By the late 80s, it became apparent that Japanese cars were in many ways superior to their American counterparts. They were often more reliable and durable and they got better gas mileage. They were of superior quality. They often still are.
To what do the Japanese attribute their success? The teachings of W. Edwards Deming. The Japanese listened to Deming when Americans would not. Continue reading
A management standard on quality
ISO 9001 is its name
Is used by 1 million worldwide
It’s being changed, what a shame
The committee draft has 10 clauses
Compare to 9001:2008’s eight
Names of clauses are changed
Some requirements I can’t find, I’m irate! Continue reading
With the recent go-live of the ACA (Obamacare) website we saw another example of a complex project introduction go badly. There are a host of reasons for the problems, requirements changing, insufficient testing, and no one person leading the effort. And just the scope of a project required to meet the needs of millions. One has to wonder if a risk management plan was done for this project and followed through the design process. On a side note, where I live the Washington State website actually met customer needs and was easy to navigate. So scope does have an impact. Continue reading
A blog article I read recently prompted this post. I encourage you to go read “Are the Lights Working at Your Change Intersection?” It’s good stuff and we need more insight like this. But I wanted to take a slightly different angle and keep a similar image. So, I’m asking you …
What type of traffic signal does your change intersection need?
We’re asked often about the future of quality. As a matter of fact – a lot.
Our deck Future of Quality: Risk® went viral. We even have a trademark on this.
Well Clive Robinson, Leading Adviser Quality Management for Statoil’s project group had an interesting point of view. He viewed our deck and was left with the impression that we were predicting that the “Risk Manager will replace (absorb?) the Quality manager role.” This isn’t what we had in mind. It’s too early to tell. Continue reading