Management Articles

• Respect for People by Art Smalley
  "The fifth item of my list pertains to development of employee talent over time. Respect for people means developing their latent skills in both on the job and off the job training. It is easy to invest money in new technology, software, or equipment. It takes time, effort, and planning to invest in employee skills development. Canned training programs and Powerpoint slide presentations do not do the job."

• The Confusing Field of Coaching by Esther Derby
  "the Solution-focused Coaching model assumes that the person being coached has some experience solving the problem for which they have sought coaching. This model assumes that the coachee has all the competencies needed to come to a solution. ... But sometimes, the person needs context, information, demonstration, a straight answer, or a skill."

• Run Chart (TQL Handbook)
  38 pages. Part of Basic Tools for Process Improvement Handbook.

• 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.

• Teaching Engineers Experimental Design with a Paper Helicopter by George E. P. Box
  "How a paper 'helicopter' made in a minute or so from 8 1/2' x 11' sheet of paper can be used to teach principles of experimental design including - conditions for validity of experimentation, randomization, blocking, the use of factorial and fractional factorial designs, and the management of experimentation."

Management Web Sites and Resources

• Lean Enterprise Institute by Jim Womack
  "We carefully develop hypotheses about lean thinking and experiment to see which approaches work best in the real world. We then write up and teach what we discover, providing new methods for organizational transformation. We strive to answer the simple question of every manager, "What can I do on Monday morning to make a difference in my organization?" And, by creating a strong Lean Community through our website and public events we try to give managers the courage to become lean change agents."

• Lean Simulations
  "The focus of this site is Lean training material, ready-to-use and free. I am searching the web for lean simulations, lean games, presentations, and real world examples. Please feel free to email me your material and I will link to it or post it."

• 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.

• Management Wisdom by Clare Crawford Mason, W. Edwards Deming, Robert Mason
  Home of the Deming Library tapes and Better Management for a Changing World (with Ackoff and Suarez).

• Training Within Industry
  Blog on standardization, process improvement, training and lean manufacturing topics.

• Langford for Learning by David P. Langford
  Quality learning achieved through continual improvement of systems which aim to produce the optimum state of personal, social, physical, and intellectual development within each individual. It is a commitment to excellence by each individual and is achieved through teamwork and a process of continual improvement and/or redesign. The site includes worthwhile articles.