manage naturally

A Deming Minute™ on Results

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:00:00 -0800

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A Deming Minute on Principles

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:02:00 -0800

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A Deming Minute Video on Command and Control

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:25:39 -0800

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Pragmatism over Pure Science

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:15:00 -0800

There is a difference between pragmatic and pure, abstract science. What is useful in one world, may not be true in another, and what is true in that world may not be useful in the first. It is true that Newton's laws are flawed at the submicroscopic level, but in our day to day world they work pretty well... OUCH, there goes another darned apple! Shewhart set his limits of natural variation not as a result of abstractions alone, but from repeated direct direct observation on the work floor, with the aim to make them useful for the people doing the work and as Wheeler points out, there are more than 70 years of practice worldwide, backing up that use. Unfortunately, that was not enough for some, and the original intent has been complexified. The aim was not abstract accuracy, but useful and effective, on the workfloor.

The traditional cheesemaker will use his sense of touch on the curd, where the scientific will use a ph meter. Both work, unless the ph meter goes out of adjustment. The sense of touch of the traditional cheesemaker improves with age. While the scientist may be able to explain, to the best of current knowledge, exactly what is happening to the proteins, I would trust the cheese from the cheesemaker will taste better.

Quality in anything, comes from complex causes, some of which can be measured, some only from mastery. Both will follow carefully controlled procedures to ensure a good result, but great cheese comes from the heart, not from the cerebellum. The best of both worlds is when the cheesemaker learns the science without abandoning his traditional ways.

The same could be said for any product or service of quality. Abstract analysis is not enough, it takes compassion, empathy, and careful repeated observation over time, anchored to the where the work is actually done.

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Beyond Financial Accounting: using simple Operational Reports to manage causes.

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:40:00 -0800

Join us for a Webinar

Space is limited. Repeats regularly. Go to www.managenaturally.com to check the dates

Results can't be managed, only the causes of results. The P&L and Balance Sheet, financial reports as defined by GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Practices) are for investors, and banks, to put a value to their investment and not to operate a business. Because they make limited comparisons of single data points, they confuse and make it difficult to find the causes one needs to manage. The solution? Give the investors and banks their financials, but learn how to transform them into useful Operational Reports.

You will learn:

1. How to drive your organizaiton with your eyes on the road, not stuck in the rear view mirror.

2. How to transform the p&l in a few seconds into an Operational report making the data useful

3. Real life examples from real companies (names changed to protect the innocent.)

4. What really drives profit and long term success.

5. Why "what you need to know may be unknowable" and how to manage it.

Benefits for you:

1. An end to the monthly/weekly dance seeking explanations for ups and downs on spreadsheets.

2. A clear guide when and how to react, and when reacting will only make things worse.

3. More time to focus on what matters,

4. Better information helping you understand your business to make more profit both for the short and the long term.

4. Confidence through understanding

5. A forward thinking focus.

Space is limited, act now.

Dan Strongin is a business consultant and co-founder of the Deming Collaboration. With nearly 4 decades of experience in a wide variety of industries, he began his career as a 5 Star Chef in organizations like the Ritz Carlton, and an Executive in Specialty Retail, subsequently working with producers, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, State Marketing Boards and Innovation Centers. He is certified by the American Society for Quality in management for quality and qrganizational Excellence. (CMQ/OE)

Title: Beyond Financial Accounting: using simple Operational Reports to manage causes.

Date: Repeats go to website here

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements

PC-based attendees

Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees

Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

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It isn't just me who thinks Cost Accounting is killing business!

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:43:24 -0800

"It was not enough to chase out the cost accountants from the plants.

The problem was to chase cost accounting from my people's minds."

Taiichi Ohno, Toyota

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Measuring

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 03:29:17 -0800

Why would the father of modern quality, Dr. Deming, a statistician, say "the most important things you need to know are unmeasurable and unknowable, but you still need to manage them?" Certainly, managing by feelings is a recipe for failure, but measuring everything can be trouble as well. Working with fixed resources, we have to apply them where they will have best effect. If you are measuring common causes as if special, down the drain. If you are measuring complex, messy social systems, where do you start? Each person is purposeful, unlike machines in a process line. But you still have to manage them.

