Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – October 2015

Welcome to October, 2015 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

The search for “Improving measures of measurement of process” took us to the first building block -‘performance measures and metrics’, followed by the search for resources relating to the ‘structuring for the process of improvement’, “Deploying the Improvement Process” and “Implementing the Improvement Process”. While we were @ Measuring the Improvement Process, we had observed references to several techniques of measurements. Among these one of the most discussed one is The Balanced Scorecard.

We will devote our present episode to exploring this technique in details. As can be expected, subject has a vast array of reference materials in the form of articles, papers, books and other multimedia contents. Even a brief glance through these would quite a heavy task, so we will refer to the hyperlinks of the referred contents in order to remain light on this episode.

We will first take up a few of the articles that provide the introduction to the subject:

Here are some more articles that discuss the concept from different perspectives:

Uniform Maker Sews Up Success With Scorecard (PDF, 160 KB) Clothing manufacturer institutes a balanced scorecard to cut out inefficiencies and iron out problems at its facilities.
Driving Focus and Alignment With the Balanced Scorecard: Why Organizations Need a Balanced Scorecard (PDF, 84 KB) Learn how the scorecard connects strategies and measures to ensure that an organization attains its vision.
Bearing the Gift of Royal Performance Indicators (PDF, 141 KB) A medieval tale of goals, objectives and strategic planning.
The First Balanced Scorecard^{© –}Arthur M. Schneiderman
The Balanced Scorecard – Beyond Reports and Rankings
The balanced scorecard, strategy maps and dashboards: Why are they different? By Gary Cokins
Guide to a Balanced Scorecard Performance Management Methodology – Procurement Executives’ Association
Effective Performance Management with Balanced Scorecard –A technical report –Liz Murby, Statthis Gould.

Next is in illustrative set of papers / articles that discuss the application of BSC in different fields:

A Plan for Public Procurement: Food & Catering – Balanced Scorecard for food procurement
Balanced Scorecard –New Hampshire Department of Transportation
Designing and Measuring Human Capital Key Performance Indicators: The Balanced Scorecard Approach – Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)
The Balanced Scorecard and IT Governance – By Wim Van Grembergen
20first 2015 Global Gender Balance Scorecard – Focus on Business Schools
“Balanced Scorecard:” A Tool For Better Education Planning
Toward a Balanced Scorecard for Higher Education : Rethinking the College and University Excellence Indicator Framework –
10-Year Experience Integrating Strategic Performance Improvement Initiatives: Can the Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma^®, and Team Training All Thrive in a Single Hospital?
Sexual Health Balanced Scorecard
A balanced scorecard for health services in Afghanistan – David H Peters, Ayan Ahmed Noor, Lakhwinder P Singh, Faizullah K Kakar, Peter M Hansen & Gilbert Burnham
Balanced Scorecard in Indian Companies – Manoj Anand, B S Sahay, Subhashish Saha
The balanced scorecard as a performance management tool for third sector organizations: the case of the Arthur Bernardes foundation, Brazil – Ricardo Corrêa Gomes; Joyce Liddle
Revive the Balanced Scorecard for Your 21st-Century Startup – Asha Saxena

Here is why 6 Reasons The Balanced Scorecard Is Still Relevant Today – an interesting article by Ted K. Jackson

#1: It ties directly to the number one issue of executives today: strategy execution.

#2: It provides a framework to align everyone in the organization around a mission and vision.

#3: It allows organizations to be more responsive to changes in the competitive landscape.

#4: It provides quantifiable metrics that show the health of an organization.

#5: It helps drive transparency.

#6: It links projects to measures, and measures to strategy.

Bonus Reason #7: You can make it yours.

If you are interested in balanced scorecard software, try the open-source Compiere.

For those who are interested in SAP type ERP platforms, here is the link to Balanced Scorecard (CPM-BSC) @ SAP’s Enterprise Management Tool .

The Balanced Scorecard Institute is an excellent under- one-roof resource.

The more we search, more will find resources – books, papers, software. What we have listed is at best a few samples on the subject. Measurement of the continual improvement will find as many variants as required by the as differing needs of differing circumstances, performed by the people with as many differing backgrounds. Obviously, we cannot cover all such variants in a single episode of our blog carnival. The ultimate message is that measurement and improvement both have to be integral part of the operations as well strategy.

We would continue our onward journey of the process of improvement for one more month, and then conclude the series.

We turn to our regular sections now:

Bill Troy, ASQ CEO has announced World Quality Month. The 6th Annual World Quality Month is set to begin in just a few weeks.

ASQ communications, in the ‘September Roundup – Does Mission Matter?’, has collected the reflections of ASQ Bloggers on the value of mission and the valued placed on it w.r.t. the guest post by Pat La Londe, ASQ Fellow and incoming ASQ board chair, on a question how often is a company’s mission considered when choosing a retailer or business partner..

The current month episodes of ASQ TV mainly relate to the revision in ISO 9001: 2015. We plan to take up this subject for an in-depth study in our December, 2015 episode. Therefore, we have gone back a little more and chosen Thinking Creatively and the related QP story for current month’s view.

For the present month, our ASQ’s Influential Voice is Dr. Suresh Gettala.

Dr. Suresh Gettala is a regional director at ASQ India. He holds a doctorate in quality management from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, and is also a recipient of the renowned post-doctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. He is a seasoned quality expert with a unique blend of academic/research as well as industry experience spanning several years in various aspects of quality management across multiple industries. He has published many research articles in reputed, peer-reviewed international journals. Suresh blogs on LinkedIn.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our Improvement journey …………

Author: ASHOK M VAISHNAV

In July 2011, I opted to retire from my active career as a practicing management professional. In the 38 years that I pursued this career, I had opportunity to work in diverse capacities, in small-to-medium-to-large engineering companies. Whether I was setting up Greenfield projects or Brownfield projects, nurturing the new start-ups or accelerating the stabilized unit to a next phase growth, I had many more occasions to take the paths uncharted. The life then was so challenging! One of the biggest casualty in that phase was my disregards towards my hobbies - Be with The Family, Enjoy Music form Films of 1940s to mid-1970s period, write on whatever I liked to read, pursue amateur photography and indulge in solving the chess problems. So I commenced my Second Innings to focus on this area of my life as the primary occupation. At the end of four years, I am now quite a regular blogger. I have been able to build a few very strong pen-relationships. I maintain contact with 38-years of my First Innings as freelance trainer and process facilitator. And yet, The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. View all posts by ASHOK M VAISHNAV