Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – November, 2017

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

Our topic for November, 2017 is Design Thinking.

We had noticed the subject in our previous episode in an article Apply Design Thinking to Quality Practices.

I have exhaustively drawn excerpts from Prem Ranganath’s article The Art of Quality, which states that Design Thinking is an opportunity to humanize quality and continuous improvement.

As may be seen in the above Visual from IDEO as a reference, traditionally quality and continuous improvement initiatives are largely driven by viability and feasibility considerations. Integrating design thinking with improvement initiatives brings the ‘human’ element into focus, by driving conversation on ‘desirability’ of the solutions being proposed for implementation.

This Visual shows the integration of a Design Thinking flow represented by the steps Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test with the DMAIC approach for continuous improvement. Integration of design thinking methods adopt a humanized approach to characterizing (challenges and opportunities) current state.

Design Thinking was popularized by David M. Kelley and Tim Brown of IDEO and Roger Martin of the Rotman School. A very good, short video on the topic was recently published by the Harvard Business Review blog . For a more detailed explanation please read the paper, “Design for Action” written by Brown and Martin.

As stipulated by a paper recently published by Creativity At Work, “Design Thinking is a methodology used by designers to solve complex problems, and find desirable solutions for clients. A design mindset is not problem-focused; it is solution focused and action oriented towards creating a preferred future. Design Thinking draws upon logic, imagination, intuition, and systemic reasoning, to explore possibilities of what could be—and to create desired outcomes that benefit the end user (the customer)”.

The three major stages of Design Thinking are:

1. Observe customer behavior; define unarticulated needs
2. Ideate, Prototype, experiment and test
3. Bring the new concept to life; open new markets

What differentiates Design Thinking from traditional Voice of Customer collection approaches is the emphasis placed on observation of behaviors rather than relying on customers’ input to satisfaction surveys.

Michael Sabah has curated several articles on the subject – Design Thinking: Get a Quick Overview of the History; DESIGN THINKING | methods & tools; How Design Thinking will fix Design Thinking; Prototyping in Design Thinking: How to Avoid Six Common Pitfalls

Why is Design a CEO Matter? – Tim Brown – CEO of IDEO – In order to compete today, CEOs need evolutionary skills that will ensure their survival in a fast-changing climate. Business fitness now means learning how to be agile, resilient, and creative. It means adapting to the marketplace in quick generational cycles. That requires a brave new brand of leadership, and from our vantage point, as we work alongside companies young and old from around the globe, it requires being able to think like a designer.

A few videos to better understand the concept:

Design Thinking – Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO

‘What Is Design Thinking?’ gives better understanding of what design thinking is all about.

How It Works: Design Thinking – For more information on IBM Design Thinking, please visit: http://www.ibm.com/design

Stages of Design Thinking

Stanford Webinar – Design Thinking = Method, Not Magic – In this webinar Bill Burnett, consulting assistant professor and master in design thinking at Stanford University, as he shares three barriers organizations face when adopting an innovative culture and how to overcome them.

ABC Nightline – IDEO Shopping Cart – In 1999, ABC’s Nightline tried to describe IDEO’s approach by commissioning us to design a better shopping cart, and filmed the entire process. 17+ years later, the video is still shown in classrooms across the globe as a lesson in design thinking and team collaboration.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

For the present episode we have picked up one article The 4 Dos Of Change Management @ the column Effective Management @ Management Matters Network.

1. Build a business case – Spell out why change is needed.
2. Communicate the changes systematically – share the right things with the right people at the right time, or there is great risk of inadvertently rev up the rumor mill
3. Mobilize your employees from the onset – When employees feel involved, they’re more invested in and supportive of the effort—and less likely to offer resistance.
4. Roll out in phases and celebrate small wins

The reality is that change is happening all around us all the time, leaving us with two choices: embrace it to get ahead of it and manage it proactively, or resist it and let it drag us to our fate.

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy section does not have anything of interest at present.

For the present, we continue with the practice of picking up one article form ASQ.org site: Forward Progress – Looking back at quality’s evolution over the past 50 years and seeing where the movement is headed:

We now watch one of the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION USING QUALITY TOOLS – Sam Yankelevitch, CEO, Xpress Lingo Solutions, discusses the importance of using quality tools to improve invisible processes like communication to positively impact our physical processes.

