All Features
Matthew E. May
If you’ve followed the evolution of my thinking through the series of books I’ve written, you know that elegance—defined as the ability to achieve the maximum effect with minimum means, and characterized by the presence of both uncommon simplicity and surprising impact—is my root cause.
Elegant…
MIT News
Editor’s note: This is part two of a two-part series on how technology is, in part, behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. To read part one, click here.
To get some insight into Harvard economist Lawrence Katz’s question, “Will the job disruptions caused by technology…
Mark Graban
From my experience, you have to be cautious when somebody says either, “Lean says you should...” or “Toyota would tell you to...” because those statements, even if stated authoritatively, can be wrong.
At a recent speaking engagement (I won’t disclose where), a professor (one who teaches about…
LNS Research
Editor’s note: LNS president and principal analyst Matthew Littlefield will appear on Quality Digest Live this Friday, June 21, 2013. There will also be a free QD/LNS webinar on enterprise quality management software (EQMS) Tuesday, June 25, 2013, at 11 a.m. Pacific. Click here to register.
When…
MIT News
Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part series on how technology is, in part, behind the sluggish employment growth of the last 10 to 15 years. To read part two, click here.
Given his calm and reasoned academic demeanor, it is easy to miss just how provocative Erik Brynjolfsson’s contention…
Brookhaven National Laboratory
In recognition of the early and ongoing success of the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Project, the U.S. leaders in the international project received one of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) top 2012 Project Management Awards—the Secretary’s Achievement Award. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory…
Kevin Meyer
Iam an early-adopter tech geek at heart, and generally am among the first to embrace a new technology. I love my gizmos, although I focus on how they can be used to streamline and simplify life, not add unnecessary complexity. But there’s one area where I’m still decidedly old school.
I like to…
MIT News
Researchers working to design new materials that are durable, lightweight, and environmentally sustainable are increasingly looking to natural composites, such as bone, for inspiration.
Bone is strong and tough because its two constituent materials, soft collagen protein and stiff hydroxyapatite…
Dawn Bailey
One of my favorite educators was my high-school American history teacher because I remember really learning something. Rather than taking primarily written tests, we often reenacted notable moments in history, and our tests came from how well we understood the issues facing our characters.
In my…
UC Berkeley NewsCenter
Why should anyone thank you for just doing your job? And why should you ever thank your co-workers for doing what they’re paid to do? These are common questions in American workplaces, often posed rhetorically—and sometimes with hostility.
Elsewhere in American life, we say “thank you” to…
Jack Dunigan
Editor’s note: This continues Jack Dunigan’s series about unsung heroes in the workplace, and the 16 traits they all share.
This may seem like an unusual or even inappropriate trait, and I want to be clear from this first sentence that I am not suggesting sensitivity in the emotional or…
Lean Math With Mark Hamel
Recently a reader posed the following value-stream mapping, lead time-related question(s). My experience, after facilitating more value-stream mapping activities than I care to remember, is that it’s not an uncommon question. In fact, it’s a very good question.
I provided a quick answer,…
Bruce Hamilton
A recent comment from a business friend, call him Tom, who manages a small factory, reminded me of a scene from The Wizard of Oz. “Our president is an accountant by training,” Tom said. “But she’s a good accountant.”
“So, what is a good accountant?” I asked.
“Well, you know, she thinks that…
John Roth
In an earlier article, I explained how the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Office of Criminal Investigation (OCI) works when a small portion of the industry fails to adequately respond to regulatory action. For Abbott Laboratories and Amgen, the price for regulatory malfeasance was high: $1.4…
Patrick Runkel
A t-test is one of the most frequently used procedures in statistics. But even people who frequently use t-tests often don’t know exactly what happens when their data are wheeled away and operated on behind the curtain using statistical software like Minitab.
It’s worth taking a quick peek behind…
Gallup
If you’re a hospital leader, the safety of your patients and your employees might be keeping you up at night. That’s because senior management is accountable for creating and maintaining a safe environment for hospital staff and patients. You’re right to be concerned. Research has shown that the…
Editor’s note: Distinguished statistician and essayist David Kerridge passed away last month in Aberdeen, Scotland, at the age of 81. The former head of statistics at Aberdeen University, Kerridge was a leader in the British Deming Association and lectured with W. Edwards Deming.
There is not one…
Michelle LaBrosse
Momentum is a very powerful thing. In physics, momentum = mass × velocity. The cool thing about momentum is that the faster an object is moving, the harder it is to stop. This is also true for any project that you are working on.
Accomplishing project tasks (gaining “mass”) in a quick and…
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
At the invitation of our friend and colleague, Margaret (Meg) Wheatley, my wife, Carole, and I just returned from a conference called “Resilience: Strength Through Compassion and Connection.” I want to share some thoughts about the conference theme and I want to add strength through celebration…
Tom Kadala
Earlier this month an ex-CIA employee and whistleblower, Edward Snowden, exposed the federal government’s 6-year old, clandestine initiative, referred to internally as PRISM, a covert data-gathering program that began in 2007 as a corollary to the Patriot Act of 2001.
This White House-directed,…
The Un-Comfort Zone With Robert Wilson
Recently, a reader wrote me to suggest that rather than trying to encourage someone, a better way to motivate them is to issue a challenge. So, I felt challenged to write about it.
Whenever I think of laying down a challenge, I think of a classic story about Charles Schwab, the magnate of…
Stacey Jarrett Wagner
The idea of the garage as an incubator for startup businesses is as American as hot dogs, baseball, and apple pie (although I like apple cobbler better). From Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Wozniack, Dave Hewlett, and Bill Packard to your next-door neighbor who always seems to be out there…
MIT News
Double a city’s population, and its economic productivity goes up 130 percent. MIT researchers think they know why.
In 2010, in the journal Nature, a pair of physicists at the Santa Fe Institute showed that when the population of a city doubles, economic productivity goes up by an average of 130…
Knowledge at Wharton
Whether you are a shelf stocker at Walmart, a second-year associate at a consulting company, or an equity analyst at an investment bank, you may feel that you are not adequately compensated for the work you do; in other words, you are underpaid. But underpaid relative to what? How do employers…
AJ Sweatt
Manufacturing in the United States isn’t healing as fast as we’d like or as quickly as we deserve. On that, most of us can agree. But it sure seems like we’re seeing a steady stream of misguided understanding among much of the economic and academic elite. They often seem to miss what a strong…
