Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – June, 2017

Welcome to June, 2017 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We will commence our episode with a lighter perspective of Quality.

I have picked up a few recent articles from CQI|IRCA:

Fish Fraud: How the Marine Stewardship Council tackles unregulated fishing – In the early 1990s the impact of overfishing on the marine environment and on seafood supplies was reaching a critical point. This year the Marine Stewardship Council is celebrating its 20th anniversary and the picture is looking far healthier. In an extract from June’s Quality World magazine, Dina Patel speaks to supply chain standards director Michael Platt and manager Jaco Barendse to discover how they are leading the sustainable seafood movement.

The cost of rework: Finding the key to improving productivity in construction – Seán Connolly, the quality leader at Expanded, a Laing O’Rourke company, asks whether reducing rework is the key to improving productivity in construction.

Getting value from your supply chain – Bob Hughes, CQP FCQI, explains why an organisation’s products and services are only as good as its supply chain.

Brexit: Quality challenges facing new supply chains – Adeyemi Shodipo, director at training and consultancy company Charis Management Systems, explains why the quality profession will play a crucial role post-Brexit now that companies may have to engage more with three new trading blocs: ‘The First World’, the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and the developing world.

When we talk of the challenges of productivity, innovation and competitiveness there is one profession that sits squarely at the centre of this – quality.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

For the present episode we have picked up the article The Lesson We Can All Learn From the Way Drucker Questioned Clients from William Cohen, Ph.D.’s column Lessons from Drucker @ Management Matters Network. Drucker asked not only his Famous Five Questions[i] and they may not be the most important questions he used as he analyzed an organization’s situation and needs. As a teaching technique he did not ask many questions to encourage intellectual interaction or get students to reason to a predetermined logical conclusion. These were the question meant to demonstrate just how elusive definitive answers were, even if the author of these principles was Drucker himself….When Drucker consulted for companies, he didn’t ask questions to demonstrate the problems with the solutions. Instead, he asked questions to enable the client, or group of clients, to reach an optimum answer for their business…..These questions came, as he himself stated, not out of his knowledge or experience, but out of his ignorance of the industry, the company, or other facts or factors that consultants sometimes collect…The lesson to be learnt is that you can find good answers, not only by listening to Drucker (or any expert for that matter), but by asking questions and listening to yourself.

From Ask The Experts, I have picked up a question from the archives – Audit by exception. The question seeks to know whether this technique, deployed mainly in financial audits, can be done in a manner compliant of management system standards. The response to the question states that “A robust internal audit report will identify non-conformances, but will equally focus on areas that can be improved or that have improved. …One of the ways to accomplish this, is to share audit results that report on findings, OFI and the status of objectives or targets that have been established. Auditing by exception, usually will not provide this level of reporting.”

In our ASQ CEO, Bill Troy column this time there appears to be now new post. So we pass on to our next regular column.

We now watch the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• David Cote, Honeywell: The Importance of Continuous Improvement: how continuous improvement must be channeled into the business to make difference, not simply measuring for measurement’s sake.
• Kaizen, Buy-In and Efficiency : Using Kaizen methods and having a clear solution in mind, Vinay Goyal, Product Stewardship Project Lead, Johnson and Johnson Vision, says that quality projects become much easier to implement and offer bottom line value.
• DMAIC Leads to Cost Reduction, Increased Revenue : This Sime Darby team–2016 ITEA finalist–used DMAIC to reduce costs, waste, and meeting the company’s sustainability policy on the way to increasing the bottom line by $72M. More ITEA case studies.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of May, 2017:

• Expanding the Quality Professional’s Role :  Quality professionals should be in the culture change business : One of the foundational truisms is that management must lead any culture change if it is to be successful. Quality professionals can expedite this by showing leadership the potential power of a statistically minded organization based on a few basic principles-
• Maintain a bottom-line focus. Quality professionals must move beyond “show me the data” to “show me the money.” The principle of all project management should be bottom-line impact.
• Focus on the vital few tools integrated with a problem solving framework that is sequenced and linked together. The key is to confine the set to the vital few (of the hundreds available) and make sure each tool generates outputs that become targets for the next tool in the sequence.
• Employ top talent to lead the effort. The organization will judge the effort as crucial if it has been staffed with top talent.
• Create a supporting infrastructure, which typically should consist of a project selection process, formal training program, project tracking and monitoring systems, an audit process for closed projects, a communications plan, and an employee reward and recognition plan.
• Provide focused training. Resistance can often be overcome by combining training with live projects as many companies do already.
• Focus early on “quick wins.” People like to succeed. When they see early tangible results, they are eager to repeat the process.
• Plan for longer term improvement. We should be reminded that maintaining momentum comes from the effect that achievement of significant, measureable benefits has on the outcome.
• Clarity is Key: A line in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland popularly states that, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” Hence, create your vision of what you truly want to accomplish. You must get completely clear about what you do want to have happen. Only then you’ll discover that you are indeed able to make it happen. Think about it, and you’ll realize that you are extremely well equipped and intended for achievement.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

[i]

Nothing Changes: Drucker’s questions are eternal | Jorge Sá | TEDxGrandRapids

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – May 2017

Welcome to May, 2017 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We will commence our episode with a very different perspective of Quality.

Zen and the Art of Quality – By Brad Stulberg – On 24^th April, 2017, Robert M. Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila died at his home in South Berwick, Maine. He was 88. Though he wrote only those two books, each will be remembered as classics of modern philosophy. For the uninitiated, the main thread underlying both books is something called Quality, a word Pirsig capitalized to indicate that it represents a unique type of event. It’s when a subject and object (or actor and act) become so intertwined that they are hard to separate; they become one. Out of that relationship, wrote Pirsig, emerges a special kind of Quality….. “To live for some future goal is shallow,” he writes in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. “It’s the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top … The only Zen you find on the top of the mountains is the Zen you bring up there.”

Robert Pirsig : Photo – William Morrow-HarperCollins

As can be expected, different obituaries have some or other additional input on Robert Pirsig. We have picked up two from these:

• Robert Pirsig obituary
• How Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ changed the way I think

Robert Pirsig has looked at Quality not from the traditional view of the word Quality. The following discussions will open us the world of his interpretation of Quality.

Metaphysics of Quality (MoQ) is a theory of reality introduced in Robert Pirsig’s philosophical novel, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (1974) and expanded in Lila: An Inquiry into Morals (1991). The MOQ incorporates facets of East Asian philosophy, pragmatism, the work of F. S. C. Northrop, and indigenous American philosophy. Pirsig argues that the MOQ is a better lens through which to view reality than the traditional Dvaita/dualistic subjective/objective mindset found in the West and originated in the East. The book talks about the Indian concept of Tat Tvam Asi as opposed to Dvaita.

Robert Pirsig’s Metaphysics of Quality has a rich repertoire of resources on this subject. MOQ.org exists to provide a forum for discussion and study of the Metaphysics of Quality as proposed by Robert M Pirsig in his books.

An overview of the Metaphysics of Quality provides good basic information on the Here are some video clips on the subject.

What is the Metaphysics of Quality?

Robert M Pirsig NPR Interview July 12, 1974 is an excellent interview

YT has several more interesting video clips on the subject.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

For the present episode we have picked up the article Abandonment, Concentration & Pareto’s Law: A Tested Way to Achieve Quantum Leaps in Individual and Organizational Productivity from Drucker Perspective column @ Management Matters Network.

“Concentration is the key to economic results… Economic results require managers concentrate their efforts on the smallest number of products, product lines, services, customers, markets, distributive channels, end-uses, and so on, that will produce the largest amount of revenue.” — Peter F. Drucker

Drucker, Zipf, and Juran observed that aggregate data misinform, misdirect, mislead…Every manager, to be effective, must assume an imbalance exists with respect to resource allocation—and must work hard to incrementally change the ratio…The relationship between efforts and results are generally in a state of imbalance. The imbalance may be 65/35, 70/30, 75/25, 80/20 or 99/1, or any set of numbers in between. ..The key is to alter the ratio between effort and results.