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

• Dissatisfaction : It is easy to look for others to blame for our failures, discontent and dissatisfaction. Maybe that’s part of our human frailty. The alternative is to choose to embrace our failures, fully own them and be responsible for our own dissatisfaction. The result is that our willingness to own it will make it go away.
• Quality and Lean Partnership must be linked. The purpose of quality has always been to concentrate on the process and identify sources of variation, control or eradicate them, and provide the customer, as much as is possible, product they are willing to purchase. Lean, Six Sigma, or for that matter any tool, must take this role of quality management into consideration.

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, 2017

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

Our topic for the August 2017 is Quality of Translations. The trigger for taking up this topic, in our present issue, for a brief overview, was an email from Mr. Ravi Kumar, the founder of Hindi Center  /Modlingua Learning Pvt. Ltd.. However, we will deal with that a little later.

First the basics:

Quality of translation : The term quality of translation is used to refer to the desirability of properties or characteristics of a translated text or content.

“In manufacturing quality is the concept of making products fit for a purpose and with fewest defects. Many different techniques and concepts have been tried to minimize defects in production, including Zero Defects, Six Sigma, and the House of Quality.”

Thus, in the translation process quality would be the concept of making the target text (the translated text) fit for a purpose and with the fewest errors (in terms of sense, grammar, orthography, style, omissions, etc.)

What is a “quality” translation? : The quality of translation has two constructs: In one sense, quality refers to whether the translation is acceptable. In another sense, there are different quality levels that could be needed for a given translation.

‘What is the quality of a translation?’ is the Lecture by Anthony Pym at the University of Vienna, April 13, 2015, as part of a course on academic Translation Studies.

And then a few pointers to the Quality of Translation:

10-Step Quality Assurance Process: All translation projects undergo a multi-layered process of checks and reviews in order to ensure the highest degree of quality. Presented here is a 10-Step Quality Assurance process that enables delivery of spot-on translations and the highest quality output.

10 crucial ways to ensure high quality translations has shared 10 blog posts that have given numerous tips and professional advice on how to implement and monitor processes to ensure you get high quality translations.

Ten Common Myths About Translation Quality that can actually do more harm than good.

Measuring Translation Quality: Constraints, Challenges and Solutions: Without clear goals and a repeatable, objective and accurate methodology, quality can be hard to measure, especially in the localization industry. From lack of knowledge to outside factors to subjective reviews, there are many reasons quality is hard to measure. In a webinar called “A Practical Approach to Measuring Translation Quality”, David Sommer discusses challenges with measuring quality and potential solutions.

That brings us to the core of e-mail message from Mr. Ravi Kumar:

Translation-quality standards: Like any supplier of goods or services, a translator potentially bears ethical and legal obligations toward his patron or employer. This has turned to be of enormous importance with the development of the language industry at global scale. For the protection of both parties, standards have been developed that seek to spell out their mutual duties.

In the e-mail referred to at the beginning of the article, Mr. Ravi Kumar informed me that Modlingua has recently released these videos on the subject of Translation-Quality standards:

Quality Standards and Translation:

Seven Quality Standards one must know:

As can be expected, these videos provide the strong ground work for following up the more structured approach the task of translations (services).

Moreover, Modlingua has also presented a project management perspective to the translation services:

Fundamentals of Project Management:

Project Management in Translation Business:

We can look forward to more such videos to be uploaded on language, translation and culture @ YT channel Modilingua.

Mr. Ravi Kumar, himself a language-translation entrepreneur, has presented The Translator as Entrepreneur: An Indian Perspective . –  This paper deals with Translators as entrepreneurs who are slowly getting aware of their profession and have begun coming to a common platform to share knowledge, experience and resources – a most desired step necessary for the better future of the profession. Further, this paper proposes “networking” as a possible solution to entrepreneurs who can economize their process and speed up their growth by using available resources and infrastructure without having to invest huge resources.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

For the present episode we have picked up two articles @ the column The Drucker Today @ Management Matters Network.

3 Questions Drucker Would Ask You And Your Management Team

• What is our business? – The Mission
• What will our business be? – The changing environment that we are certain about
• What should our business be?” – The Vision

Dr. Robert Swaim also goes into more detail on the concepts discussed in this article in chapters 2 and 3 of his book The Strategic Drucker.

Notes From A Drucker Lecture: Six Questions Every Manager Must Ask To Empower Their Team

1. The performance of your people.
2. Taking responsibility for your relationship with others.
3. Establishing and maintaining your relationship with others.
4. Accountability for results.
5. Relationship with your manager.
6. Assignment control and staffing.

When you have completed this analysis, you may want to ask yourself one more question: When I leave this organization, what will be different because I was there?

