Replying to LO29878 --
Alan replied to Doug about quality practices, and mentioned that...
> We have all heard about TQM and Plan, Do, Check, Act - I suggest the Act
> part of the activity is the update and maintenance of the management
> system documentation.
My work life revolves around quality practices which have evolved over the
past decade of more. I remind readers of what I posted at this site in
the past for a definition/purpose of TQM:
"TQM is an EVOLVING system of practices, tools and training methods being
developed primarily by industry, for creating higher quality products and
services for increased customer satisfaction in rapidly changing world."
Evolving. Over the past decade the materials which I use to assist people
in their organizations has evolved. I still bring background insights
into play. Before PDCA mentioned by Alan above, there is SDCA, where 'S'
stands for Standard. That is, we work to whatever standard applies,
guided by a work instruction, manual, customer specification, etc. We
"do" it, we "check" to see it meets the customer requirement, and we "act"
to maintain whatever control over the process deemed necessary to continue
to meet the specification.
Now, when "check" stage produces a number of data points outside the
limits of acceptability, the "ACT" of the SDCA cycle feeds into the "P" of
the Plan-Do-Check-Act. In this cycle, refined by Deming from Shewhart's
model, the 'plan' refers to a sub-set of natural steps, a logical
progression to do at least the following:
1. determine and express what the problem really is (Seem simple? Think
again....)
2. collect data
3. interpret it and find root cause
4. create and implement a pilot solution
5. check the pilot against the requirements to see if the plan is
working, an if so...
6. standardize the solution (make it the new S-D-C-A cycle).
There's another step, a seventh step, which I promote lustily to
organizations, which is "reflection and future work." Here, teams for
example report out their work to the organization. They address not only
content, but form. By this I mean that the reporting people communicate
the content but also speak about the Plus/Delta of the experience itself.
Plus means what worked well in the human process of working together,
while Delta (difference) means "What will we do differently next time to
make this kind of work progress even better than it did?" Each Delta
point begins with an action verb, like
Get...Use...Create...Reduce...Employ...etc. An action item list so
generated looks forward rather than remaining in the past with negatives
which don't necessarily stimulate actions to overcome them next time
around in the SDCA/PDCA cycles.
Alan also mentions "a change towards Integrated Risk Management" in his
posting. I'm glad. My work has moved strongly in this direction, so that
now I present two-day programs to management teams about how to assess,
using causal loop diagramming, the risks of a new initiative or
opportunity.
Also, using the Enterprise Model, which I believe I have mentioned before
at this site, you surface functional competencies and process capabilities
required for new initiatives or opportunities in such a way as to expose
weaknesses which can bring down the house. Risk management.
Thanks, Alan, for mentioning these good points.
Best regards to all from Keene, under about 38 cm of new fallen snow.
(Although not as bad off as poor Rick in Boston!! There they've set a
record for one storm).
Barry
-- Barry Mallis The Organizational Trainer 110 Arch St., #27 Keene, NH 03431-2167 USA voice: 603 352-5289 FAX: 603 357-2157 cell: 603 313-3636 email: theorgtrainer@earthlink.netBarry
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