Tag: problem solving

Management Books

• Fourth Generation Management: The New Business Consciousness by Brian Joiner
  An excellent book for those who wish to begin the transformation to "Fourth Generation Management" and for the experienced as well. We give this well written and easy to follow book this book our highest recommendation.

• The Leader's Handbook: Making Things Happen, Getting Things Done by Peter R. Scholtes
  Absolutely wonderful book - we give it our highest recommendation.

• Ackoff's Best: Timeless Observations on the Life of Business by Russell L. Ackoff
  From managing teams, maximizing the effectiveness of information systems, and problem solving, to creativity, crime, and the role of the corporation in a democratic society, these writings are a cornucopia of insights, observations, and powerful lessons that will help you improve the effectiveness of your organization.

• The Art of Problem Solving Accompanied by Ackoff's Fables: by Russell L. Ackoff
  Shows how to develop an understanding of the art of creative thinking and design creative solutions. Based on real problems faced by real managers.

• Creative Solution Finding: The Triumph of Breakthrough Thinking over Conventional Problem Solving by Gerald Nadler, Shozo Hibino
  

• Poka-Yoke: Improving Product Quality by Preventing Defects by Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun
  

• Improving Almost Anything: by George E. P. Box
  

• Buy-In: Saving Your Good Idea from Getting Shot Down by John Kotter
  The book presents a fresh and amusing fictional narrative showing attack strategies in action. It then provides several specific counterstrategies for each basic category the authors have defined. How to win the support your idea need to deliver valuable results? Understand the generic attack strategies that naysayers and obfuscators deploy time and time again. Then engage these adversaries with tactics tailored to each strategy. By "inviting in the lions" to critique your idea--and being prepared for them--you'll capture busy people's attention, help them grasp your proposal's value, and secure their commitment to implementing the solution.

• 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.

Management Articles

• Small Business Guidebook to Quality Management
  The aim of this guidebook is to help small businesses make the transition to a quality culture. While the focus of the guidebook is small businesses the information is helpful to anyone transforming and continually improving their organization.

• Quality in the Community: One City's Experience by George E. P. Box, Laurel W. Joiner, Sue Rohan
  Highlights the evolution of the Quality movement in Madison, Wisconsin and the role of the Madison Area Quality Improvement Network during the 1980's.

• Total Quality Leadership vs. Management by Results by Brian Joiner, Peter R. Scholtes
  Excellent article for those interested in improving management. It begins with a very short early 90's view on the increasing Asian economic clout. Those who are not interested in management improvement would likely be tempted to ignore the important...

• So What's System[s] Thinking by Ian Bradbury
  Brief article introducing two key ideas in systems thinking: interdependence and the separation of cause and effect in space and time.

• A Fresh Look at Flow Charting by Tony Burns
  "The computer enables each symbol to be neatly aligned and connecting lines drawn clearly and simply...However, in using computer based flow charts, there may often be more negatives than benefits, as will be seen."

• Improving Problem Solving by Ian Bradbury
  A good overview of common problem solving practices. The report also includes advice on how to improve results in you organization though problem solving and system improvement.

• A3 Reports: Tool for Process Improvement by Durward K. Sobek, Cindy Jimmerson
  "Toyota uses it to systematically guide problem-solvers through a rigorous process, document the key outcomes of that process, and propose improvements. The tool is used so pervasively that it forms a keystone in Toyota's world-famous continuous improvement

• Statistics as a Catalyst to Learning by Scientific Method by George E. P. Box
  Explores the implications raised when Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is considered, as was originally intended as a statistical technique for the catalysis of iterative learning.

• A Disruptive Solution for Health Care by Clayton Christensen, Jason Hwang
  "by specifically targeting these customers who have been excluded from the traditional marketplace, disruptive business models can first establish a foothold outside the normal competitive space before moving in to compete against the incumbent firms..."

• Cost is the spectre haunting health reform by Atul Gawande
  "For many decades, the great flaw in the American health-care system was its unconscionable gaps in coverage. Those gaps have widened to become graves - resulting in an estimated forty-five thousand premature deaths each year..."

