Quality and Innovation

Jim Collins, author of Built to Last (2004) and Good to Great (2001), released a new compendium of his research this fall entitled Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these authors have also stumbled upon the importance of quality consciousness – awareness, alignment, and selectively focused attention! These are the keys to developing a highly successful “ten-X” (10X) organization (one that outperforms its industry index by at least ten times, especially during times of great volatility in the business environment).

Collins and his co-author, Morten Hansen, don’t call it quality consciousness, though – they call it “Level 5 Ambition.” And Level 5 Ambition consists of three traits: fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. Each of these traits demonstrates one or more aspects of quality consciousness. Here’s how (using excerpts from p. 35 and 36 of the book):

Fanatic discipline: 10Xers display extreme consistency of action – consistency with values, goals, performance standards, and methods. They are utterly relentless, monomaniacal, unbending in their focus on their quests [emphasis added].

Consistency of action is enabled by awareness of quality standards, and unrelenting attention towards achieving them.

Empirical creativity: When faced with uncertainty, 10Xers do not look primarily to other people, conventional wisdom, authority figures, or peers for direction; they look primarily to empirical evidence. They rely upon direct observation, practical experimentation, and direct engagement with tangible evidence. They make their bold, creative moves from a sound empirical base.

By aligning the actions of an organization and its players with what the evidence shows will work, everyone is more confident and able to engage fully in the pursuit of shared goals. A data-driven approach, familiar to anyone who understands quality improvement practice, allows an organization to test its ideas on a smaller scale before committing to major changes.

Productive paranoia: 10Xers maintain hypervigilance, staying highly attuned to threats and changes in their environment, even when – especially when – all’s going well. They assume conditions will turn against them, at perhaps the worst possible moment. They channel their fear and worry into action, preparing, developing contingency plans, building buffers, and maintaining large margins of safety.

Hypervigilance is heightened awareness of the external environment, even during times of peace and productivity. The aspect of productive paranoia that I think is most instructive, however, is that it involves a choice of where to focus your attention: instead of harboring worry and panic about what might happen, the productively paranoid manager will focus on understanding failure modes, developing contingency plans, identifying backup strategies, and planning to branch off on alternative paths, if necessary. The attention is purposefully and positively diverted from unproductive emotions (worry and panic) to productive emotions (the positive feelings associated with being prepared).

Even though nearly 40% of the end of the book is an “Epilogue” containing more detail about Collins and Hansen’s research methodology and results, this is still a very substantial read, and one with very practical advice for businesses aiming to succeed through a challenging economy. My graduate students in technology management enjoyed it too.

I very recently took my ASQ CSSBB exam and passed! Here’s what I think helped me:

1. I studied for about 4 weeks (2 weeks very gently, 1 week much-more-work-because-the-exam-is-getting-closer, and 1 week of panicked, freaked out all nighters) using these great references that I wrote up tons of comments about.

2. I took about 10 pages of really good, concise notes. (I’ll share those with you sometime before the end of the year… want to write them up for public consumption.)

3. I brought about 15 super sharp #2 pencils just in case 14 of them broke. I made sure all the pencils actually SAID #2 on them, so the Scantron machine wouldn’t fail me.

4. I brought my SMART RULER. I’ve had this ruler since the late 1980′s, and every time I’ve taken a tough test, I’ve had my smart ruler with me in case I need to underline anything, or draw dividers between notes. I usually never have to USE the ruler. Usually, its presence is enough to make me do better on any exam.

5. They (the people who say such things) say that peppermint makes you smarter. So I got a new pack of Orbit peppermint gum and chewed it like I had obsessive compulsive disorder for all four hours. (Afterwards I found out that the peppermint thing isn’t really backed up by research, but I didn’t know that going into the exam, so I believed that the peppermint would make my brain work better, and that belief probably helped me out. Got to stack the deck in my favor… didn’t want those 4 weeks of studying NOT to pay off.)

6. When I wasn’t chewing gum, I was nibbling on a Reese’s peanut butter bar. Best 300 calorie investment ever made… the protein made my stomach stop growling so it wouldn’t bother the other test takers.

7. I also brought a couple very cold Diet Cokes, to wash down the peanut butter and the gum taste.

8. To appropriately address my superstitious nature, I wore my Ganesh necklace. In Hindu parlance, Ganesh helps break through obstacles, and I figured the exam that stood between me and CSSBB-hood was definitely an obstacle I wanted broken. (Hey, whatever works, right??)

Nicole

I spent last week at the 2011 International Conference on Software Quality in San Diego. On Wednesday, I hosted a session of lightning talks, where anyone in the audience can volunteer to “have the stage” for 5 minutes. Some people give presentations with slides, some give presentations without slides, others present ideas or comment on other conference sessions, and yet others lead a short discussion or ask the audience a question they would like to have answered. The best part about lightning talks – and what makes them so fun – is that when the timer (that everyone can see) reaches 0:00 the audience is required to loudly and aggressively clap the speaker off the stage! It’s a great way to get (usually) introverted scientists, engineers and techno-geeks actively involved in discussion.

One of the guys who presented a lightning talk (I unfortunately can’t remember his name) was an ISO 9000 auditor. He shared a little nugget with us that really stuck with me, and I’d like to share it with the rest of the world. His insight came from many of the quality systems he’s reviewed and audited, and he said he noticed this with some of the conference presentations as well. I paraphrase:

Lessons learned must be actionable. So many times I see people present their lessons learned, but they’re not doing anything as a result, or they haven’t figured out how to do something in response to the lesson - they’re not changing their processes, attitudes, or strategies in response to what they’ve uncovered. If it’s merely an insight, it’s just a lesson… if it’s an insight that results in changing or adapting behavior, then it’s a lesson learned!

