[CLUE-Talk] Pointy-Haired Boss (WAS: The Microsoft penaltythat isn't - Tech News - CNET.com)

[Kevin Cullis]

Sean,

Sean LeBlanc wrote:
> 
> Any particular Deming titles to recommend starting off with? He's one name
> I've heard over, and over, and over, and a smidgeon of his story, but other
> than that, I'm pretty clueless about him.

There are some books that I recommend: "Out of the Crisis," by Deming
himself, "The Deming Dimension" by Henry Neave, and "Deming's Profound
Changes" by Kenneth Delavigne (I had some emails with the author) and
"Four Days with Dr. Deming" by William Latzko.  The funniest quote from
Deming I have is: "1988 drugs captured at the border:

$124,000 per agent
$3,640,000 per dog

The answer to our drug problem. Hire more dogs!"

This is to illustrate the some of the problems with statistics.

> 
> I'm pretty omnivorous when it comes to devouring books, myself. My readings
> range from "pop" books (just finished The O'Reilly Factor), to assorted tech

I have read O'Reilly as well, good thoughts. For those that are
interested, I learned a while back that everyone should be on a reading
program of about a book a month or two. Why? Keeps your mind active and
watching for new ideas.

> stuff (of course) to classic stuff like Kerouac and Hemingway to really
> bizarre and offbeat stuff like Tom Robbins or Terence McKenna (one really
> "out there" guy - I was lucky to stumble upon a hardbound copy of True
> Hallucinations and The Archaic Revival in a discount bin for $2) and then
> range back to the stock "geek" books and authors like Hitchhikers Guide,
> Stranger in a Strange Land, Neal Stephenson...but I really got into reading
> some of what I call "meta-books" - books about programming and software
> engineering in the workplace - Peopleware, After the Gold Rush, Mythical
> Man-Month...another I can't remember right now.

Mythical Man Month moves in the general direction of Process
Improvement, but from a software perspecive. Other books I recommend
are: The Goal, Theory of Constraints, and Critical Chain (all by
Goldratt) Principles of Quality Costs by Jack Campanella (ASQ), and the
Baldrige Criteria for assessing organizational effectiveness (see the
Peak Award Criteria at http://www.coloradoexcellence.org/award.html) and
See You At the Top by Zig Ziglar.

The key issues to understand are: People, Process, and Product. The more
you know about each area, the better you are off.

Kevin

-- 

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal" - Kevin Cullis
---
Kevin Cullis
kcullis at coloradoexcellence.org
303-893-CPEX (2739) Main
720-489-9283 Direct
Colorado Performance Excellence, Inc
http://www.coloradoexcellence.org