From Ask The Experts, I have picked up a question that relates to how much (of process details / documentation) is enough so as not to jeopardize the ISO certification. The answer is demonstration of objective evidence for the process being implemented ‘under controlled condition’ (Clause 8.5.1 of ISO 9001:2015)

We do not have anything of note in the  ASQ CEO, Bill Troy at present. In the last issue we had proposed to take up the detailed view of Industry 4.0. I submit that we carry forward that proposal for the next month’s episode.

We now watch one of the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• Customer Journey Maps: Tool and Example – Lisa Custer, Firefly Consulting, discusses how to create a customer journey map, how it becomes more than a robust voice of the customer tool, and provides a real-world example of a customer journey map in action.

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

• The Role of Specification Limits – They are primarily for interactions with customers and management – Many people, from engineers to managers to quality professionals to technicians, possess limited understanding of product and process (manufacturing) limits. The third types of limits are: disposition limits… The specification limits are defines as – The general definition is limits within which a product would be expected to perform its stated and intended function for customer use. Specification limits, therefore, are related to product design. They should be set in the product design phase and effectively fixed for manufacture.. The specification limits may not play a direct role in process control limits within the manufacturing environment, but they do facilitate determination of useful product disposition limits. Additionally, they can even play a role in determining required sensitivity levels in setting process control limits.. Furthermore, specification limits are primarily for interactions with customers and management. Also, they are very useful in the calculation of Process Capability Index (Cpk) statistics.

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 – February, 2017

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

We will commence our episode with a few articles on Quality in our daily life.

• How Do You Spend Your Time? What It Means To Maintain Quality Control On Your Life –  Yvonne Doherty  notes that any time spent being unhappy, dissatisfied or frustrated is time completely squandered. More importantly, this isn’t how life is meant to be.
• What are some great examples of using ‘lean’ principles and quality management in everyday life? – After having a look at some very telling illustrations of applicability of Lean and QM principles, how do we begin to apply Six Sigma for personal advancement? Click here for more: http://www.simplilearn.com/how-s…
• Application of Total Quality Management in the Classroom – This paper focuses on the application of Total Quality Management (TQM) to the effective teaching and learning of students in the classroom. Also, the paper identifies and uses of TQM principles to focus on the needs, expectations, experiences and problems of students and it illustrates the issue of feedback for the continuous improvement of teaching and learning of students by TQM which will foster lecturer-student interactions.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

I have picked up the question Using the 10:1 ratio rule and the 4:1 ratio rule from the section Ask The Experts, ASQ, for our current episode. The question deals with the field of confidence in the results of calibration employed in the metrological and statistical practices recommended for Measurement and Monitoring Equipment.

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy has presented Chris Moustakas ‘s guest article – Quality Management, Continuous Improvement, and Their Relation to the Golden Circle. Chris Quotes: “ In his famous Ted talk, Simon Sinek argues that if you look at the world through the simple concentric layers of why-how-what (the Golden Circle), and push yourself as close as possible to the center circle, “why,” you position yourself to be more of a visionary than a doer. “What” we do to accomplish a goal is tactical, bland, and uninspiring. “How” we set ourselves up to accomplish that goal is strategic and implies direction. “Why” we do what we do is the million-dollar question, and where true inspiration originates.”

The subject of Golden Circle is so engrossing that I plan to devote the rest of our present episode to a few more articles on the topic.

First things first. Let us look at Executive Summary: The Golden Circle with Simon Sinek  by: Andy Partridge. When most organisations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from WHAT to WHY. And for good reason – they go from the tangible to the intangible. We say WHAT we do, we sometimes say HOW we do it, but rarely say WHY we do WHAT we do….But not the inspired leaders and companies. Every single one of them, regardless of their size or industry thinks, acts and communicates from the inside out.

How Would Simon Sinek Use The Golden Circle Rules to Explain Account-Based Marketing? – Sangram Vajre proposes a similar model for B2B Marketing:

Intrapreneurship starts with a WHY – This is part of the series of posts talking about Ecosystem Design – We fancy a good revolution where there is not difference between a customer and a worker. The employees believe in our Why and because of this choose to work in the company, and the customer believes in our Why and choose to buy in our stores. One of our goals is to find customer who believe what we believe and work together so that we can all succeed.

“The Golden Circle of Innovation” – Though not focusing on the why, how and what, Crossan and Apaydin have generated an overview of all relevant theories on innovation, resulting in a framework for innovation, as depicted below….They mention two ‘dimensions of innovation’, both focusing on innovation itself and they mention several ‘determinants of innovation’, focusing on the way that innovation is accelerated and managed within organizations.