From Ask The Experts, I have picked up a question – Defining Qualification, Verification, and Validation – which many of quality professional would be interested in revisiting. The answer has laid out the classic definitions from ISO 9000 and explained the terms from different angles as well.

There is no update in our ASQ CEO, Bill Troy column this time. So I went to the beginning of the A View from the Q and find a post:  The Century of Quality – That in other word would mean: “What would it take for the 21^st Century to be the Century of Quality?” This is a challenge for the quality community. We need to reach executives and convince them to provide visible leadership on the topic of quality. What language do we use (to communicate with others in this regards)? Jennifer Stepniowski provides great advice— keep it simple and relevant….Let’s pay special attention to executives who get it and work to make sure their voices are heard!

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• Ralph de la Vega, Vice Chairman at AT&T, announces today as the Golden Age of Quality; a time when companies need to build quality into the product and service and detect problems before they occur.
• SR and Quality: A Perfect Fit – Willy Vandenbrande, founder and president, QS Consult, tells quality professionals they are in a perfect position to take on their organizations’ SR initiatives and that SR fits well into the future of quality.
• Lean, Change, and Invaluable People – Scott McAllister, Vice President of Growth, Prosci, describes research detailing the direct correlation between change management effectiveness and business results improvement. The research also shows sponsorship to be the most important factor. McAllister shares a method to get the most out of sponsors.
• Root Cause Analysis – Learn about a new approach to Five Whys and Root Cause Analysis and get a refresher on the “Is/Is Not” analysis — plus, the case for asking “Why not?”

“Square in the Crosshairs”, Matthew Barsalou, QP, 2017

• Asking “Why Not?” – The five whys method is a way of drilling down to the root of a problem. Consider adding the question “why not?”

“Five Whys and a Why Not”, Alan Fogle and Edward Kandler, QP, 2017

• Is/Is Not Comparative Analysis Tool – An “is/is not” comparative analysis can be a good tool for figuring out the root cause-or, what the problem is or is not about. This tool is useful when you need to: Understand plausible problem causes amid many possible causes Identify issues that are not related to the problem.

“Get to the Root of it”, David M. Rucker, QP, 2010

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of April, 2017:

• Human Side of Six Sigma : The tools are nice, but they are less important than the team process – No matter how elegant a quality tool is it is impossible to implement solutions without giving consideration to the human factor. For Six Sigma, this means focusing efforts on employee involvement far beyond the color of someone’s belt.
• You Become What You Think – The focus of your thinking becomes important when you realize the following formula RT = E + B. Your thoughts create results, which stem from your emotions, from which your behavior is created. It is actually your behavior that produces results whether it’s good or not so good…Mike Dooley, entrepreneur and best-selling author, says “Choose Them wisely: Thoughts Become Things.”

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – March, 2017

Welcome to March, 2017 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We will commence our episode with an article on Quality, in general, in our daily life.

Trends That Are Affecting the Future of Quality Management by Debra Kraft – From a total quality management standpoint, trends include broader adoption of quality management principles across industries and an increasing importance placed on sustainability.,, Quality management concepts should apply to everything every business does.

Let us now pick up a different topic in this category of sustainability – The tragedy of the commons (TOTC).

The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action.

Tragedy of the Commons  – This animated series of short videos acts as a video glossary to define specific scientific terms or concepts in a fun, easy to understand way.  –

Part 1

Part 2

The Tragedy of the Commons  – In this video, we take a look at common goods. Common resources are nonexcludable but rival. For instance, no one can be excluded from fishing for tuna, but they are rival — for every tuna caught, there is one less for everyone else. Nonexcludable but rival resources often lead to what we call a “tragedy of the commons.” In the case of tuna, this means the collapse of the fishing stock. Under a tragedy of the commons, a resource is often overused and under-maintained. Why does this happen? And how can we solve this problem? Like we’ve done so many times throughout this course, let’s take a look at the incentives at play. We also discuss Nobel Prize Winner Elinor Ostrom’s contributions to this topic.

A common thread throughout Garrett James Hardin‘s work is an interest in bioethics. Trained as an ecologist and microbiologist and a Professor of Human Ecology at the University of California for more than thirty years, he is best known for his 1968 essay, The Tragedy of the Commons. Garrett Hardin’s writings enable us to responsibly assess our surroundings to optimize the quality of life for present and future generations.

In an interview, on the Tragedy of the Commons, Garrett Hardin states that “What I meant by writing The Tragedy of the Commons is to call people’s attention to the fact that the problem of dividing the resources has to be done in a way that fits in with human nature. We shouldn’t expect too much of it.”

Victor M. Ponce has presented a critical analysis of  Hardin’s classic piece “The Tragedy of the Commons,”. He states that “ a commons is a natural resource shared by many individuals. In this context, “shared” means that each individual does not have a claim to any part of the resource, but rather, to the use of a portion of it for his/her own benefit. The tragedy is that, in the absence of regulation, each individual will have a tendency to exploit the commons to his/her own advantage, typically without limit. Under this state of affairs, the commons is depleted and eventually ruined…. Societies that want to remain sustainable have no choice but to regulate the use of the commons. Regulation is the price to pay for sustainability; it is the least undesirable strategy, since an unregulated commons eventually marches itself toward tragedy.

Here is the test of our understanding of commons’ theory with a multiple-choice question.

Assume that there are several people on a boat in a lake or ocean. All of a sudden, one of them goes crazy, pulls out a drill and starts drilling a hole in the hull. The rest have three choices:

1. Watch the drilling and examine how fast the driller makes a hole in the hull,
2. Grab a lifejacket and jump out of the boat, because it is obvious that the boat is going to sink eventually, or
3. Stop the culprit and throw the drill overboard to avoid the repetition of such an unfortunate incident.

If the answer is A, you do not know that the boat is actually a commons, so you fail the test. If your answer is B, you know that the boat is a commons, but you do not know that it is “your” commons, so you fail too. If your answer is C, you know that the boat is a commons and you are ready to defend its integrity, because your security and comfort (to say nothing about your life!) depends on it. I think most people would agree that the most sensible answer is C.

In conclusion, the rights of the individual are seen to end where the rights of the commons start; conversely, the rights of the commons end with the rights of the individual. Thus, an appropriate balance between these two rights is the only sustainable course to take if we are to avoid a repetition of “The Tragedy of the Commons.””

To sum up our present discussion on the subject of TOTC, I have picked up three leads that present the topic in the current day perspective of environmental sustainability.

Strengthening Sustainability in Urban Communities. Exchanging Transatlantic Best Practices articulates the good vision for a “world-class” sustaining city

Tragedy of the Commons – a true story from Bangalore  – Dell employees fix a HUGE UGLY dump right outside Bagmane Tech Park, Bangalore!

We will now turn to our regular sections:

I have picked up the question relating to key deliverables and processes of a quality Manager  under ISO 9001:2015. The answer states that with the adage of Risk Based Thinking to the new standard, the Quality manager and the QA department would be responsible for the deliverables of their department and its processes. They would also be responsible for discerning any risks to the company’s goals and objectives.

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy has presented March Roundup with a question – How can we prevent quality professionals from being perceived as a “thing of the past”? What adaptations need to occur in the quality industry as a whole and on the individual level to revitalize the industry and attract  the next generation of quality professionals?- and a round of discussion thereon.

