Suppliers Over the Long Term - People Copy Examples and Wonder Why They Don’t Succeed
Learning from what others do well can be effective if done properly. To improve your practices you can see what works for others and then abstract the principles for that success and then determine how to adopt those principles to your situation. continue reading: People Copy Examples and Wonder Why They Don’t Succeed - Ron Moen and Cliff Norman Discuss the Evolution of Deming’s Management Ideas
I share the believe about the management system expressed in the system of profound knowledge and the interaction of the components as the most powerful aspect of Deming’s message. It is hard to convey that idea easily.
Many other powerful messages Dr. Deming gave are also important, things like: control charts, the fallacy of blaming or rewarding individuals for system performance or variation, PDSA improvement cycle, respect for all employees, viewing the organization as a system, the importance of long term thinking with constancy of purpose, aspects of theory of knowledge (confirmation bias, seeing “patterns” where they don’t exist, accepting special cause explanations for system results…), customer focus, innovation, etc..
continue reading: Ron Moen and Cliff Norman Discuss the Evolution of Deming’s Management Ideas - Visual Management and Mistake-Proofing for Prescription Pills
Mistake proofing is often really mistake-making-more-difficult (for some reason this term of mine hasn’t caught on).
But the idea is pretty simple: when you have processes that are important and at risk of failure, design processes with elements to make mistakes hard (and ideas such as mistake-proofing and visual management can help you guide your mind to ways to create better processes).
The entire process needs to be considered... continue reading: Visual Management and Mistake-Proofing for Prescription Pills - Decades Later The USA Health Care System is Still a Deadly Disease for Our Economy
Health care is extremely expensive everywhere. But in the USA the health care system is twice as costly as other rich countries. This is an enormous burden on the USA economy. Nothing else comes close to being as costly in terms of direct spending. And there a a great deal of other damage done that can’t be seen in just the 100% more the USA spends on health care than other rich countries spend. And the health outcomes are no better for the extra hundres of billions of dollars spent every year for health care in the USA.
The costs of decades of failure are extrodinary. continue reading: Decades Later The USA Health Care System is Still a Deadly Disease for Our Economy - A Wise Way to Subsidize Electricity Rates
When I lived in Malaysia I learned that the residential electricity rates were very low for the low levels of use and climbed fairly rapidly as you used a lot of electricity (say running your air conditioner a lot). I think this is a very good idea (especially for the not yet rich countries).
Effectively the rich end up subsidizing the low rates for the poor, which is a very sensible setup it seems to me. The market functions fairly well even though it is distorted a bit to let the poor (or anyone that uses very little electricity) to pay low rates.
In a country like Malaysia as people become rich they may well decide to use a great deal of electricity for air conditioning. continue reading: A Wise Way to Subsidize Electricity Rates - Acting Without Theory Often Results in Wasted Effort
If you don’t understand why you take action you will find yourself wasting effort. You must have a theory that you can test in order to test what is working, what changes actually lead to improvement and to learn. If this bird wants to find food it will discover this method isn’t effective.
I wrote about a similar example before: Experience Teaches Nothing Without Theory. continue reading: Acting Without Theory Often Results in Wasted Effort - Process Behavior Charts are the Secret to Understanding the Organization as a System
the power to improving performance is understanding if the problems are due to common causes or special causes. For common causes we need to explore the entire system, and all the data, and seek to improve the overall system. For special causes we need to seek what is special about the bad result and seek to eliminate that problem from causing problems in the future. Unfortunately most problems are system based and we most often jump to special cause thinking (so we often take the wrong approaches to improvement). continue reading: Process Behavior Charts are the Secret to Understanding the Organization as a System - Designing a New Organization
Ackoff has done a huge amount of work in idealized design and thinking about the big ideas that can drive dramatic change. His ideas are exceptional. He even offers a plan for modeling the idealized organization and then a plan for how to transform the organization based on practical ideas that are feasible in the real world. continue reading: Designing a New Organization - SEC chief quotes Deming
Security and Exchange Chairman William H. Donaldson:
This approach will, ultimately, better serve investors, and it will also gradually temper the pressures on some corporate executives to fudge the numbers. It would behoove us all to remember the words of W. Edwards Deming: “People with targets, and jobs dependent on meeting them, will probably meet the targets – even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it.” continue reading: SEC chief quotes Deming - Google: Good Service not Arbitrage (2005)
Google, to use a internet bubble phrase, is doing a good job monetizing eyeballs. However, that is not arbitrage it is just doing a good job of maximizing revenue and profits. Yes Google is able to make money because they are paid more by advertisers than it costs them to deliver what the advertisers want. But I don’t see how that is more like arbitrage than Toyota selling a car for more than it costs them to make the car. continue reading: Google: Good Service not Arbitrage (2005) - W. Edwards Deming and the Leander Way
Often people will say Deming isn’t just the tools. That is certainly true. But using tools and data to make improvement efforts concrete is important.
As Deming said, best efforts are not enough, you have to know what to do. But he also said, “Best efforts are essential.” Tools are not enough: and like best efforts, using them without understanding the management system can do damage. But tools are also essential and Leander’s experience shows a long term effort to integrate quality improvement tools into the management system to achieve long term continual improvement. continue reading: W. Edwards Deming and the Leander Way
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