We now watch two of the latest ASQ TV  episode:

• Using Quality Tools at Work and Home – Yvonne Howze describes how she successfully uses quality tools in her professional and personal life, often with amusing consequences.
• SR Offers Opportunities for Quality Professionals – “Sustainability is the goal,” says Andrea Hoffmeier in this ASQTV interview. Hoffmeier, explains how quality professionals can play a role in helping their organizations and clients reach the goal of sustainability through social responsibility. She also discusses how DMAIC can be adapted for the SR audiences.
• Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Quality Methods – Matthew Barsalou, Statistical Problem Resolution Master Black Belt at BorgWarner Turbo Systems Engineering GmbH, discusses Sherlock Holmes, hypotheses, and root cause.
• Becoming—and Remaining—An Engaged Company – Alyce Nelson, Executive Coach & Quality Principal, FAS. Inc., discusses how to keep staff engaged and how to keep from derailing organizational engagement.

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

Quality at the Source : QATS can produce dramatic quality improvements: In its purest form QATS defines that quality output is not only measured at the end of the production line but at every step of the manufacturing process and being the responsibility of each individual who contributes to the production of on-time delivery of a product or service…There are simple techniques for QATS to work effectively:

• No-fault forward
• Standardized work
• Prepare the most important resource
• Self-checks
• Successive checks
• Mistake-proof

Get In Sync : How do you reach the highest level of willingness, the level at which you boldly step forward? Bottom line, make sure you’re in sync by doing what really matters…to you.

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 – 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 – May 2016

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

We have taken up familiarization 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

In the present episode, we will take up an important element of the Context of the organization – The Relevant Interested Parties.

The Cambridge Business English dictionary defines Interested Parties  as ‘any of the people or organizations who may be affected by a situation or who are hoping to make money out of a situation’.

For the purpose of the ISO Management System standards, an interested party is anyone who can affect, be affected by, or believe that they are affected by a decision or activity.

any of the people or organizations who may be affected by a situation, or who are hoping to make money out of a situation any of the people or organizations who may be affected by a situation, or who are hoping to make money out of a situation.

ISO 9001:2015 – Interested Parties – Sara Gulo – So far in the evolution of this standard through the years and through the different stages of development, the customer has been almost the sole focus, mentioning suppliers, employees and regulators as carriers of key requirements but not specifically involving any other entity that could have had an impact on the actual results achieved. Not even owners of the organization….the new standard drills deeper in the risk based thinking, widening the view for all probable actors that could pose any risk to the customer. That is why interested parties were included in the new standard: they are probable sources for risks for customers. Consequently they matter and their requirements shall be considered.

Interested parties could be split into three different groups:

– Usually enforced interested parties: this group includes those stakeholders that could seldom be disregarded because of their usual impact on outcome and customer satisfaction such as customers (obvious), employees, suppliers, owners, and regulators, all them in different shapes and modalities.

– Possible interested parties: this group includes those stakeholders that could or could not affect the outcome and customer satisfaction such as unions, banks, neighbours, etc. but it could be valid to analyse their eventual impact.

– Openly interested parties: this group includes those stakeholders that for some reason the organization believes they are important to assure the outcome and customer satisfaction, even though its relationship is not that obvious.

How to determine interested parties and their requirements according to ISO 9001:2015 – Mark Hammar – The ISO 9001:2015 standard has several requirements that involve the knowledge you have acquired when determining the relevant interested parties and their requirements

• The QMS scope needs to include the requirements of relevant interested parties (Section 4.3).
• The Quality Policy is to be made available to relevant interested parties when appropriate (Section 5.2.2).
• Measurement traceability needs to be maintained when this is an expectation of relevant interested parties (Section 7.1.6).
• Requirements for products and services may need to include those from relevant interested parties (Section 8.2.3).
• Design and development activities need to take into account requirements of relevant interested parties, including how much control is expected in the design and development process (Section 8.3).
• Management review needs to include issues that concern relevant interested parties (Section 9.3).

Are all interested parties equally interested in the organization?  – Once you have identified the interested parties the next step you can take is to analyze these interested parties on two parameters (the standard does not require this but this might help you in understanding your interested parties better).

• Power
• Interest

Depending upon these two factors you can choose the appropriate approach. Stakeholder analysis is typically used in the project management.

