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

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 04-19 21:58, Kevin Cullis wrote:
> 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.

That's pretty funny. Sounds similar to the 9 women = 1 baby in 1 month
analogy. :) 

> > 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.

Makes sense. It's also nice to change things up a bit, too, because I find
reading only one subject can get very, very boring. On O'Reilly, I really
like the show, thought the book could have been better...but I'm pretty
picky about writing style. Being a life-long bookworm can make that happen.
I agree with him maybe 70% of the time, but even when I don't, he is always
interesting and provocative to watch. You have to hand it to him for
questioning the powerful, and asking the questions that few dare to ask. The
very fact that he keeps harping on Jesse Jackson shows that he (and Fox)
seem to have cajones the size of Texas...Jesse makes most corporations
tremble like so much Jell-O. The very fact that some people from both the
Left and Right seem to hate him shows me that he must be doing something
right. Anyway, his book didn't have that same provocative style...and it
seemed a little bit preachy at times. I'm still going to eventually read The
No Spin Zone, though. :)

> > 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.

Thanks for the recommendations. I have a few books in the hopper already,
but I'll add them to the queue. 

Have you ever read the Programmers' Stone, or the Reciprocality Project? If
not, here's a link:

http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/index.html

There seems to be a lot of overlap with things like Peopleware, and, I
think, Deming. Some of it veers off into some rather weird and
unconventional things, but that seems to be the point..."conventional" is
"bad"...although I think the argument breaks down when they connect ADHD
with mapping. Since I was never diagnosed with ADHD, I don't really know for
sure, even though I was a hyper little tyke. I'm not even sure if I would
consider myself a "mapper", even though I often find myself incredibly
frustrated on the job because almost all the job situations I've had have
been the Software Factory kind...no one trusts you to work from home, people
REALLY "thinking outside of the box" are not looked upon favorably, etc...

Actually, they explicitly talk about Deming here, in the discussion of
"mappers" vs. "packers":
http://www.reciprocality.org/Reciprocality/r0/Day1.html

I think this is also where the "specialization is for insects!" comment
(made on this thread) came from.  I *really* wish this guy or group would
publish something in the form of dead trees - online reading can be hard on
the ol' glazzies...

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at attbi.com Yahoo:seanleblancathome 
ICQ:138565743 MSN:seanleblancathome AIM:sleblancathome 
Handy Guide to Modern Science: 1-If it's green or it wiggles, it's biology. 
2-If it stinks, it's chemistry. 3-If it doesn't work, it's physics. 
(contributed by Frank v Waveren)