#56 – NEW QUALITY MANAGEMENT PARADIGM – GREG HUTCHINS & DICK GOULD

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Dick GouldThe quality profession has been very successful over the last 15 years. The American Society for Quality (ASQ) surged in membership, national prominence and public policy influence.  Quality and Six Sigma became synonymous with competitiveness and flawless execution.

All of this success came at a significant cost and now begs the question: What’s the role of a quality professional, when everyone is responsible for the quality of his or her efforts? Today, there is much soul-searching about what it means to be a quality professional and where quality management is going. Continue reading →

#56 – RISK AS A RESOURCE – UMBERTO TUNESI

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Umberto Tunesi pixWe are all too used to make of the term risk a mean  something like hazard, danger, or peril;  in short, something negative to be avoided.

But there are people who make of risk their life’s reason for living.  And, I’m not only thinking of extreme sports people, I’m also thinking of normal people who – wanting it or not – find themselves in risky situations. Continue reading →

#56 – HOW TO MANAGE QUALITY RISKS – AFAQ AHMED

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThere is an expression that “no two snowflakes are alike.”  Similarly quality characteristics of parts produced from the same production process are not alike.

A simple production process, e.g., turning, can have variations in the machined diameter of a shaft because of play in the tooling or operators skill.  These variations lead to “quality risks,” i.e., if variations in the process are not controlled there is a risk of producing out-of-specification machined shafts. Continue reading →

#56 – GOING WITH THE FLOW: EXPERIENCES IN MICROMANAGEMENT – MALCOLM PEART

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Malcom Peart pixPeople say “go with the flow” when things are difficult or there is a crisis looming, but why?  Only two things go with the flow, dead fish and sh*t.

If we sail a boat, ford a stream, or fly an aircraft we need to account for a ‘flow’ of water or wind.  The shortest distance between two points is then a ‘vector’ as we consider the external forces acting on us. Continue reading →

#56 – FORGET ABOUT THE MULE – LOAD THE WAGON – MARK MOORE

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Mark MooreI have a colleague who uses the title as one of his social media tag lines.  It always made me laugh – but it also causes me to let out a heavy sigh.  I’ve seen it far more as reality in running projects than I have as just an amusing tagline.

Projects usually take one of two tracks.  If they are planned well and managed closely, they generally run well and, while there are surprises, the project manager and the project sponsor/leadership get the results they wanted and are reasonably happy with them.  Then, of course, there are projects on the opposite end of the spectrum – the ones that make every project manager cringe when the e-mail or IM comes in from the sponsor.  These are the projects that were overloaded from the start in one way or another.  If you haven’t seen one as a PM, you probably haven’t been managing long enough yet. Continue reading →