We have also picked up some video clips on the subject:

Understanding ISO 9001:2015: Interested parties –

How you can decide and demonstrate which interested parties are relevant to your Quality Management System and / or your Environmental Management System?

– Dixon Brian

Alar Sistok

How to make an analysis of interested parties?

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

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice talks about ASQ’s World Conference on Quality and Improvement, held May 16-18 in Milwaukee. We will have an update on the event in our June 2016 issue.

We now watch the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• The Voice of the Customer – This episode discusses converting the voice of the customer (VOC) into critical-to-quality-characteristics by looking at how to make the perfect cup of coffee. You’ll also learn how social media has amplified today’s VOC, and how organizations are responding to and leveraging online customer information with big-data analysis.

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

• Quality Professionals Should Lead the Parade – It is not uncommon to blame senior management for most of what ails an organization. However, it is past time to rethink this attitude! The ultimate question is: “Are you prepared and willing to put in the time and effort to demonstrate the power of the basic quality techniques?” Are you ready to lead the parade or do you find it easier to complain?
• Remain Determined – If you’ve ever been disappointed by the results of your first effort to “take something on,” that’s no reason to quit. As James Whitcomb Riley says, “The most essential factor is persistence—the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come.”
• Give Your Best – When there’s a job to be done, do more than just getting it done. Do remember what John Wooden, the great basketball coach, said, “Just do the best you can. No one can do more than that.”[i]

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] The Difference Between winning and Succeeding

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – April, 2016

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

We commenced the familiarizing ourselves with the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015) with the December, 2015 episode of our blog carnival. Then, in the January 2016 episode, we took up Process Approach in the 2015 revision of the standard, as our first topic. In February, 2016, we had taken up first part of Risk-Based Thinking that primarily addressed the concept as has been taken up in ISO 9001: 2015, followed by Risk-Based Thinking, in the general perspective in March, 2016,

Now, in this month’s episode we will take a look at the subject that aims to align the organization’s QMS with the Context of the Organization.

Context of the Organization & ISO 9001:2015 – Kevin Gholston –

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary the word “context” has the following meaning:

context
noun con·text \ˈkän-ˌtekst\

The words that are used with a certain word or phrase and that help to explain its meaning; the situation in which something happens; the group of conditions that exist where and when something happens

Full Definition of CONTEXT

1:  the parts of a discourse that surround a word or passage and can throw light on its meaning
2:  the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs

What is the Context of the Organization? – Itay Abuhav –

The context of the organization, in the ISO 9001:2015 is the set of functions, processes, inputs and outputs and limitations that creates the business environment of an organization. It is how business entities (functions or subsystems –intern or external) of an organization relate together and how the information travels through these elements.

The context of the organization is shaped through the integration of the business entities. The ISO 9001:2008 expresses it with the words” the relation and sequences between the main processes” (Chapter 4.1,b) and requires for example a diagram that describes those relations.

How to identify the context of the organization in ISO 9001:2015 – Strahinja Stojanovic

Context of the organization is a new requirement in ISO 9001, stating an organization must consider both the internal and external issues that can impact its strategic objectives and the planning of the QMS. It pretty much changes the concept and application of clause 4. Requirements regarding the context of the organization do sound a little bit vague, so what does this clause actually require?

Clause 4 of ISO 9001:2015, Context of the organization, requires the organization to evaluate itself and its context. This means that you need to define influences of various elements on the organization and how they reflect on the QMS, the company’s culture, objectives and goals, complexity of products, flow of processes and information, size of the organization, markets, customers, etc. It is also a means to detect risks and opportunities regarding the business context.

Where to start?

First, you need to determine which of the new requirements are already met in your existing documentation, because some of the requirements related to the Quality Manual in ISO 9001:2008 are now transferred into this new clause

To determine external context, you should consider issues arising from its social, technological, environmental, ethical, political, legal, and economic environment. Examples of external context may include:

• government regulations and changes in the law
• economic shifts in the organization’s market
• the organization’s competition
• events that may affect corporate image
• changes in technology

Basically, all this information is in the heads of the CEO and other members of management, but it was never put on paper; the best way to gather it is by organizing some brainstorming. Systematization of all this information can be very valuable and demonstrate where you stand as an organization.

ISO 9001:2015 Revision Explained: ‘Context of the Organisation’ – by Alastair Atcheson

While there is no prescribed method of determining the context of the organisation in relation to the ISO 9001, a simple and pragmatic approach to understanding your organisation’s context consists of four steps:

1. Identify the internal issues that can affect your organisation’s products, services, investments and interested parties.
2. Identify the external issues that can affect your organisation’s products, services, investments and interested parties.
3. Identify who are the interested parties and what are their requirements.
4. Institute a system for regular review and monitoring of the internal issues, external issues and interested parties as identified above.

