Tag: evidence based management

Management Books

• Quality Improvement Through Planned Experimentation: 2nd Edition by Ronald D. Moen, Thomas Nolan, Lloyd P. Provost
  An excellent handbook on how to use experiments to learn about your organization and how to use that knowledge to improve your organization. The book integrates Dr. Deming's ideas and design of experiments thinking. Forward by W. Edwards Deming. 3rd edition is on the way.

• Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management System by Art Smalley, Durward K. Sobek
  Winner of a 2009 Shingo Research and Professional Publication Prize. The A3 report has proven to be a key tool In Toyota’s successful move toward organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and improvement, especially within its engineering and R&D organizations. The power of the A3 report, however, derives not from the report itself, but rather from the development of the culture and mindset required for the implementation of the A3 system. In other words, A3 reports are not just an end product but are evidence of a powerful set of dynamics that is referred to as A3 Thinking.

• Toyota Under Fire: Lessons for Turning Crisis into Opportunity by Jeffrey Liker
  Toyota Under Fire, 2011 Shingo Prize Winner, takes you beyond the headlines and into the offices and factories of Toyota to reveal the truth behind the company's highly publicized and controversial recall of over 10 million vehicles.

Management Articles

• What to Measure and How by Barba B. Affourtit
  From the article: We need to examine our management information systems for utility, and discard measurements that are not used for decision-making.

• Managing Our Way to Economic Success: Two Untapped Resources by William G. Hunter
  "American organizations could compete much better at home and abroad if they would learn to tap the potential information inherent in all processes and the creativity inherent in all employees."

• Using Design of Experiments as a Process Road Map by Davis Balestracci
  "The current design of experiments (DOE) renaissance seems to favor factorial designs and/or orthogonal arrays as a panacea. In my 25 years as a statistician, my clients have always found much more value in obtaining a process "road map" by generating the inherent response surface in a situation."

• Focus on Discovery, Not Decision-Making, Is Key To Success by Steven Spear
  "The challenge is devising a new approach to managing systems so complex that 'thinking our way' to adequate, let alone perfect, designs is impossible. We are now in an age in which management must instead focus on constant discovery and innovation – relentlessly learning better ways to do work and learning that there is better work to do.

• Robust Experimental Strategies for Improving Upstream Productivity by Ronald D. Snee
  Two methods can be used to increase the speed of upstream development, which in turn speeds up the development of process understanding: * using Design of Experiments (DOE)-based strategies to design, analyze, and interpret experiments, resulting in getting better information in a timely fashion * using Lean principles to streamline the availability of information, materials, equipment, measurements, and personnel for the experimental process, thereby accelerating the flow of the experimental process.

• Robust Experimental Strategies for Improving Upstream Productivity by Ronald D. Snee
  The solution to this problem is to use Lean principles to streamline the processes and procedures used to do the experimental work. Eliminating complexity and wasted time and effort results in experimentation being speeded up and scientists having more time to do creative work.

• It's Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Standup Meetings by Jason Yip
  "It is too easy to confuse effort with work. The stand-up should encourage a focus on moving work through the system in order to achieve our objectives, not encourage pointless activity. ... Post raised obstacles to an Improvement Board. This is a publicly visible whiteboard or chart that identifies raised obstacles and tracks the progress of their resolution. An Improvement Board can be updated outside of stand-ups and serves as a more immediate and perhaps less confronting way to initially raise obstacles."

• Variation, So Meaningful Yet So Misunderstood by Lynda Finn
  "assuming an issue is the result of a special cause will send you on a hunt for the special cause. Walter Shewhart and Deming proved that special cause thinking will lead you astray most of the time. So, if in your company there is often a search for whom or what is to blame before questioning whether the problem is built into the current processes and systems, then you too are likely wasting time and misidentifying causes."

• How Do We Know What We Know? - Deming’s SoPK Part IV by John Hunter
  "If we can break from such beliefs that are not useful in modern organizations, we can improve our decisions. Having a Deming-based theory of knowledge will help us break from those beliefs and it will help us be more thoughtful as we learn to question other management beliefs we hold –many of which simply are not useful –or cause harm. Understanding the theory of knowledge within the context of the Deming’s System for Managing helps us more effectively and consistently learn and improve the processes and systems we work with. "

• How to Get a New Management Strategy, Tool or Concept Adopted by John Hunter
  "Often when learning about Deming’s ideas on management, lean manufacturing, design of experiments, PDSA… people become excited. They discover new ideas that show great promise to alleviate the troubles they have in their workplace and lead them to better results. But how to actually get their organization to adopt the ideas often confounds them..."

• Genchi Genbutsu Case Study: how it helped Toyota winGenchi Genbutsu Case Study: how it helped Toyota win a multi-million dollar contract by Karn Bulsuk
  "He explained: 'Have you noticed that the Malaysia highways all use a much older, but cheaper version of noise absorbing wall?' Our team shook our heads. 'That’s the problem. They can't afford this yet. It’s true that our offering is superior to what the Malaysians are using, but economic reality is the reality that we live with.'"

Management Web Sites and Resources

• Peter Scholtes by Peter R. Scholtes
  Web site of Peter Scholtes, author of The Leader's Handbook (an excellent book) and The Team Handbook. The site offers several excellent management articles. He taught with Deming. Peter was a good friend and his management ideas are well worth studying.

• Hexawise - Combinatorial Software Testing by Justin Hunter
  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.

• Life and Legacy of William G. Hunter by John Hunter, William G. Hunter
  George Box, Stuart Hunter and Bill wrote what has become a classic text for experimenters in scientific and business circles, Statistics for Experimenters. Bill also was a leader in the emergence of the management improvement movement. George Box and Bill co-founded the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Bill Hunter was also the founding chair of the ASQ statistics division.

• Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections by John Hunter
  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.

• Stats Made Easy by Mark Anderson
  Blog on design of experiments and statistics by principal at Stat-Ease.