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• Customer Experience and Employee Engagement Through LSS – Working for HSHS Medical Group at the time, Sarah Skeeters, Director of Operations, Springfield Clinic, and her colleagues began Lean Six Sigma training to improve efficiencies and enhance customer experience. In this interview, Skeeters briefly describes the training and how LSS tools helped meet the group’s goals.
• Align Objectives for Great Results – 2016 International Team Excellence Award Finalist, “Complaint Busters” team, was awarded bronze-level status. Ivana Castro, Six Sigma Black Belt, Telefónica Argentina, and her colleagues wanted their project to align with the priorities of the company’s strategic plan. In this interview, Castro describes the project and their objective of reducing billing complaints by 50%..
• Corrective and Preventive Action and Knowing the Difference – In this episode of ASQTV, we examine nonconformance, corrective and preventive action, and how each are essential to mistake proofing our companies.
  • Related:
  • Separate Steps, Dennis Arter, QP, 2015.
  • ASQ Service Quality Division’s CAPA.
• Don’t Confuse Nonconformance, Corrective, and Preventive Actions – There are important differences between nonconformance, corrective, and preventive actions and the steps for each process.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of February,2017:

Solving Problems Effectively: Resolving root cause is as fundamental as ABC – Rooting out the reasons for internal and/or external failures is fundamental to customer satisfaction, cost of quality improvement, and even a matter of survival in the marketplace. The classic approach to root cause analysis of a problem is to ask why? (or why not?) a number of times. It is important to know how deep is ‘deep enough’ before probing deeper.….The focus of the investigation needs to be on the quality system. How did the system allow the problem to occur in the first place? Where is the weakness in the system? The goal is developing more system-based improvements as opposed to finding someone to blame.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – January 2017

Welcome to January, 2017 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

I plan to revert back to our original model of reviewing the articles/ blog posts on the current topics related to quality and /or quality management from our present episode of the Quality Blog Carnival..

A Look at Quality’s Past – When we look back at some of Quality’s anniversaries, we can’t say what 2017 will bring to the quality community, but we do know that the quality community will continue to bring a lot to the world.

Increasingly, quality is no more considered as an essential but not so directly contributing the business activity. We have a few articles that discuss this changing perception.

Quantifying the Financial Benefits of Quality – Holly Lyke-Ho-Gland

• Part One—How You Use Quality Matters– Once organizations get clarity on the financial impact of quality, the next step is to understand what practices and applications help improve the financial value.
• Part Two – Quantifying the Financial Benefits of Quality — the Role of Governance and Transparency – Governance determines how the organization “operationalizes” the policy established through the design, implementation, and continuous improvement of the enterprise quality system itself….Though previous research indicates that successful quality programs rely on support and guidance by senior leadership, organizations that use a centralized committee, comprised of leaders in multiple functions, see greater financial gains. This makes sense given that a cross-functional team provides a broader perspective, strengthens buy-in, and fosters adoption of quality, its benefits, and standards throughout the organization.
• Part Three – Bringing Suppliers into the Fold – Best-in-class quality organizations use training with their suppliers to drive quality and are twice as likely to train suppliers. Supplier training ensures that all critical parties in the value chain understand the organization’s standard of quality—around quality measures and efficacy and what it wants to achieve with its product offerings.
• Part Four – Employee training and incentives – Best-in-class organizations use training to drive a commitment to quality and help employees understand their role in quality — including their impact on the end customer and driving value.  However, organizations need to consider the purpose of their quality efforts before making decisions on incentives, the types of training, and even which employees to target for training.

Dr. Armand Feigenbaum on-

• Managing for Quality – You have to understand that quality problems, like bananas, come in bunches. And if you try to go at them a banana at a time rather than at the stalk, you’re going to wind up with a lot of sour fruit.
• the Cost of Quality and the Hidden Factory – By cost of quality I mean two things: the cost of getting it right and the cost of failing to get it right.

Results driven improvement process, which has the following characteristics:

1. Organizations only introduce management and process innovations if necessary;
2. Empirical tests show what works and what not;
3. Frequent successes create new energy for improvement;
4. Management creates a continuous learning process by applying lessons learnt in new phases.

Quality & Excellence: The Quality 136— Tom Peters presents Random Thoughts on Quality, Emphasizing the Elements That Are Often Missing in Conventional Quality Programs.

Quality management: caught in the tensions between quality, costs and time – Willfried Heist, Vice President Quality, Product Safety and HSE Management, T/QM, Knorr-Bremse SfN GmbH – Due to the increasing technical complexity of products an increasing number of companies from other sectors are becoming partners in our supply chain. This is confronting the quality manager of today with completely new challenges: how can new companies be optimally integrated into the supply chain? What will it require to guarantee our quality standards along the global supply chain all the way through to the n-tier companies?

Risk: A four letter word for quality management?  by Bryce Day, CEO of Catch and the driving force behind the development of the highly successful QA management tool Enterprise Tester – To me as a manager, quality is a reflection on how much risk I’m prepared to take. For example, I would want to buy a high quality car because my risk appetite for a car breaking down is low, but I’m willing to purchase a low quality $2 toy from a discount store because my risk appetite is much higher that it will break.

Why Customer Care is the Life Blood of any QMS  – Christopher Stainow – How do you go about putting your customers at the forefront of your quality management goals? Here are a few things to consider to help you go that extra mile…

Quality Management in Everyday Life and Work  – From yoga to childcare; meetings to housework… quality management strategies work in the boardroom and at home. Here are some ways that you can use these tools for everyday life situations…

We will add Ask The Experts, ASQ, as one more regular section from the current episode. We will take any topic that has been discussed on this forum, based on the relevance to the core theme of the articles for a given episode of our blog carnival. For the present episode we have chosen – Creating a Culture of Quality. The question is how to change the attitudes toward quality management at all levels of the organization. The expert reply states that since most of the management understand well what is in for them, beginning may happen by examining some of the “pain points” in your organization and showing how quality tools can help to solve them.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy has December Roundtable: What is the best way to ensure quality and customer integration grow together?.

customer concept with business elements

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• The Hidden Factory – In this episode, learn about the concept of the hidden factory and how it can affect any organization regardless of industry. And discover how it can create misleading metrics that cause productivity to outrun quality.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of December, 2016:

• ISO 9001 is only the Foundation – If you want a manageable QMS, then better build it that way from the start. Excessive paperwork that seems to be the leading cause of disappointment is an indication that they implemented the ISO9001 requirements the wrong way.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – November, 2016

Welcome to November, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have already taken up the following topics for the familiarisation of different elements of new version of ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties
• June, 2016: Leadership and Commitment.
• July, 2016 : ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards
• August,2016 : Change Management
• September, 2016 : Organizational Knowledge
• October, 2016 : Control of Human Errors

For the present episode we will take an overview of Auditing.

Transition to ISO 9001:2015. What will the auditor ask? – Generally, when something changes, that will be what the auditor is going to focus on; the vindictive auditor will try and catch you out, to show they know more than you, and make themselves look good. The professional auditor will focus on the continual improvement approach and appreciate that management systems change and improve over time.

What Is Auditing?  – An audit can apply to an entire organization or might be specific to a function, process, or production step. Find more information in the video, The How and Why of Auditing wherein auditing expert and ASQ fellow Dennis Arter shares tips and advice for auditors and auditees.

The Positives and Pitfalls of Auditing Checklists  – Every auditing course you go on, every book you read about auditing, and every standard that’s been written essentially all say the same thing ­– if you audit you should use a checklist! Now that’s all good and fine, but there are some things to be aware of. The article goes on to explain the good and some of the pitfalls of checklists and then recommends some ways to address them.

Audits that See Below the Surface Evaluate Internal Controls – Peter Chatel draws up a very speaking line that can enable to evaluate the effectiveness of the internal controls in place, that include among other things:
• Defined responsibilities, accountabilities, authority and authorization
• Separation of Duties
• Policies, Programs and Procedures
• Personnel Experience and Development
• Protective Measures
• Internal Verification
• Documentation

Explaining E-Audits: A Method for Remotely Conducting Audits – Auditing expert Shauna Wilson explains how organizations can use e-auditing to remotely audit. Learn how this approach can lead to more efficient audits and what factors organizations must consider when implementing e-audits.