To measure what it makes sense to measure, seems a reasonable approach, then apply the SoPK to manage what it doesn't make sense or can't really be done without tampering. Why is it all or nothing? It aint politics

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Immortal Soul

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:25:54 -0800

How many a poor immortal soul have I met well-nigh crushed and smothered under its load, creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh. Thoreau. Lest we forget...

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A Letter from Dr. D

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 03:43:57 -0800

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Measuring the Unmeasurable, more rant...

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:21:00 -0800

(with thanks to Rafael Aguayo for some key insights)

(image from NASA)

First and foremost, is the system one is measuring under control, as you should know, if not, there is nothing that can be learned which can be used for prediction, the essence of process control, management and science, beyond, it is out of control!

Manipulating data to make an out of control system look in control is always tempting, especially the farther the measurer is removed from the context, from where the events being measured actually take place, and have real world ramifications: Ohno's gemba.

There is more than one way to peel an onion, and often, finding solutions closer to where the work is actually done, rather than lifting them out of their physical context and analyzing them in a separate quality department, can have more lasting effect, optimizing resources that could be applied in other, even more productive ways. I have seen 5S eliminate all kinds of entrenched problems as if by proxy, and find that getting everyone touched by a process to the table to dialogue, or working on communication skills can work as well, in some cases, as a statistical analysis. Statistical thinking rather than statistical doing

You have to have an appreciation for the system, overall. Something has to be less than optimal in order for the overall system to hum: there is always a weakest link.Theory, purpose, is there a better way to accomplish the same thing, closer to the "gemba", then what are you going to do with the measure once you have it, are all reasonable things to ask before performing intense mental gymnastics, and are you sure the measure you seek will address the cause?

We are plausible reasoners,not pure reasoners, and love to find answers in the snow, but is the effort worth while in relation to the overall aim, and are you entering the fray with a theory? Without theory, no learning, and bad theory, like the original six sigma shift, yields bad results. Without theory to ground you, you can find patterns that exist in principle, but not in reality.

Then there is the glory of approximation. It would be hard to argue with the usefulness of XmR charts, or a common household thermometer, thought they are far from exact, they are extremely simple and useful. Pramatic, empirical science, for me, is of greater value in the workplace than pure science.

And then, in complex messy problems like social systems, where there is more than one "aim" as the members of the "system" are purposeful in and of themselves, with their own often hidden aims, more important at first, in these cases, than measuring is figuring out the structure of a problem, to make an intelligent theory as to where best to intervene.

In even messier problems like public policy, large federal bureaucracies, or confronting climate change, where many of the forces acting on the problem are out of your control, and by nature special causes, detailed measurement may actually lead you astray. It is very hard to measure a moving target whose purpose is beyond your ability to know or influence, like the floods in Thailand, coming after the nuclear accident that happened in Japan. What could Toyota, or Honda have measured that could have told them that Japan would irradiate and Thailand have the worst floods in a 100 years, and yet, somehow, they were prepared, and are weathering the storm, and I for one doubt that measuring was much help, but would love to know what they did do.

I am told by a colleague who worked with them a number of years ago, that for long term, messy planning, they use soft systems, defining relationships with concept maps and other tools, rather than measuring and counting. Would love to know more, anyone reading this involved? As Deming said, "The most important things you need to know may be unmeasurable, but you still need to manage them." Why would one of the key forefathers of Quality say that, and in the first pages of his final book?

So I would say that I suppose one can create and justify a measure for anything, but will it be useful and towards what end? What is one trying to accomplish? What would one do if you had that number? The idea is to manage by theory as opposed to numbers. That is the salient point. And to understand the kinds of variation, have some skill in psychology and deeply appreciate how each part is related within the overall system to aim to optimize the system overall.

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Performance Evaluations, Goals, Ranking are for those who Don't Know what to do!