Internal issues can include the organization’s

• regulatory requirements
• strategies to achieve its policies and objectives
• relationship with its staff and stakeholders, including partners and suppliers
• resources and knowledge (e.g. capital, people, processes and technologies)
• internal risk appetite
• assets
• product or service
• Standards, guidelines and models adopted by the organisation
• information systems

ISO 9001:2008 vs. ISO 9001:2015 – Context of the Organization By Itay Abuhav

With the ISO 9001:2008 it is necessary to evaluate whether the organization’s quality management system follows the general requirements. Wr.t. the ISO 9001:2015 and the requirements of  context of the organization – the organization shall analyze which issues (external as well as internal) that may affect its QMS or already have an effect.

Context of the Organization” and the Power of SWOT Analysis

We will take up, “Interested Parties”, one of the vital considerations for understanding the ‘Context of the Organization’, in our May, 2016 episode.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice blog-column, has presented a roundtable discussion on the Voice of Customer – What exactly should voice of the customer mean to the quality professional? How important is it? What are the best ways to gather it?.  Luciana Paulise discusses some new tool to capture the voice of the customer. Pam Schodt considers the best way to gather VoC standards is through face-to-face meeting followed up by written and verified specifications. To Dr, Suresh Gettala, key is to hear from horse’s mouth and not to surmise about what the customer wants. Luigi Sille attaches equal importance to data gathering its use

We now watch the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• Metrics for Management – Tim Adams, Engineering Assurance Specialist, NASA, spent a few minutes with ASQ TV to talk about some of the main ideas of his 2015 ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement presentation. In this interview, Adams discusses some of the finer points of identifying and using metrics.
• Benchmarking – Today, we’ll learn the basics of benchmarking, review the recommended six phases of a successful benchmarking process, and finally, we’ll get reacquainted with one vital ingredient in benchmarking: metrics.
• The Torque Chain of Quality Large – For more information go to www.srtorque.com   Daily torque testing is becoming more common place because it makes good business sense. But is daily testing error proofing? No, and far from it. …. If your torque wrench is out of spec, using a torque wrench to prevent errors only leads to a false sense of security. What if the torque tester you are using is out of spec and you don’t know it?   This video and the subsequent series take you through every link in the chain of quality in order to help you understand all the places where the wheels can fall off. Specifically it takes a look at the places we tend to overlook or take for granted.

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

♦ Integrate DFSS with Existing Design Processes – Many organizations make a mistake when trying to replace their design process with Design for Six Sigma. DFSS was never intended to completely replace an organization’s existing design process.

• Opportunity Surrounds Us – Opportunity is everywhere.

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, and have the copyrights for the respective images.

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – March, 2016

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

We commenced the familiarizing ourselves with the changes in the Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015) with the December, 2015 episode of our blog carnival. Then, in the January 2016 episode, we took up Process Approach in the 2015 revision of the standard, as our first topic. In February, 2016, we had taken up first part of Risk-Based Thinking that primarily addressed the concept as has been taken up in ISO 9001: 2015.

Now, in this month’s episode we will look up as to how Risk-Based Thinking is looked upon in more general perspective.

                             Risk_Probability_Effect

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Managing Risks: A New Framework by  Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes – presents a new categorization of risk that allows executives to tell which risks can be managed through a rules-based model and which require alternative approaches.

Category I Risks – Preventable Risks – arising from within – best managed through active prevention: monitoring operational processes and guiding people’s behaviors and decisions toward desired norms.

Category II: Strategy risks -A company voluntarily accepts some risk in order to generate superior returns from its strategy…A strategy with high expected returns generally requires the company to take on significant risks, and managing those risks is a key driver in capturing the potential gains.,, Strategy risks cannot be managed through a rules-based control model. Instead, you need a risk-management system designed to reduce the probability that the assumed risks actually materialize and to improve the company’s ability to manage or contain the risk events should they occur.

Category III: External risks – Some risks arise from events outside the company and are beyond its influence or control. Sources of these risks include natural and political disasters and major macroeconomic shifts. External risks require yet another approach. Because companies cannot prevent such events from occurring, their management must focus on identification (they tend to be obvious in hindsight) and mitigation of their impact.

