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Yes, I’ve been gone for 9 months, because 2020
I find it amusing that my last post, exactly 9 months and 1 day ago, was about burnout. That’s before we knew what would happen just 8 weeks later, when we’d all go into a collective (and very dull) sweat lodge to rediscover ourselves by immersion in the ordinary. Which, as it turns out, also…
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Burnout at Work? It’s Not Your Fault
Over the past week, I’ve noticed lots of people on social media talking about burnout — loss of energy, loss of enthusiasm, and loss of self-confidence at work. The holidays have ended, and it seems many are not getting back into the swing like they hoped they might. Are you burned out? If so, you’ve…
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Top 10 Business Books You Should Read in 2020
I read well over a hundred books a year, and review many for Quality Management Journal and Software Quality Professional. Today, I’d like to bring you my TOP 10 PICKS out of all the books I read in 2019. First, let me affirm that I loved all of these books — it was really difficult…
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The Endowment Effect: The Ultimate Organizational Rose-Colored (Risk-Enhancing) Glasses
Fifteen or so years ago, I was a member of a review team that assessed a major, multi-million dollar software project. We were asked to perform the review because the project had some issues — it cost nearly $2M a year, was not yet delivering value to users, and had been running for 17 years.…
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The U.S. Constitution is a Quality System
In 2008, I defined a quality system as: …your organization’s blueprint: it identifies your business model and processes, provides details about how your people will work together to get things done, and establishes specifications for performance — so you can tell if you’re on track… or not. https://qualityandinnovation.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/quality-system/ By this definition, the U.S. Constitution is…
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Things I’m Thankful For
Although there are many aspects of my life that I’m thankful for (e.g. my cat, the people around me, the amazing R community and the software they build), this post is going to be focused on THINGS I am thankful for. These things definitely improve my quality of life. I don’t usually venture outside the…
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KPIs vs Metrics: What’s the Difference? And Why Does it Matter?
Years ago I consulted for an organization that had an enticing mission, a dynamic and highly qualified workforce of around 200 people, and an innovative roadmap that was poised to make an impact — estimated to be ~$350-500M (yes really, that big). But there was one huge problem. As engineers, the leadership could readily provide…
Quality and Innovation 