It struck me that since lessons learned are such an important component of Baldrige assessments as well (via ADLI), organizations that are currently working on an application might also benefit from this perspective.

If anyone remembers this guy’s name, please post it. He was tall and had lots of fluffy white hair.

I see a LOT of searches for LSSQTT that get directed to this blog – presumably, these people are searching for the Lean Six Sigma Quality Transformation Toolkit developed by John W. Sinn of Bowling Green State University.

I’d like to ask for you all to leave comments and questions – what, specifically, are you looking for? I have several semesters experience with the toolkit and I “get it” – so I would be very happy to help you if you let me know what you’re looking for. Please leave comments and questions below. Thanks!

My five-year-old knocked his Lego police van off the kitchen counter this morning. He was attempting to simultaneously admire it and eat breakfast. The reason he’s been admiring it so much is that it took him about three hours to build it using the instructions in the box… and he did it all by himself, without any adult help. Each Lego had been carefully and precisely placed, a consequence of following complicated instructions in the most dedicated of manners. It was a challenging activity for him, and yet he was able to work through it deliberately on his own… with the clear goal of a completed police van. (I was really impressed with his work… every single piece was in its correct place. And there’s no way I could have sat there for three hours, painstakingly following those detailed 40-step instructions… my patience would have worn thin after about Step 5.)

The impact when his creation hit the wooden floor was remarkable, like the sound of shattering glass. Fortunately, the individual Legos were all intact, but the police van had vaporized.

He surveyed the damage. “But I spent so much time on it,” he cried. “I was so careful putting all those pieces together in exactly the right ways… and now it’s gone.” I could wipe away the tears, but not the knife that had sliced into his pride of workmanship, and his developing sense of excellence as a Lego builder.

In Quality vs. Excellence I note that the pursuit of excellence is fundamentally a drive from within – people who strive for excellence are intrinsically motivated to identify and internalize quality standards, and then work towards them (often exceeding them).

Thus, if you don’t feel an emotional push from within to identify those standards for quality or to push yourself to achieve and exceed them – you are probably not pursuing excellence. Quality is objective, and achieving it often depends on extrinsic motivation (e.g. wanting to achieve ISO certification or recognition through the Baldrige National Quality Program). Achieving excellence, however, is primarily subjective and driven by intrinsic motivation… you know it when you see it, but more importantly, you know it when you feel it.

(And sometimes, feeling it comes when the Lego masterpiece falls off the kitchen counter.)

If you have at least 5 years broad experience in quality, please help us validate the “Quality Systems Development Roadmap” originally published in Quality Progress in 2008 (http://asq.org/quality-progress/2008/09/basic-quality/starting-from-scratch.html). This is part of an expert systems project developed by Doug Jin, a student at James Madison University, under the guidance of Nicole Radziwill, JMU faculty member and ASQ member leader.

The 5-page, 13-question survey will be available until January 15, 2011 or 1500 responses are received, whatever comes first, so contribute now at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W2LYFYP!

Ron DuPlain forwarded me an interesting post from November 2008 (via @duanegran, I believe) called How much do websites cost? It’s a great comprehensive overview of the different kinds of web sites that can be built – the spectrum of customization, interactivity, and intent that dictate whether a web site will cost $200 or $2 million. But what really struck me about this article was one tiny little section that talks about value, emphasizing the relationship between quality, waste, and the changeability of human wants, needs, and desires:

2.) A small company site that has 5 to 10 pages describing the products/services offered by the company. $500 to $2,000 depending on how prepared you are, and also on how clear in your own head you are about what you want. Disorganization and changing your mind are both expensive.

Disorganization is expensive because it blocks action. When your house is disorganized, you waste time and energy trying to find stuff. When the processes you use in the workplace are disorganized, time and physical energy can be wasted engaging in non-value-adding activities, and mental and emotional time and energy wasted in unproductive communications. Wasting time and energy can generate short-term real costs (for example, moving parts or products around a factory or supply chain can delay time-to-market while costing more in fuel for transport), long-term real costs (e.g. reinforcing negative behaviors that lead to breakdowns in interpersonal relationships, teamwork, or morale) or opportunity costs.

Changing your mind is expensive for the same reason: it either blocks new action from taking place, or it eliminates the value that could have been added by prior work. A task is not actionable unless you have the 1) resources to do the job, 2) the information and interest to complete it, 3) the skills and capabilities to make it happen, as well as a clear idea of what needs to be done, and 4) an execution environment that supports getting things done. Changing your mind can erode #2 or #3.

To reduce the risk associated with development, and to control the costs of the project, find out:

• How much do you really know about what you want?
• What essential elements are you pretty sure you’ll still want or need in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years?
• What parts do you have the resources, information/interest, capabilities/skills/clarity, and execution environment to get done now? (I call this RICE to make it easier to remember)

The lesson: to get higher quality and lower costs (that is, greater value), focus on those parts of a project that are least likely to change and do those first. This is, of course, if you have the luxury to be agile (highly regulated environments may impose restrictions or limits). Then stop – figure out what your experience working on those parts tells you about how you can approach the problem more systematically and effectively- and repeat the cycle until you iterate to the desired solution. This is the essence of applying organizational learning to your day to day tasks.