Cedric Chin

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Cedric Chin

Word slinger, bug fixer, and operator.

The Deming Paradox: Operationally Rigorous Companies Aren't Very Nice Places to Work

Is it possible to be data driven and operationally rigorous and still be human centric at the same time? Deming — who came up with these data techniques — believe that it is possible. I'm not so sure.

Creating New Drills for Deliberate Practice

A lesson from a four month accelerated expertise experiment. Or: why creating new drills for a deliberate practice training program isn't as difficult as you might think.

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There Is No Truth in Business, Only Knowledge

'Knowledge' here is defined as 'theories or models that help you predict better'. How an idea from W. Edwards Deming may well be a working philosophy of business.

Operational Excellence is the Pursuit of ‘Knowledge’

It turns out that operational excellence results from the pursuit of a certain form of knowledge and using metrics in business is about the pursuit of this knowledge. This is Part 3 of the Becoming Data Driven series, and the result of a deep dive into the field of Statistical Process Control.

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An Expertise Acceleration Experiment in Judo

I relocated for a three month expertise acceleration experiment in Judo. These are my notes from two months in: what I learnt, what was hard, and what deliberate practice actually feels like.

How to Become Data Driven

The answer, like most things from Statistical Process Control, is more surprising and more obvious than you might think.

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Goodhart's Law Isn't as Useful as You Might Think

Goodhart's Law is useless. It tells you about a phenomenon, but it doesn't tell you how to solve it. We look at how organisations actually prevent Goodhart's Law, and illustrate this with Amazon's Weekly Business Review as an example.

The 2022 Commoncog Recap

This was the final newsletter edition sent out to subscribers at the end of 2022. A recap of Commoncog's best ideas, and a preview of several upcoming experiments.

The Shape of a Technological Window

Technological Windows is Steve Jobs's conception of the game of consumer technology. We look at how he used it over the course of his career. Note: this is a follow-up to and an update for the Commoncog Case Library Beta.

Is This a Moat: Mailchimp and PayPal’s Algorithmic Advantage

Two case studies of real world competitive advantage, followed by a question: was this a moat or not?

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