We have collected a few from slew of videos on the subject:

How to survive an ISO Audit

Quality Audit Preparation

What Not to Say during an ISO Audit Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

We will now take up a few ISO 9001:2015-centric articles and videos.

The Most Important Audit Questions for ISO 9001:2015 – By Craig Cochran, Project Manager, Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership (GaMEP) at Georgia Tech – ISO 9001:2015 includes a lot of new requirements that have never been part of most audits. In order to expedite your thinking, these are what I believe to be the most important audit questions for ISO 9001:2015.

ISO 9001:2015 – The great leap forward for auditors! – It brings new challenges for auditors to apply their competencies and also brings great opportunity to accomplish their audits.

Objective Auditing Meets ISO 9001:2015 – How auditors can help organizations understand context and risk – Inderjit Arora  – Auditors must also understand how the context of an organization relates to quality management principles. If they do, then they will look for conformities in the management system to ISO 9001:2015 requirements. If during this audit they do find nonconformities based on requirements,

Auditing to ISO 9001:2015 – This presentation has spelt out what is required to be audited w.r.t. ISO 9001: 2015.

How the Auditors View ISO 9001-2015

Internal Auditing, an important type of audit, is seen to be in a different perspective, particularly in view of the structural changes in ISO 9001: 2015.

The Internal Auditing of Management Systems – Graham W Parker – Providing evidence for and confirmation of the confidence that operations are consistent, under control. Effective and efficient, is the primary role of auditing – by looking to the evidences to the contrary.

Preparing for ISO 9001: 2015 using your QMS – Part 5: Internal Audits – The subsection 9.2.2 goes on to be more detailed. Instead of “an audit program shall be planned, taking into consideration the status and importance…”, the new text includes, in part, “…the organization shall: a) plan, establish, implement and maintain an audit program(s)…which shall take into consideration the quality objectives, the importance of the processes concerned, customer feedback, changes impacting on the organization…”. The results of previous audits are also to be considered per the current requirement.

Five Main Steps in ISO 9001 Internal Audit  – If used properly, the Internal Audit, instead of being a “necessary evil,” can be one of the biggest contributors toward process improvement in the QMS.

And here are a few video clips related to internal auditing:

Understanding ISO 9001:2015: Internal audits

Meet the Internal Auditor

When I Say Internal Auditor, You Think

Internal Audit – Mastering ISO 9001:2015

7 Deadly Internal Audit Sins

Internal Auditing – A Love Story

How to Succeed as an Internal Auditor

Internal Auditing: A Career for Today, A Career for Tomorrow

Before we end our present discussion, here is one poser – Why Would you Want to be an Auditor?

For the concluding episode in this series, in December, 2016, we will take up The Road beyond ISO 9001:2015.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice has an interesting article as well: Interview With The Creator of Mr. Pareto Head, which is an absorbing interview with Mike Crossen, the creator of the Mr. Pareto Head comic strip. How a hard-core engineer finds humor in quality and how Mr. Pareto Head came to be has many other lessons for professional as well as personal lives. Meet “Mr. Pareto Head”

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• Around the World on a Bicycle, with Quality: While some of us only dream about quitting our jobs and traveling around the world, Sunil Kaushik did it. Kaushik, a Six Sigma trainer and consultant based in India, left his job to cycle the globe and teach quality along the way.
• Gemba Walks Improve Process, Communication, and Culture: Eileen Serrano, Business Optimization Expert, Roche, describes the process her organization went through to establish daily Gemba Walks and how its culture has changed for the better.
• Quality Memes: In social media lingo, a “meme” is a photo, video or idea that becomes extremely popular online. What better way to promote World Quality Month this November than to share quality-themed “memes”?
• World Quality Month: Quality is about reliability, improvement and …fun? That’s right! During World Quality Month in November, meet a quality cartoonist and a man who’s sharing quality tools while cycling around the globe. Plus, learn how you can use social media to make quality jobs, tools and concepts accessible to the community beyond quality professionals. Sunil Kaushik’s Travel Blog: www.trainntrot.com World Quality Month Website: www.worldqualitymonth.org

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of October, 2016:

• Leadership’s Five Key Practices: All quality professionals must practice leadership skills to add value – In order to demonstrate these skills, look for opportunities that surround you every day. Do not wait for someone to ‘call your name.’ Be aware of what’s happening in your organization, raise your hand, and seize those opportunities. Start small but think big. After all, you have much to gain and little to lose.
• Make IT Happen: You have to get yourself going, sort through all the noise and complexity, roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty, and make it happen!

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – October, 2016

Welcome to October, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have already taken up the following topics for the familiarisation of different elements of new version of ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties
• June, 2016: Leadership and Commitment.
• July, 2016 : ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards
• August,2016 : Change Management
• September, 2016 : Organizational Knowledge

For the present episode we will look at Control of Human Errors in general, and then move over to how that can possibly be addressed in the implementation ISO 9001: 2015.

Human Errors have been well addressed in the past in the literature relating to fields like safety management or health & medical services management. We have picked up a few representative articles here:

Human Error: Causes and Control – by George A. Peters, Barbara J. Peters –  Detailed, practical, and broad in scope, the book explores the field of human error, including its identification, its probable cause, and how it can be reasonably controlled or prevented.

Human factors: Managing human failures – The challenge is to develop error tolerant systems and to prevent errors from initiating; to manage human error proactively it should be addressed as part of the risk assessment process, where:

• Significant potential human errors are identified,
• Those factors that make errors more or less likely are identified (such as poor design, distraction, time pressure, workload, competence, morale, noise levels and communication systems) – Performance Influencing Factors (PIFs)
• Control measures are devised and implemented, preferably by redesign of the task or equipment

Reducing Human Error on the Manufacturing Floor By Ginette M. Collazo, PhD.– When we investigate quality events, the focus of those investigations rely on explaining what happened in the process and how the product was affected. A human error usually explains the reason for the occurrence of the deviation; nevertheless, the reason for that error remains unexplained and consequently the corrective and preventive actions fail to address the underlying conditions for that failure… Real CAPA effectiveness will be achieved when the number of deviations decreases. not when particular events fail to reoccur.

Minimising human errors in the workplace – Eric Joost – Familiarization with the risks can make an employee feel more comfortable about cutting corners and designing their own way of working, which increases the probability of something going wrong.

As can be expected, not much literature is available yet on this subject w.r.t. its impact in ISO 9001:2015. From what could be searched within reasonable efforts, I have picked up:

Struggling Against Nature – Preventing Human Error in the new ISO 9001 2015 Standard is ppt that was presented by Matt Leiphart at 2016 ISO World Congress and takes a different path in evaluating the requirement.

ISO 9001:2015 Human Factors – Shaun Sayers thinks this requirement, no matter how noble in its intent, is practically unenforceable. My guess is that this will actually be ignored….. (he also) can’t help thinking that the standard might have been better if the aim to prevent human error was also included in the Nonconformity and corrective action clause – ISO 9001:2015 Clause 10.2 – too.

Before the jury is out to come to a verdict on the subject, it would be prudent to wait for some more time and allow fairly large number of organizations to implement the new version to really start detecting some strong trends.

In the meanwhile let us also look at a few interesting video clips:

Human Factors in the Clinical Laboratory: Lessons from Aviation Safety – Patrick Mendenhall, BS

Quality Systems: Managing Human Error and CAPA Effectiveness

Quality Systems: Managing Human Error and CAPA Effectiveness

How Many Ways Can I Screw Up Causes of Human Error

How Many Ways Can I Screw Up Causes of Human Error

Human Error: Human error is inevitable, but you can do a lot to prevent mistakes

Human Reliability Improvement: Reducing Documentation Errors

For the November, 2016 episode, we will take up Auditing in the new versions of these management standards.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice in October Roundtable takes up ‘How can employers leverage quality to invite innovation?’. The discussion is indeed engrossing while being as simple as it can be.