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:57:00 -0800

Performance evaluations, goals, ranking, etc. have nothing to do with improving performance, they are tools of power in a command and control structure for those who do not know what to do, but feel they have to do something. The odds of just doing something are 98% that you will only make things worse. And yet we continue in our convictions, despite clear and potent evidence to the contrary.

How's that working for us?

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Words to Live By from Somerset Maugham

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:45:00 -0800

Maugham put it succinctly..

"I have never had any sympathy with the ascetic attitude. The wise man combines the pleasures of the senses and the pleasures of the spirit in such a way as to increase the satisfaction he gets from both.

The most valuable thing I have learnt from life is to regret nothing. Life is short, nature is hostile, and man is ridiculous; but oddly enough most misfortunes have their compensations, and with a certain humour and a good deal of horse-sense one can make a fairly good job of what is after all a matter of very small consequence."

Somerset Maugham

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Marx or Lincoln?

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:39:00 -0800

via cdn.front.moveon.org

Hmmm

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Letter sent to CFSCAN in support of Small Family Farmers

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 05:39:00 -0800

Small family farms are important to a free nation, and a safe, secure food supply. (They are not multi-national corporations and cannot afford to have lobbyists or research institutions, so we sometimes forget their importance.)

They provide real diversity in our agricultural economy. Those that focus on dairy have been able to save their farms, and to a degree their rural communities, by producing artisan cheese as part of the renaissance of artisan cheese over the last 20 years. For the first time in a generation, the loss of family farms has slowed, a bit: people are actually returning to farms to produce artisan cheese.

What makes this possible for small producers is the ability to make aged raw milk cheese, because it is more flavorful, more sought after in upscale markets, and restaurants, and safer in smaller scale production, due the freshness of the milk supply. I am familiar with the arguments against raw milk cheese. The concern is based on a limited set of laboratory data; While it is true, there is a statistical chance, based on laboratory evidence, that aged cheese could carry rare pathogens beyond 60 days, has it, and how often has it? Shouldn't the real test of an approach that could so adversely affect the small family farmer be the probability in the real world, not in the lab?

Solutions like zero tolerance sound impressive, but are impossible to achieve, and overly simplistic. The right solution, the one that takes into account the complexity of variation in nature, is process control. Cheeses made with raw milk, are among the safest foods known to man, if made with good process: Lactic fermentation of all kinds, in fact. Reggiano Parmesan for instance, is sold and eaten world wide and yet, how many cases of foodborne illness have been traced to it? Or aged raw milk cheddar? Or a properly fermented pickle, or natural olive?

What matters is what is the best and most effective course of action. All sides should be represented, not just those that can afford it: large dairy producers and a handful of professors, who represent a narrow span of the expertise on the safety of aged cheese. For a fair, just and effective solution, I highly recommend checking with Dr. Catherine Donnelley at the University of Vermont, who has comprehensive data on the subject.

It is important to note that industrial processed food has caused far more public health problems than traditional ones, by any measure.

I want to thank you in advance for taking to heart my recommendations, and proving that we are still a country who listens to those who do not have the power or money to manufacture a voice.

Respectfully,

Dan Strongin

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Training Webinar: How Not to Read a P&L and what to do about it!

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0800

Title: How Not to Read a P&L and what to do about it

Date: Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PST (1 pm to 2:30 pm EST)

Cost: $29.95

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/522176318

Hours of precious time is wasted trying to balance the realities of operating a business against the demands of an out dated, and confusing accounting tool, that hides what is needed to know, leading managers down blind alleys, creating phantom crises, while the real problems remain hidden in the data.

Learn how to transform the data on a P&L and balance sheet into incredibly useful operating reports with a snap of the fingers, providing management information from the data that can be used to clarify and improve the flow of raw material, money, and product through your money making system.

Useful for all levels of management, with particular value for anyone responsible for operations. Render unto the Banks and Investors that which is theirs, Generally Accepted Accounting Practices, but for Operations, Useful Operating Reports!