The Changing Role of Risk Manager takes the sense of 10 senior risk experts across Europe to understand the role of risk manager and explore what skills and behaviours tomorrow’s generation of risk managers will need.

Risk Based Thinking Handbook – William A. Levinson has done an excellent job of explaining the role of waste (from the LEAN perspective) and how it can increase risk to organizations who fail to “see and think” that the many forms of waste are a source of operational risk to the organization. Among this book’s most important takeaways is that a risk or opportunity can hide in plain view unless our workforce knows how to identify it….Another of this book’s key missions is to equip the reader to “grok” ISO 9001 as a synergistic framework that helps an organization achieve its goals. “Grok” is originally from Robert A. Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, and it means to understand and internalize something completely.

What is Risk-Based Thinking?…. In order to successfully implement the concept of risk-based thinking, be sure to follow these tips:

• Analyze risks and prioritize them.What risks are acceptable no matter the outcome, and what risks should be avoided?
• Have plans for addressing risk.Can any risks be avoided and how? How can risks be minimized?
• Check effectiveness.Once plans have been called into action, reassess the situation, several times of needed, to understand how effective it has been.
• Learn from experience and push to improve.No matter the outcome of risk assessment and mitigation, use all the information possible for creating improvements.

How People Can Get Better At Risk-Based Thinking and Improve Their Organization’s RBM – Ben Locwin takes the process of buying lotteries, evaluating risk of use swimming pools by the toddlers and similar examples to emphasize the fact that most of us tend to take the past behaviour as an indicator of the future. That can be classified as a classic understatement.

Q9C Quality Consulting’s blog tag Risk Management has several more articles of interest on this subject.

We take a look at some video clips:

Risk Management 101: What is Risk Management?

Introduction to Risk Management

A New Look at Risk Management is an ASQ video.

Understanding ISO 9001:2015: Risk and Opportunities

This is the first year of implementing ISO 9001: 2015, Certainly, in the days to come, the concepts like Risk-Based Thinking will evolve and attain higher level of maturity, We, therefore, will continue to look at the developments over next couple of years.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

ASQ CEO, Bill Troy in his ASQ’s Influential Voice blog-column, has presented a roundtable discussion on Careers in Quality.

We now watch the latest ASQ TV  episodes:

• Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Quality – In this episode we dig deeper into transforming the organizational culture into a culture of quality and a simple communications tool that can help create a culture of quality.
• Quality and FDA – Quality plays an important role in industries regulated by government bodies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A representative from the FDA talks to ASQ about this role, as well as an upcoming regulation that will affect consumers. The quality tool flowcharting is also explained and demonstrated.

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

• How to Doom a Great Idea – We quality professionals can inadvertently turn off our management team and, thereby, hurt our chances of successfully promoting good ideas.
• Expect the Best from Yourself– Often your biggest limitation is the one you put on yourself..
• Meaning of Life– The meaning to life is an ever-evolving process. .

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…………

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – January 2016

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

In the previous episode of our blog carnival, we have taken up an overview of the changes in the just published Revision of ISO 9001 (:2015). From the present episode, every month we will take up each key change individually for a closer look.

We first take up the most fundamental underlying concept – Process Approach..

The present version of the standard now “promotes the adoption of a process approach when developing, implementing and improving the effectiveness of a quality management system, to enhance customer satisfaction by meeting customer requirements. {Ref: Introduction – Clause 0.3.1} The process approach involves the systematic definition and management of processes, and their interactions, so as to achieve the intended results in accordance with the quality policy and strategic direction of the organization. Management of the processes and the system as a whole can be achieved using the PDCA cycle (see 0.3.2) with an overall focus on risk-based thinking (see 0.3.3) aimed at taking advantage of opportunities and preventing undesirable results.

Schematic representation of the elements of a single process

The ISO Technical Committee 176 has published a paper The PROCESS APPROACH in ISO 9001: 2015 (ISO/TC 176/SC 2/N1289) and a detailed presentation on the PROCESS APPROACH in ISO 9001:2015

ISO’s Process Approach also lucidly presents concepts like Process Approach, Process Definition, Process Examples, Inputs and Outputs – outputs could include not only services, software, hardware, and processed materials, but also decisions, directions, instructions, plans, policies, proposals, solutions, expectations, regulations, requirements, recommendations, complaints, comments, measurements, and reports. Clearly, an output could be almost anything – Process interactions, Process-based QMS.