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• ISO 9001 Check-in – Standards experts explain key changes to ISO 9001:2015, such as how to understand the term ‘documented information,’ the role of leadership and the emphasis on risk-based thinking. Learn why using some quality tools to demonstrate risk-based thinking might not meet the standard’s requirements.  – To Document, or Not To Document? Standards Connection subscription page Leaders of Change Prove It
• Integrating Management Systems – In this episode of ASQ TV, we will discuss how Annex SL can help ease the complexity of integrating multiple standards, and the steps your organization should take to become integrated. – Quality Progress Article Integrated Management Systems
• Using the Knowledge Interest Survey – Scott Laman, Senior Manager, Quality Engineering and Risk Management, Vascular Division, Teleflex, Inc., explains how the knowledge interest survey allows you to choose appropriate mentors, successors and potentially future high achievers.
• Using the Critical-to-Quality Tree – Chris McMillan, Senior Corporate Performance Analyst, City of Fayetteville, North Carolina, discusses the use of this tool to explain performance measurements to staff outside of the traditional quality department and how the city government is going about introducing quality throughout its systems.
• Using Quality Tools for a More Organized Life – Daniel Zrymiak describes how he uses quality tools to make his life more organized, in the Quality for Life series story.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of September, 2016:

• Statisticians Must Transform – Like other quality professionals, statisticians must add value – In this enlightened age, statisticians and non-statisticians realize tools don’t make improvements, leaders do. To become leaders, statisticians must first understand the basic change that has taken place in the way work is done and grasp how that change demands a clear understanding of the difference between managing work and leading people.
• Now is Your Time to Act – all sorts of new and meaningful happenings await your choice to take action in order for them to come to life.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs, September, 2016

Welcome to September, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have already taken up the following topics for the familiarization of different elements of new version of ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties
• June, 2016: Leadership and Commitment.
• July, 2016 : ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards
• August,2016 : Change Management

For the present episode we will look at Organizational Knowledge, in general, and then move over to what ISO 9001: 2015 has to state on the subject.

Before we closely look at the subject of change in the ISO management system standards, let us quickly recapitulate a broader view of the subject and look at some randomly selected picks from the vast literature available on the subject on the internet.

What is Organizational Knowledge

1. Organizational knowledge is equated with professional intellect (Quinn, Philip, & Sydney, 1996). Organizational knowledge is a metaphor, as it is not the organization but the people in the organization who create knowledge

 Learn more in: Explicit and Tacit Knowledge: To Share or Not to Share

1. The body of knowledge contained, but not categorized, within the members of an organization.

 Learn more in: E-Learning Design for the Information Workplace

1. The organizational knowledge is created and transferred within the organizational context, is rooted in: (1) company and industrial atmosphere (King & Zeithaml, 2003), (2) tacit knowledge (Grant, 2002); and is fitted in firm culture (Saint-Onge, 1996).

Has the following properties: (1) is shared between the members of the organization (2) is connected to organization history, and (3) allows a common language.

 Learn more in: Critical Success Factors and Core Competencies

Defining Organizational Knowledge : The paper starts by defining what is meant by ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowledge management’, and follows on by presenting the knowledge processes which are at the basis of knowledge management practices.

Five Types of Organisational Knowledge : In Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organisations: An Overview and Interpretation, Blackler builds on Polanyi’s distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge (in Polyani, 1967) and identifies five types of knowledge to be found in contemporary organisations. His ideas provide useful insights into the process of knowledge management. These conceptual distinctions were first suggested to explain the psychological and behavioural aspects of knowledge. They were later adapted to describe the different ‘images’ of knowledge within the organisation.

Knowledge Conversion : The organization should identify and nurture knowledge-building activities that expand and enhance its core competence.

Three Types of Organizational Knowledge:  Implications For The Tacit-Explicit AND Knowledge Creation Debates – Nancie Evans  and  Mark Easterby-Smith-  Lancaster University : The paper theorizes and represents organizational learning and knowledge management as a framework of organizational knowledge  consisting of three distinct knowledge types each with a tacit and explicit dimension.

Organizational Knowledge Sharing Practices : Organizational knowledge (vs. knowledge) has distinct characteristics given its action-centered, contextual and collective nature. It is composed of both explicit manifestations as well as intangible forms of knowledge. The choice of options to implement various knowledge sharing strategies, and enabling technologies, would depend on the forms of knowledge that are the most important to the organization.

Challenges in managing organizational knowledge : IBM Institute for Knowledge-Based Organizations has identified a number of important roadblocks that organizations typically face when implementing knowledge management programs. These roadblocks are:

• Failure to align knowledge management efforts with the organization’s strategic objectives
• Creation of repositories without addressing the need to manage content
• Failure to understand and connect knowledge management into individuals’ daily work activities
• An overemphasis on formal learning efforts as a mechanism for sharing knowledge
• Focusing knowledge management efforts only within organizational boundaries.

Journal of Organizational Knowledge Management is a full-fledged journal which covers

the topics of interest, but not limited to:

• Knowledge management empirical research
• Knowledge management case studies
• Knowledge management application is education
• Legislative issues

Here are two pictorial views TQM way and Life-Cycle Approach, respectively:

We now take up a few of the many articles available on internet dealing specifically with the subject w.r.t. ISO 9001: 2015.

ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.1.6 Organizational Knowledge : By introducing the term “knowledge,” ISO 9001:2015 aims to raise organizations’ awareness of the management and linking of know-how in order to position them for the future.

ORGANIZATIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND ISO 9001-2015 – Raghu Malayanuru looks at other clauses where Organizational Knowledge is addressed, knowledge requirements of an organization, documents that may provide evidence of Organization Knowledge. Nacaro Williams in his studied comment, places more emphasis on reliance on the Notes to clause 7.1.6.

Organizational Knowledge Introduced in ISO 9001:2015  – Brian Reece –

ISO 9001:2015 defines requirements for the handling of organizational knowledge in the following four phases, which are analogous to the PDCA cycle:

1. Determine the knowledge necessary for the operation of processes and for achieving conformity of products and services
2. Maintain knowledge and make it available to the extent necessary
3. Consider the current organizational knowledge and compare it to changing needs and trends
4. Acquire the necessary additional knowledge.

ISO 9001:2015 and Effective Organizational Knowledge   – Andrew Holt analyzes the new organizational knowledge requirement in ISO 9001:2015 through the lens of SECI model.  

Image 1: The SECI Model (Nonanka & Takuchi, 1995).

What is Organizational Knowledge in ISO 9001:2015? – It will be imperative that an organization performs its due diligence through risk management when determining what knowledge is necessary and how it is maintained and made available.

ISO 9001: 2015 – Organizational Knowledge Management Requirements Webcast

In this new webcast, standards expert and active member of the U.S. Standards committees, shares some insights on the new elements of knowledge management within ISO 9001:2015, and provides tips for meeting the requirements of documenting, tracking, and making value-added knowledge available, for the health and continuous improvement of the organization.

How to meet the Knowledge Management requirement within ISO 9001

• As part of a Knowledge Management Strategy, you define your critical knowledge needs
• You create a Knowledge Management Framework for your organization that ensures knowledge is created, discussed, captured, synthesized, and re-used. This framework contains the four critical enablers; Roles, Processes, Technologies, Governance. The contents, scale and complexity of this framework will vary enormously – from very simple (in the case of a small company) to sophisticated and complex for major multinationals.
• You run a scan or audit of your critical knowledge topics, to ensure each of these is in an acceptably managed state

How to manage knowledge of the organization according to ISO 9001 – Mark Hammar – It is specific knowledge to the organization, generally gained by experience, which is used and shared to achieve the objectives of the organization. This can come internally, such as intellectual property, lessons learned from failure and successes, or the results of improvements; or it can come externally from conferences, customer knowledge, or supplier knowledge.

