John Hunter

Books

• Management Matters: Building Enterprise Capability
  The book provides an overview for viewing management as a system. It is largely based on those of Dr. Deming, along with natural outgrowths or extensions of his ideas such as lean manufacturing and agile software development. To achieve great results there must be a continual focus on achieving results today and building enterprise capacity to maximize results over the long term. Managers have many management concepts, pactices and tools available to help them in this quest. The challenge is to create and continually build and improve a management system for the enterprise that leads to success. The book provides a framework for management thinking. With this framework the practices and tools can be applied to build enterprise capacity and improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Articles

• Using Quality to Develop an Internet Resource   view details
  The article provides guidance to help those responsible for managing the application of internet technology to improve the performance of organizations.

• My Thoughts after 6 Sigma Conference   view details
  Review of thoughts prompted by attending a conference on six sigma practice focused on items of interest for those familar with Deming's philosophy.

• USA Spent Record $2.3 trillion ($7,681 Per Person) on Health Care in 2008   view details
  Health spending in the United States grew 4.4% in 2008, to $2.3 trillion or $7,681 per person... For comparison the total GDP per person in China is $5,970 (the closest total country per capita GDP, to the health care spending per capita in the USA, is Th

• What Could we do Better?   view details
  "To encourage useful feedback, specifically give the customer permission to mention something that could be improved. What one thing could we do better?"

• Ford and Managing the Supplier Relationship   view details
  "The difficulty is not in reducing the number of suppliers. The difficulty is that you must change the nature of your relationship with the suppliers. And that will require changing the nature of the management systems within Ford. The various factors inv

• Excessive Executive Pay   view details
  "As long as the pay packages were merely large, and didnt effect the ability of a company to prosper that could continue (slicing up the benefits between the stakeholders is not an exact science). The excesses recently have become so obscene as to become

• Toyota IT Overview   view details
  "Customize the code, to business processes: not the other way around. Yes. Yes. Yes. IT should support your processes not dictate them. I am a big fan of avoiding inflexible, proprietary (off the shelf) software. I am willing to spend money on in house de

• The Purpose of an Organization   view details
  "The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain - stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment - over the long term." Dr. W. Edwards Deming

• Write it Down   view details
  "In meetings writing down decisions (what is the issue, who is going to do what...) is very helpful. It is very easy for people to think people agree to some somewhat clear statements made in the meeting. Only later it becomes obvious several people have

• Deming Based Organizations   view details
  "Dr. Deming did not propose a cookbook to follow. Instead he proposed a theory that requires learning and application within a specific institution. I see Toyota as the best example of a Deming company. Toyota has created a management system that is based

All articles by John Hunter

Author Quotes

• Good execution of performance appraisal is not the solution. More people are realizing that improving how performance appraisal are done is an attempt to do the wrong thing better. If you insist on doing the wrong thing, I suppose you might as well do it better but how about just not doing the wrong thing at all?

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  Performance Appraisals – Is Good Execution the Solution?

• Any sufficiently inept bureaucracy is indistinguishable from an organization intent on punishing those that rely on them.

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• Making it harder to make mistakes and making mistakes that are made more visible is good. Preventing them is even better.

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  Mistake Proofing and Mistake Making Less Easy

• Good management is good management: it doesn't matter if someone figured out the good idea 100 years ago or last week.

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  Classic Management Theories Are Still Relevant

• Why did the system allow that mistake to be made?

  What? You can’t expect us to design systems that prevent mistakes from being made.

  Yes I can. That is much more sensible than expecting people never to make a mistake.

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  Look for System Weaknesses if the Explanation for Failure is "Explained" as "Human Error"

• A tightrope over a chasm is fine for a trained acrobat with a balancing pole. It is foolish for someone without the right training or tools. They would be better served with something else - a rope bridge with railings.

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  Give People Enough Rope (and the Right Rope) to Achieve

• Does a security guard empower the CEO to enter the building?

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  Management Matters, Don't Empower

Web sites

• John Hunter
• Curious Cat Management Improvement Articles
  Hundreds of useful management articles hand selected to help managers improve the performance of their organization. Sorted by topic including: Deming, lean manufacturing, six sigma, continual improvement, innovation, leadership, managing people, software development, psychology and systems thinking.
• Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog
  Blog by John Hunter on many topics to to improve the management of organizations, including: Deming, lean manufacturing, agile software development, evidence based decision making, customer focus, innovation, six sigma, systems thinking, leadership, psychology, ...
• Curious Cat Management Comments
  Blog by John Hunter - currently used mainly to collect comments made on other blog posts in one place.
• Hexawise - Combinatorial Software Testing
  This blog, by Justin Hunter, is about efficient and effective software test design strategies, including pairwise and combinatorial methods that are gaining traction in the testing community.
• Curious Cat Investing and Economics Blog
  
• Statistics for Experimenters
  Web site for the classic book on design of experiments. Includes a search engine for statistics sites for managers.
• Management Improvement
  Small management improvement site with lean six sigma and Deming management focus.
• Management and Leadership Quotes
  Quotes on management, business, leadership and many related topics: innovation, problems solving, change, statistics, planning, motivation, etc..
• Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections
  The aim of Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections is to contribute to the successful adoption of management improvement to advance joy in work and joy in life. The site provides connections to resources on a wide variety of management topics to help managers improve the performance of their organization. The site was started in 1996 by John Hunter.
• The W. Edwards Deming Institute Blog
  

All sites by John Hunter