You will learn:

How to drive your organizaiton with your eyes on the road in front of you, not stuck looking only through the rear view mirror.
What figures matter
How to transform the p&l in a few seconds into an Operational report making the data useful
Real life examples from real companies (names changed to protect the innocent.)
What really drives profit and long term success.
Why "what you need to know may be unknowable" and how to manage it.

Benefits for you:

An end to the monthly/weekly dance caused by seeking explanations for ups and downs on the financial reports.
A clear guide when and how to react, and when reacting will only make things worse.
More time to focus on what matters, better information helping you understand your business better, run it better and make more profit both for the short and the long term.
Confidence through understanding and a forward thinking focus.

Presenter: Dan Strongin is a business coach and co-founder of the Deming Collaboration. Mr. Strongin has almost 40 years of experience in a wide variety of industries, with direct financial responsibility. He began his career as a Chef in 5 star kitchens like the Ritz Carlton, and has grown to work directly with producers, manufacturers, retailers, distributors, State Marketing Boards and Innovation Centers. He is certified by the American Society for Quality in management for quality and qrganizational Excellence. (ASQ-CMQ/OE)

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements

Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server; Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

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FREE Webinar Invitation: "How to Fail in a Recession"

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:00:00 -0800

Join me for a FREE Webinar

http://bit.ly/tUKoZZ

A tongue-in-cheek exploration for organizations struggling with the recession, to learn what can be done not only to survive, but to profit.

Explore nine sure fire steps to stagnation and failure, and their CURES in a thorough, serious, yet humorous webinar, laden with practical, pragmatic, proven tools that will work for any type of organizations, whether you be a for proit or a non profit, whether you be one by choice or default.

in partnership with the Deming Collaboration.

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Measuring the Unmeasurable??????

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 04:21:00 -0800

"The most important things to know are unknowable" "Manage on data alone, down the drain." One can measure anything but does the resulting data tell THE story or just A story. Is the area of opportunity the same, what is the context of the so called "data" and what theory can you test based on the data drawn.

"Without theory, there is no learning." The over reliance on data is the primary weakness of modern Quality methods.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding of Shewhart if you rely on data alone, or search for clever ways to "generate" data. The primary reason for collecting data is to know if you are working with a system that is under control, and if so, whether what you are observing is common or special variation.

The use of using data and process control to lower the range of variation around the centerline is secondary, and its use, if based on theoretical statistics, not on pragmatic, experiential science, like Shewhart's, leads to what Dr. Deming calls sub-optimization: optimizing the parts to the harm of the overall organization. Many Lean Six Sigma practioners are waking up to this dilemma. Cutting costs, reducing variation in a process without taking into account the whole system, rarely leads to real savings for the overall, though on a per project basis it may look good on paper. Reducing variation that is not a constraint, is a waste of precious resources. Many companies with well developed process control systems are facing serious financial problems, why?

What is being lost in the focus on data, is an appreciation for a system, an understanding of Theory, and how you use it to learn, and a marginalization of psychology, as if people can be tweaked and measured like things.

I highly recommend a re-reading of any of Donald Wheelers works, the statistician most true to the actual theory behind SPC as created by Shewhart. If interested, there is a very good article on the subject called, "Why I dislike the name Six Sigma" by Rafael Aguayo here: http://demingcollaboration.com/?page_id=2396

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And now this, a law making pizza a vegetable

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:10:00 -0800

from the republicans in congress. Slipped in an Ag bill for their friends who want to undermine attempts to improve the nutrition of foods served in schools. Keep out of our children's obesity, and Pizza Hoot's profits! I wonder how the real Tea Party people feel about this? (Not the fake ones in congress.)

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How to Fail in a Recession, & what not to do about it

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:56:00 -0800

Youtube of the full Webinar I gave on November 30, 2011 to a group of proud unsuspecting professionals! It is 40 minutes long, but being a youTube, you can watch some now, some later... A tongue in cheek at the way we manage, and the tools we use, and how they hurt us rather than help us, and what you can do about it

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Absurdities of Modern Life?

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 03:08:00 -0800

Not so different than staring at computer screens to solve your problems at work!

Sent from my iPhone, hmmmmm

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