Knowledge Management and ISO 9001:2015 – This newsletter explores the implications of the ISO 9001:2015 knowledge clause, and how this can impact Knowledge Managers (and their Quality department colleagues) worldwide.

Organizational knowledge in ISO 9001:2015 – The ‘glass-half-full’ here is that Knowledge Management has started to appear in ISO 9001. The ‘glass-half-empty’ is that it is so very high-level in its stated requirement. It’s barely even a guideline.

7.1.6 Organizational knowledge – When implementing this clause or when explaining to the auditor, how this clause is implemented, some basic understanding of knowledge management can be useful.  Knowledge can be classified into two broad categories.

• Explicit Knowledge or Formal Knowledge is one that can be formally documented
• With Tacit Knowledge, people are not often aware of the knowledge they possess or how it can be valuable to others. Effective transfer of tacit knowledge generally requires extensive personal contact, regular interaction and trust. Example: how to ride bicycle.

Let us look at a few videos on the subject:

Organizational Knowledge

How to Manage Organizational Knowledge Effectively? by David Hershfield, SVP at Redcats

KM Audit & Measurement

Knowledge Management – Managing Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

ISO9001:2015 Transition Part 14: Organizational Knowledge, Job Insecurity, and Change Resistance

It appears to be quite an obvious case that the introduction of this subject as requirement has challenges at different levels, but is not yet fully deciphered as to how and to what it can be gainfully shown to have been implemented.  So, for the time being, we rest our discussions on the today’s topic here.

For the October, 2016 episode, we will take Control of Human Errors w.r.t. Quality Management, in the new versions of these management standards.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice ‘August Roundtable: Integrating Technical Quality and Human Management Systems’ has set the tone for our next month’s subject.

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode :

• Quality and Sports – Learn about the ever-growing connection between quality and sports: How assessing one’s ability to adjust to failure can lead to better performance in athletics—and beyond.

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of August, 2016 does not have any article.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – August, 2016

Welcome to August, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have already taken up the following topics for the familiarization of different elements of new version of ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties
• June, 2016: Leadership and Commitment.
• July, 2016 : ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards

For the present episode we will look at Change Management, in general, then move over to what ISO 9001: 2015 has to state on the subject, ending the present discussion with how two other major management system standards also look at the subject.

Before we closely look at the subject of change in the ISO management system standards, let us quickly recapitulate a broader view of the subject and look at some randomly selected picks from the vast literature available on the subject on the internet.

Adaptive HVM Ltd.’s Change Management process has 5 key phases

Torben Rick’s blog on his website Meliorate, we find a full section dealing with is posts on change management. We have picked up four among these ones here:

Top 20+ awesome quotes on change management: Here are a couple of representative ones:

The key to change …… is to let go of fear – Rosanne Cash

People don’t resist change. They resist being changed! – Peter Senge

Top 12 reasons why people resist change. Again a pick at some:

Misunderstanding about the need for change/when the reason for the change is unclear

Fear of the unknown

Poor communication

Top 12 change management comic strips has quite a representative messages delivered through the medium of cartoon strips —

Organizations don’t change. People do – or they don’t

Change Management Iceberg

The change management iceberg suggested by Wilfried Kruger emphasizes that manager mainly consider the hard issues for change i.e. cost, quality and time. These issues represent only the tip of iceberg i.e. only about 10% of the total issues.

Most of the issues – soft issues – are below the surface.

Change affects 4 types of people in the organization:

• Promoters – People those who support the change
• Potential promoters – People who may support change when fully convinced
• Opponents – People against change
• Hidden opponents – People who appear to support change but secretly are against it.

Therefore attitudes – perceptions and beliefs, and behavior – power and politics, need to be managed.

There is additional related material too:

• Change Behavior Ajzen
• Change Dimensions Pettigrew Whipp
• Change Phases Kotter
• Change of Units and Variables
• Change Control

We also have picked up a few videos as well:

Overcoming Resistance to Change – Isn’t It Obvious? – The World with Theory of Constraints

Management of Change vs Change Management  – Life Cycle Engineering

How to Lead Change Management – DeAnne Aguirre, senior partner with Strategy&Buisness

Change Management vs. Change Leadership — What’s the Difference? – Dr. John Kotter

Kotter’s 8-Step Organizational Change Model – Steven Thomsen

How to Conduct a Management of Change (MOC) – Baker Hughes

We now move over to a closer look at how ISO Management System Standards address the subject:

5 Practices for Managing Change When ISO 9001:2015 Arrives – Terrance Holbrook, Senior Product Manager, MasterControl – While there is no single one-size-fits-all change management methodology, there are established practices that can be adopted and customized to better manage change and cultivate opportunity.

1. Accept the change
2. Communicate change
3. Engage employees
4. Provide adequate training
5. Introduce change gradually

ISO 9001:2015 Addressing Change : Once the organization has identified its context and interested parties and then identified the processes that support this linkage, addressing changes becomes an increasingly important component of continued success.

How change management is addressed in ISO 9001 2015 Standard? – Any change – may be it is in process, manpower, machinery, instruments, technology, raw materials, suppliers, customer requirements, legal requirements etc.…. shall be go through a defined change management process.

Change Management and ISO 9001:2015 – Raghu Malayanuru has described in details clauses of ISO 9001:2015 that focus on change management. For the purpose of maintaining brevity of our episode, we have listed out the clauses here:

1. Clause 4.4.1( g);
2. Clause 5.3 (e);
3. Clause 6.3
4. Clause 7.5.3.2
5. Clause 8.1;
6. Clause 8.2.1 (b);
7. Clause 8.2.4
8. Clause 8.3.6;
9. Clause 8.5.6;
10. Clause 9.2.2 (a)
11. Clause 9.3.2 (b)
12. Clause 10
13. Clause 10.2.1(f)

The essence is captured here:

ISO’s Technical Committee no.176, Sub-committee no.2 (ISO/TC 176/SC 2) has also published an explanatory paper – How Change is addressed within ISO 9001:2015

How to manage changes in an ISMS according to ISO 27001 A.12.1.2 – Antonio Segovia states that the requirement exists, but there are no particular instructions on how to implement the control (i.e., Change procedure is not a mandatory document), so in this article he suggests one of the ways to manage changes.

What is “Management of Change?” – Thea Dunmire explains requirements related to management of change were added in section 4.3.1 of OHSAS 18001: 2007…In addition, reference to Management of Change was also included in section 4.4.6.

These new requirements cover four important concepts:

• Identification of the hazards associated with “change”
• Assessment of the risks associated with “change”
• Consideration of OH&S hazards and risks prior to the introduction of the “change”
• Implementation of the controls needed to address the hazards and risks associated with the “change”

For purposes of management of change within an OH&S management system, the changes that need to be addressed include:

• Organizational changes (e.g. personnel or staffing changes)
• Activity changes (e.g. changes to processes, equipment, infrastructure, software)
• Material changes (e.g. new chemicals, packaging)
• Changes to the OH&S management system (e.g. procedures)

Ineffective management of change is one of the major contributing factors in many of the incident investigations conducted by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).  To check it out, go to the CSB web site at http://www.csb.gov  and enter “management of change” as your search term at the link “Search this Site.”

Change Management in ISO 14001:2015 – Ivana Strgacic states that unlike the changes in ISO 9001:2015, there is no “Planning of Changes” section.  So where can we find change management in the new standard?

The change all starts with the environmental aspects,

“When determining environmental aspects, the organization shall take into account: a) change, including planned or new developments, and new or modified activities, products and services;”

Once we identify the changed aspects, then there is a cascading or domino effect on the rest of the environmental management system.

