When I formally got introduced to "Quality Management", my professor mentioned that the subject is nothing but Common-sense. I felt let down that I had decided to invest so much of time and money only to study "Common-sense". But two-and-a-half decades down, I see the continuing need and relevance for the study of this "Common Sense".
But there is a second and a bigger point to make. While processes/ methods constitute the "Letters of Quality", there is a second and subtler aspect which is the "Spirit of Quality". This subtler aspect is evasive and a bigger factor that facilitates "Quality" or "Excellence" or any such good thing to happen at individual or org-level. At individual level, this maps to aspects like Commitment, Clarity, Confidence, Concentration/ focus etc. and at org-level to aspects like positive environment, Values, Culture etc. At individual level, aspects such as Concentration/ focus, mind etc. are well-handled by Traditional Indian Wisdom. At Org-level, Quality Gurus like Edward Deming have handled this very well.
This blog is organized in two parts to address these two aspects of Letter & Sprit:
- Part 1 - "The Process for Quality" which handles the structured part, which is more tangible and logical (just 'Common sense').
- Part 2 - "The Environment for Quality" - the subtler, evasive and the intangible aspect of "Spirit". This draws from sources including traditional Indian wisdom to enlighten the path for individual's or Corporate's journey towards "Quality" or "Excellence".
A flowery intro:
The game transforms from "Quality" to "Excellence"
Scope expands from "Part" to "Whole"
Quest continues for Predictability,
To discern patterns from randomness
And replace methods for madness
A Quest enlightened by the wisdom of eons,
Explored afresh by Science and rediscovered in pieces
Every piece captured by Quality models
For limited material gains
A distillate of decades - incubated, incremented and iterated
Explores the yonder where “First Time Right” has been the norm eternal
And evolution and improvements, an effortless celebration of everyday
For which brute-force and decibels, struggled and choked elsewhere
A nascent congregation of Scriptures, Science & Management wondered
Methods & Madness - An Infinite Loop and a Circular Reference:
For example, an organization may think that a performance appraisal process is subjective. To make it more objective, it may introduce parameters of evaluation such as 'Timeliness of work', 'Quality of work' etc. Over time, it may notice that the idea of "Timeliness of Work" is understood and implemented differently by different users (or just misused). Hence it may bring further definition e.g. "Timeliness" as "% of assigned tasks completed on-time". This may address the issue temporarily but may create a issue later that the "Tasks", as claimed by different employees, are not of comparable criticality. And the cycle repeats.
Thus it becomes a circular reference between Methods and Madness. Madness refers to the the vagaries of minds, it's fluctuations and flip-flops in opinions, beliefs and feelings which bring-in turbulence and instability to day-to-day life. Processes promise to bring sense and predictability into this. But processes finally leave the last-mile to 'Human Mind' where the madness regains its territory with a name called 'Subjectivity' and the whole cycle repeats. Hence it is an infinite loop and a circular reference between Methods and Madness.
Process Life-cycle - An Overview: Similar to Product
Life-cycle and Software Development Life-cycle, a “Process” also has its own
life-cycle. There are many ways in which it is depicted e.g. PDCA, DMAIC etc. The one below is one such representation:
- Define the Processes Identify processes which need a high level of predictability and define/refine/revamp them. The collection of such defined processes is referred to as "Quality Management System" (QMS). These Processes may address areas including Project Management, Software Engineering etc.
- Educate and Implement: Influence the target audience to adopt the defined process
- Measure & Benchmark Measure the performance of defined process. Study them statistically where volumes are high. Compare the performance with Benchmarks. Also Benchmark the processes defined in QMS against Models such as ISO etc.
- Automate the defined process. Although 'Automate' can be seen as one of the ways to 'Improve', it is better seen as a mandatory step than an optional one. Is is better to treat it as a logical extension (or an integral part) of Defining the Process.
- Improve: Identify process improvements. Methodologies/ frameworks like Lean, Six-sigma etc. play a role and catalyzing these changes, navigating through the people and cultural dimensions of the change.
However, after going through the above cycle multiple times - an infinite loop created by circular reference - the big question that remains - Can Process Guarantee Outcomes? - The Cause-Effect dilemma
