Many organizations, associations, and standards are going through disruptive change and innovation.  We believe this is occurring in quality and even  ISO 9001:2015.

So, what is disruptive innovation?  Wikipedia defines ‘disruptive innovation’ as:

“…  innovation that helps create a new market and value network, and eventually disrupts an existing market and value network (over a few years or decades), displacing an earlier technology.  The term is used in business and technology literature to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that the market does not expect, typically first by designing for a different set of consumers in a new market and later by lowering prices in the existing market.”

WHAT IS VUCA?
VUCA is an acronym standing for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity (VUCA).  VUCA is the driver of disruptive change and disruptive innovation.  VUCA is the new normal.

Just think of all the changes occurring in your company.  Globalization.  New regulations.  Changing customers and product preferences.  New competitive product offerings.  New technologies.  New business models.   Product lifecycle compression.

Globalization has increased uncertainty and the probability of a ‘black swan’ event occurring.  A black swan event is one that has a high consequence and relatively low probability.  The challenge is low probability events are now becoming high probability events.  Think floods, global warming, ebola, wars, earthquakes, flooding, tsunamis, forest fires, etc.

UNCERTAINTY AS THE NEW NORMAL
Uncertainty has become the new normal.  One hundred year events now seem commonplace.  We are finding natural events that should occur every hundred years occur more frequently and even yearly in some cases.  Just think of global weather patterns.  2014 was the warmest year on record.

Just read your local paper or watch a TV program.  What’s the common denominator of the program?  Risk.  The unknown, unknowable, or even unthinkable can occur, just think of September 11, 2001.  While these events cannot be anticipated, these events can adversely impact an organization.

Now, think of all the changes occurring in your life.  New work.  New jobs.  New duties.  New products.  New technologies.  Risk management.  More schooling.

Remember the acronym VUCA.  It may be the new normal.

Bio:

Greg Hutchins PE and CERM (503.233.101 & GregH@QualityPlusEngineering.com)  is the founder of:

CERMAcademy.com
800Compete.com
QualityPlusEngineering.com
WorkingIt.com

He is the evangelist behind Future of Quality: Risk®.  He is currently working on the Future of Work and machine learning projects.

He is a frequent speaker and expert on Supply Chain Risk Management and cyber security.  His current books available on all platform are shown below: