Category Archives: Government@Risk – Jim Kline

#85 – IS QUALITY OR RISK GOING TO DOMINATE? – JAMES J. KLINE

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 In the February 2015 issue of Quality Progress, John West and Charles Cianfrani imply that ISO 9001:2015 will result in a change in the quality format.  However, it will merely be an adjustment.  The inference is that quality will still dominate.  One might expect that approach in the American Society of Quality’s (ASQ) primary journal.  However, this raises the question posed in the title.  Is one approach going to dominate the other?  There are partisans on each side.  In an earlier article, I postulated that it is actually a symbiotic relationship.  However, a closer examination of the foundation and difficulties associated with the Quality Improvement Process and Risk Analysis should put the issue in a better perspective. Continue reading →

#25 – STAYING THE USPS COURSE – A RISK CHALLENGE – JAMES J. KLINE

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In their book Billion Dollar Lessons, Carroll and Mui describe the most inexcusable business failures of the last twenty-five years.  One of the failures, “Staying the Course” poses particular difficulties for Risk Analysts.

The difficulty is three fold.  First, management believes if it stays the course everything will turn out fine.  Absent any significant data to the contrary, it is difficult to change managerial, let alone, institutional inertia.

Second, identifying a viable alternative against which to evaluate the impact of staying the course may be difficult because often the costs and benefits are not clear until years afterwards.

Finally, clients and customers are often psychologically and materially locked into the current strategy.  They, therefore, put pressure on the company and its board to stay the course. Continue reading →

#14 – RISK AND QUALITY: A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP – JAMES KLINE

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Risk is increasingly an important concern for businesses.  This can be seen in the May 2013 issue of Quality Progress, the premier magazine of the American Society of Quality (ASQ).  This issue contains four articles related to risk.  None of these articles has a consistent definition of risk.  Nor do any clearly indicate the linkage between risk and quality improvement.  Part of the problem is the current dynamics of the quality movement. Continue reading →

#9 – WHY DO COMPANY’S COLLAPSE? – JIM KLINE

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Why do companies collapse?

Risk can be defined in many ways. The most relevant and difficult definition is “The probability of an undesired outcome.” (Chicken 1996)  The most obvious undesired outcome is going out of business. The history of business shows many examples of bad strategic decisions.  Some brought about by hubris and some by the inability to accurately judge the impact of disruptive technology.  Two more subtle problems are the subjects of three books: Producing Prosperity (Pisano and Shih, 2012), Restoring The Innovative Edge (Hage2011), and Inventing the Electronic Century (Chandler, 2001).

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#4 – STRATEGIC RISK IN THE ENTEPRISE – JIM KLINE – ENTERPRISE@RISK

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 Risk can take many forms from individual to companywide (enterprise).  Regardless of the level there is always a tendency to underestimate the level of risk.  Soldiers in combat almost never believe that they will end up a casualty.   In fact, people performing jobs considered dangerous regularly underestimate the risk to health and welfare.  This same mentality carries forward when dealing with enterprise risk.   Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), stated, “There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.” (1) Personal Computers are now ubiquitous. DEC is out of business.  Another famous incident is when Andrew Grove and Intel CEO Gordon Moore decided to exit the memory chip business.  It took Intel management two years of churning and emotional trauma before the exit was complete.  When one customer was told of the exit, the response was, “What took you so long?”

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