While maintaining processes, it needs to underlined that some of the triggers that will result in a change to a process are:

• changes to aspects,
• changes to compliance obligations,
• changes to controls.

Management review (element 9.3) requires the specific inputs of change into the process.  Specifically changes in:

• external and internal issues that are relevant to the environmental management system,
• the needs and expectations of interested parties, including compliance obligations,
• its significant environmental aspects,
• risks and opportunities.

The resulting output includes decisions related to any need for changes to the environmental management system systems, including resources.  Without managing change, the EMS cannot remain effective.  Change, through maintenance and continual improvement of the management systems, are the core tenets of the Plan-Do-Check-Act model.

We rest our discussions on the today’s topic here.

For the September, 2016 episode, we will take Organizational Knowledge in the new versions of these management standards.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

Among several update posts by ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice we have picked up two ‘author interviews’ for our current episode:

• In Author Interview: The ISO 9001:2015 Implementation Handbook, Milt Dentch, author of The ISO 9001:2015 Implementation Handbook, clarifies some changes from the 2008 revision, explains his take on risk-based thinking, and shares what he envisions future revisions of the standard to include.
• In Author Interview: Making Change in Complex Organizations, George Strodtbeck, Vice President with the consulting firm SBTI, where he is responsible for strategic account management and providing expert change management advice, shares his thoughts on what it takes for organizations to handle change successfully in his book Making Change in Complex Organizations,.

It should be interesting to revisit one of the HBR classics, by Francesca Gino and Bradley Staats on the subject: Why Organizations don’t learn?

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episodes that deal with ISO 9001: 2015:

• Change Management – Change management experts discuss key steps to consider when approaching employees with change and helping them through the process. Learn about the carrot-and-stick technique—which can be used to motivate employees—and a tool that can make meetings more efficient and keep change management plans on track.

Read Sunil Kaushik’s Quality Progress article regarding the carrot-and-stick method as well as additional motivational strategies.
Watch the full interview and read the Quality Progress article about the Joint Commission’s improvement initiatives.

• Explaining Annex SL and Top Management’s New Roles – Annex SL is considered the common language and text that new ISO standards are being built around. John DiMaria, senior product manager at BSI Americas, discusses how this affects ISO 9001:2015, as well as the standard’s new roles for top management with regard to responsibility, objectives and compliance.

Here are two more which also are very interesting points of view in understanding the present scenario:

• Quality in India – This episode takes a look at quality in India, from the perspectives of leaders at the Quality Council of India (QCI) and the National Accreditation Board for Education and Training.
• The State of Quality in India in 2015 – What’s the state of quality in India in 2015? Dr. Himanshu Trivedi, chair of ASQ’s local member community in Ahmedabad, India, reflects.

In Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of May, 2016, we have –

• How to Get Leadership Support : Without it, good initiatives are doomed from the start.

Key management support, or lack of support, manifests itself in many ways. One way is that mid-lower level management won’t get on board so initiatives encounter all sorts of hurdles; therefore, results don’t generally live up to expectations. .. Additionally less support for quality initiatives usually results in underfunding and cuts in resources. So what do you do.. (Please read on the article)..

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – July, 2016

Welcome to July, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have already taken up the following topics for the familiarization of different elements of new version of ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties
• June, 2016: Leadership and Commitment.

For the present episode we will see how ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards’ is addressed.

Leadership – Leadership may therefore be the most important lever in an (ethical) system designed to support (ethical) conduct.

In The Expanding Role of Leadership in Management System Standards Chad Kymal states that new versions of ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and ISO 45001 set clear expectations. He also has drawn a broader canvas of the expanding role of the leadership in MSS.

In a very lucid white paper – The Importance of leadership in Management System Standards – BSI concludes that “many of the leadership responsibilities are contained in the standard text of Annex SL. So the principles and requirements for the other management system standards will be very similar, but with a focus onto the respective discipline, for instance environmental management or health and safety management.”

In Top Management Commitment: What Are The Standards , Syed Mahammud Wasif has postulated 10 initiatives that set the tone for the top management commitment.

Leadership for the Many, Not the Few – Beth Zimmerman states that all members of the Evans team are supported in exercising and strengthening their leadership skills in ways that align with their personal passions and Evans’ corporate goals. We also make additional investments to ensure that those with people-management responsibilities have strong skills in, and a consistent approach to, supporting those they manage in succeeding in their respective roles. Evans applies a mix of practices to bolster leadership – Coaching, Tools for Success, Mixed-level Teams, Internal and External Opportunities for Growth, Training for People Managers,

We also have a few videos on the subject:

• ISO revisions – All about leadership in the new standards

• Management and Leadership overview

• Teaching leaders “What to Stop”

Obviously, before we can expect many more articles on the actual practices, we will have to wait for some more time as more and more organizations take up the implementations of the newer versions of these management system standards.

For the August, 2016 episode, we will take Change Management in the new versions of these management standards.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice has a guest article by Scott Rutherford – What Do We Expect from Senior Leaders? – that also looks at our current subject of leadership. Scott Rutherford recalls a 1986 Quality Progress review  by Dr. Joseph Juran.  The quote is:

“It is most important that top management be quality-minded. In the absence of sincere manifestation of interest from the top, little will happen from below.”

We now watch the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• Global State of Quality Shows Organizations Aren’t Linking Quality and Savings – Beth Cudney, Associate Professor, Missouri University of Science and Technology, discusses aspects of the new Global State of Quality Research report, including a mention about organizations having difficulty linking quality with financial gain/savings.
• Quality and Work, Quality at Home – Jennifer Stepniowski of Tampa, Florida shares some humorous family anecdotes after she started using quality tools at home as well as at work. Watch this Quality for Life story.
• Customer Focused Quality Professionals: Moving From SIPOC to COPIS – Arun Hariharan, founder and CEO, The CPi Coach, explains how quality professionals are essential to any organization’s change to a customer-focused organization and how moving from SIPOC – suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers – to COPIS can get you there. [Do we remember Habit 2 of Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, viz. Begin with the End in Mind – ?]
• Consumer Product Safety and Quality – Anthony Judge, Senior Quality Engineer, Bosch Engineering North America, discusses developing a process to bring product safety and quality tools together to keep consumers safe and reduce costs.

In Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of May, 2016, we have –

• The Magic Ingredient for Success – is attitude! Successful people have a way of looking at things, a way of seeing obstacles as opportunities, and a way of “hanging in there” to make the most of every possibility. This is an attitude of positive affirmation that almost always guarantees success….The good news about attitude is that it can be altered, and we, not anyone else, are in charge of our own attitudes. What’s your attitude? If it’s not going to bring you success, then change it!
• Where Should Organizations Focus their Greatest Efforts?… On Process or People? – Peter Drucker, the late author and management consultant, wrote that “neither technology nor people determine the other, but each shapes the other.” …..In planning how to evaluate claim data quality, building a framework of systems-thinking proved extremely helpful. Namely, the process principles of statistical thinking formed the conceptual foundation of a quality improvement plan which included: (1) All work occurs in a system of interconnected processes; (2) Variation exists in all processes; and (3) Understanding and reducing variation are keys to success….a translation from process to a greater attention on people suggests the following principles: (1) All work is done by individuals; (2) An individual’s work is variable; (3) Key to quality improvement is reducing variation by getting the right person into the right job….a predominant focus on people can lead either to management paralysis or to process tampering, when people are primarily held accountable…..Success stems from having the right processes and the right people in place. The development of this leadership style has been shaped by envisioning processes first and then providing people the opportunity to engage those processes.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – June, 2016

Welcome to June, 2016 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

We have taken up familiarisation of different elements of new ISO 9001-

• December, 2015: the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015)
• January, 2016: Process Approach in 9001:2015
• February, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking in 9001:2015
• March, 2016: Risk-Based Thinking – a general perspective
• April, 2016: Context of the Organization in ISO 9001: 2015
• May, 2016: The Relevant Interested Parties

In the present episode, we will take up one more key change in the 2015 version of ISO 9001 – Leadership and Commitment.