• Blame the System
  by Steve LeBlanc - "Once we are free to look at and address where the system has failed us, we can let go of our blame and resentment for our co-workers. I propose that we need blame. We are meaning-seeking creatures and as such, we need to blame someone or something for what went wrong. Blame people and you demoralize them and make them afraid. When you blame the system, no one gets hurt and things gently improve. ... Our job is to improve the system while honoring those who work in and around it. Let’s all just blame the system."

• 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.

• How do you know when do to an A3, and when to just solve the problem by Tracey Richardson
  "If there was a defect that got past an area/department and to the customer, this is unacceptable and should be counter-measured temporary (stop the bleeding) to ensure nothing else 'flows out' as well as finding the permanent countermeasure (using PDCA) (again this is all initiated by the plant manager--they should be responsible at this level and gather the resources necessary, and involving their people to ensure this will not happen again and learn from it for the the next A3)."

• Adding Customer Value in Development at Xerox
  "Business901 Podcast featured Patrick Waara talking about Xerox’s use of Agile techniques... Our conversation originally was designed to discuss swarming and Lean problem solving. However we ventured off into the subject of how Lean, Six Sigma and Agile all work under the same umbrella"

• Why Do Some Testers Find The Critical Problems?
  "Testers who find problems successfully can link tests, test activities, and test results to the mission. They’re far more concerned about the quality of the information they provide than the quantity... Testers, to be successful, must be given the freedom and responsibility to explore and to contribute what they’ve learned back to their team and to the rest of the organization."

• Actionable Metrics by John Hunter
  "Metrics are valuable when they are actionable. Think about what will be done if certain results are shown by the data. If you can't think of actions you would take, it may be that metric is not worth tracking."

• Zenjidoka III - Building Excellent People by Norman Bodek
  "Zenjidoka teaches employees (including the dealers) to be self-reliant, empowering them to use every tool and resource at their disposal to immediately investigate and address the customer’s problem... Companies that want to extend quality beyond the factory walls and implement Zenjidoka need to have employees who are skilled enough that they can be trusted with the autonomy to identify and solve customer problems. The development of excellent employees, or Hitozukuri, is necessary to make Zenjidoka work."

• You are Solving the Wrong Problem
  "The problem was the problem. Paul realized that what we needed to be solved was not, in fact, human powered flight. That was a red-herring. The problem was the process itself, and along with it the blind pursuit of a goal without a deeper understanding how to tackle deeply difficult challenges. He came up with a new problem that he set out to solve: how can you build a plane that could be rebuilt in hours not months. And he did. ... When you are solving a difficult problem re-ask the problem so that your solution helps you learn faster. Find a faster way to fail, recover, and try again."

• 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."

• 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

• Curious Cat Management Improvement Articles by John Hunter
  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 by John Hunter
  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, ...

• Shmula by Peter Abilla
  "This blog is my take on technology, business, operations, The Toyota Production System / Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Queueing Theory, operations research, building software, the customer experience (especially ethnography and design thinking and word-of-mouth marketing)"

• Management and Leadership Quotes by John Hunter
  Quotes on management, business, leadership and many related topics: innovation, problems solving, change, statistics, planning, motivation, etc..

• Be More Careful by Mark Graban
  A Collection of workplace signs and posters that don't get to the root cause.

• How to implement Lean Thinking in a Business by Tracey Richardson
  Blog by a trainer for Toyota and consultant.

• Awfully Simple
  Blog by Gede Manggala in Indonesia. "I am a fan of simplicity and love to play with data to find simple solution for my life through better understanding of data and human behavior (who, generally, are not always rational)."

• 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.

• Lean in Alaska Blog
  

• Lean Edge by Michael Ballé, H. Thomas Johnson, Daniel T. Jones, Art Smalley, Steven Spear, Jeffrey Liker, Mike Rother
  "Lean management is a method to dramatically improve business performance by teaching people how to improve their own processes. The two main dimensions of lean management are continuous process improvement (going and seeing problems at the source, challenging operations and improving step by step) and respect for people (developing and engaging employees by developing teamwork, problem solving and respect for customers, employees and all other partners). ... The aim of the discussion [on the site] is to share different points of view and to collectively build a vision of lean management."