What Does ‘Top Management’ Commitment Mean for Management Systems?

The article lists lot of actions, objectives and ‘ensuring’ for Top Management to do! Yes, such listing is just a superficial summary of the clauses from the ISO 9001 standard. For a detailed discussion on these specific requirements, their implementation or demonstrated effectiveness, a full-fledged article is called for.

How to comply with new leadership requirements in ISO 9001:2015 – Mark Hammar

In many ways, the leadership requirements in the (draft version of) the 2015 update to ISO 9001 are not new. ISO 9001 has always had the leadership importance of top management as one of the seven quality management principles that form the basis of the standard.

Here are some things that are important to show that top management has a commitment to the Quality Management System:

• QMS effectiveness is measured, and management is involved in assessing this.
• The Quality Policy and objectives are in place per management direction, communicated in the organization, and tracked for progress.
• The QMS is part of the business processes, not a side project.
• Resource needs are reviewed and addressed by management.
• Continual improvement is promoted and supported by management.
• There is a way to ensure customer, statutory, and regulatory requirements are understood and met, and people understand why this is important.
• There is a management focus on customer satisfaction.
• Organizational roles, responsibilities, and authorities are assigned, understood by the person who is assigned, and known to those employees who need to assess a person in a certain role.

Role of Top Management in ISO’s 2015 – Leadership or Management? – Cliff Poon

 

Leadership impacts behaviour of individual whereas Management focuses on processes.

ISO 9001 Responsibilities of Top Management is initiated right from the design stage and spans through the implementation and maintenance of the QMS after registration stage:

1. Define ‘quality’ in the form of objectives to help internal communication of what is to be achieved (product and service requirements, process effectiveness and efficiency, customer perception etc.)
2. Show that the business is central to the system: use your normal business language, not ‘quality’ or ISO 9001 terms.
3. Produce a simple top-level, “big picture” of your business processes to show how the system improves results by focusing on the improvement of processes.
4. Demonstrate your commitment to continual improvement by focusing on the next improvement and by taking it seriously.
5. Show that the ‘quality’ approach is becoming instituted by integrating reviews into normal management cycles.
6. Ensure that records are turned visibly into management information so that people keeping them understand their importance.

The Changing Role Of The Quality Management Representative (QMR)

“For increased leadership and commitment by top management to be successful, top management must not see quality management as an appendix in addition to the actual requirements of business processes”, explains Ulrich Wegner, Technical Head of TÜV SÜD Management Service GmbH. “Instead, quality management should be closely intermeshed with strategic planning and, where possible, the management control system, and thus with actual corporate management. To reach this goal, organisations must clearly define the roles and responsibilities of managers and executives in the field of quality management.”

Those rare organisations in which QMRs are still operating as ‘lone warriors’ will definitely need to undertake some adjustments to meet the requirements defined in the new ISO 9001.

10 Ways Leaders Can Drive Continual Improvement

• State Your Belief in Continual Improvement
• Explain Why Continual Improvement is Important
• Empower, but be a Servant Leader
• Participate in Continual Improvement Yourself
• Ask for Continual Improvement Ideas and Opportunities
• Don’t Require Every Improvement to be an Event or Project
• Emphasize Small Ideas
• Ask for More than Just Cost Savings
• Look at Processes Instead of Blaming People
• Keep Asking for Continual Improvement

Top Managers management of Management System

A Management System is a tool for top management to enable successful business. Often this tool is managed by an Operational Development manager. Top management shall transform strategic directions, threats and opportunities together with stakeholder interests in to requirements on processes, organization structures and controls. Operational Development manager will design the details of the management system in close cooperation with operational management. Managers will drive and ensure utilization and performance will be monitored. Top management will then be involved in the evaluation of the Management System performance Review and additional or changed requirements will be given in order to improve the Management System.

Success without top management commitment?

ISO 9001:2015 – Practical Leadership – .

 

“True *Freedom* is not the absence of structure but rather a clear structure which enables people to work within established boundaries in an autonomous and creative way.” – Rosabeth Moss Kanter[i]

 

 

These video clips also help in understanding the subject :

Understanding ISO 9001:2015: Top management – Peter van Nederpelt

ISO 9001:2015 Leadership and Top Management Commitment – Warren Alford

ISO 9001 2015 Clause 5 Leadership

The new version of the management system standards now requires the organization’s top management to be far more proactive and involved. We will expand the subject and take up the ‘Leadership’ in the Other ISO Management Standards in our July, 2016 episode.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice had mentioned about ASQ’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement, held May 16-18, 2016 in Milwaukee. We now have the updates on the event:

• ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement 2016: Day 1
• ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement 2016: Day 2
• ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement 2016: Day 3

Top 10 Books for Those New to Quality would prove to be a very handy reference to quality professionals of all hues:

1. The Quality Toolbox, Second Edition by Nancy R. Tague
2. The ASQ Quality Improvement Pocket Guide: Basic History, Concepts, Tools, and Relationships edited by Grace L. Duffy
3. The ASQ Pocket Guide to Root Cause Analysis by Bjørn Andersen and Tom Natland Fagerhaug
4. Process Improvement Simplified: A How-to Book for Success in any Organization by James B. King, Francis G. King , and Michael W. R. Davis
5. The Certified Quality Improvement Associate Handbook, Third Edition: Basic Quality Principles and Practices edited by Russell T. Westcott and Grace L. Duffy
6. Performance Metrics: The Levers for Process Management by Duke Okes
7. The Memory Jogger 2, Second Edition: A Pocket Guide of Tools for Continuous Improvement and Effective Planning by Michael Brassard and Diane Ritter
8. The Essential Deming: Leadership Principles from the Father of Quality by Joyce Nilsson Orsini PhD.
9. Principles of Quality Costs, Fourth Edition: Financial Measures for Strategic Implementation of Quality Management edited by Douglas C. Wood
10. Outcomes, Performance, Structure: Three Keys to Organizational Excellence by Michael E. Gallery and Stephen C. Carey

June, 2016 Roundtable: Employee Engagement discusses the question – To what extent do organizations engage employees about the importance of quality? How should companies approach this issue, and how can they avoid “sloganeering” and make a real difference?

We now watch the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• Employee Engagement: This episode discusses the importance of having engaged employees to boost initiative and creativity in the workplace, which ultimately leads to breakthrough performance. Determine whether changes are necessary in your business operations.

Workplace spirit: LINK
Maintenance Required: LINK

•  Alternatives to Brainstorming: Carol Knight-Wallace, principal, Knight Vantage Consulting, says the traditional form of brainstorming is no longer effective. In this brief interview, Knight-Wallace, explains why you should look to other forms of brainstorming and what you should be looking for in the tool.
• 2016 ASQ World Conference Recap on Quality and Improvement

In Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems for the month of May, 2016, we have –

• Use Six Sigma Selfishly – Quality professionals should apply DMAIC six sigma processes to enhance their careers.

First, define your career’s purpose and scope. Then determine how you are going to reach these milestones. Write down actions to needed to make the adjustments. Assess your current situation w.r.t. the requirements for attaining the milestones so as to identify the gaps. Now analyze your career process using these two important questions: do you now know better where you stand; and how to get where you need to be in order to fulfill your career goals? In this stage, it is helpful to involve a friend or mentor. An outsider can often help determine whether you have taken the appropriate steps or how realistic your process has been up to this point. In the control phase the challenge is to maintain your progress by learning from the past.

I look forward to your active participation in enriching the blog carnival as we pursue our journey in exploring the happenings across quality management blogs…………

Note: The images depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images.

[i]  Rosabeth Moss Kanter at TEDxBeaconStreet : Six Keys to Leading Positive Change