Three Ways ISO 9001:2015 Will Encourage a Process Approach – Dan Nelson –

Instead of being suited to ISO 9001, a QMS is supposed to be suited to the unique operations of an organization. A process approach demands that an organization’s real, operational; core processes are developed in accordance with the “plan” phase of the plan-do-check-act cycle (PDCA). These are the processes needed for a QMS.

Second, also in the ‘Introduction, sub-clause 0.3 -Process approach’, the standard explains that the process approach is based on the PDCA cycle, mentioning W. Edwards Deming by name.

Finally, in ISO 9001:2008 sub-clause 4.1—General Requirements, contain requirements seemingly adequate to verify whether a process approach has been applied.

Process Approach

QMS is made up of a network of value-adding processes, like Customer Oriented Processes (COPs), Support Oriented Processes (SOPs), Management Oriented Processes (MOPs), Quality Managed Processes (QOPs), Outsourced Processes (OPs) that link, combine and interact with one another to collectively provide product or service. These processes are inter-dependent and can be defined by complex interactions. In order to plan and implement QMS using the ‘Process Approach’, one must:

• Identify the processes needed for the QMS.
• Determine their sequence and interaction (show the sequence and interaction of COP’s). There are many ways to document this, e.g., a high level flowchart or a process map.
• Determine the application of QMS processes throughout the organization (show how MOP’s; SOP’s and QMP’s are applied to each COP and to each other). There are many ways of documenting this. A popular way is through graphical representation, e.g. process maps.
• Determine (plan) the criteria, methods, information, controls and resources needed for each QMS process.
• Identify the internal/external customer-required output.
• Describe the process activity that produces the output.
• Identify the resources needed for the process activity.
• Identify the inputs for the process – information, materials, supplies, etc.
• Define the process methods, procedures, forms etc., that may be needed to produce the output.
• Define the controls to prevent or eliminate risk of errors, omissions, or nonconformities in process activity. controls may come from the IS standards; customer; regulatory and your own organizational requirements
• Interaction with sources that provide the inputs (internal process or external supplier), uses the output (internal process or external customer), or provide the resources (internal support process) to perform the process activity.
• Implement QMS according to the plan.
• Monitor, measure and improve each QMS process and its interaction with other processes. Performance indicators to monitor and measure process performance may come from the IS standard, customer, regulatory and organization’s own requirements. Performance indicators may relate to the process output as well as the process activity.
• Performance indicators for process output must focus on meeting customer and regulatory requirements. Performance indicators for process activity should focus on measuring process effectiveness and efficiency.

PROCESS MANAGEMENT REQUIREMENTS IN ISO 9001 (2015) – Lennart Brandt -By application of the definition of “process”, the number of processes concerned by the requirements in ISO/CD 9001 could be considered to be at least about 275.

ISO 9001:2015 – The Process Approach Approacheth – focuses on the new standard’s “process approach” requirements, how it differs from the current version, and the many problems companies and auditors will have interpreting it.

ISO 9001 series, Part 3: The Process Approach in ISO 9001:2015 – Ben Saxton, Business Development Manager and Alastair Atcheson, Digital Marketing Executive @ Qualsys – Auditors should be looking at the effectiveness of processes over exact compliance to procedure. This is in line with PDCA, which forms a basis for the process approach to begin with. A process approach is the best way to manage a QMS, not just in terms of the audit process, but as a business strategy in general. Auditors and organisations alike should remember that the process approach is being emphasised because fundamentally, it makes sense.

The Joy of Process – Susannah Clarke says a process approach can inspire innovation and creativity – In Morecambe & Wise Make Breakfast, watch the brilliant example of how a process approach inspires innovation and creativity:

We will now turn to our regular sections:

Since 1996, ASQ has published seven issues of the Future of Quality Report. The latest edition explores 11 topic areas—already impacting consumers, businesses, and society—that will have a profound effect on the future of quality. These thought-provoking, personal, and detailed essays are written by distinguished experts from around the world. The “2015 ASQ Future of Quality Report: Quality Throughout” challenges, enlightens, and sparks action. ASQ CEO, Bill Troy ASQ’s Influential Voice in Top 11 Insights From ASQ’s Future of Quality Study has compiled the “key” insights from each of the 11 essays in the Future of Quality research.

We now watch the latest ASQ TV episodes:

Strategic Thinking – Business Skills – In this ASQ^® TV episode, the concept of strategic thinking is examined. Learn how strategic thinking varies in theory and practice and be introduced to the analytic hierarchy process—a method that breaks down decision making into a series of comparisons. Watch now:

• Edwards Deming
• Glenn Mazur Case Study 1
• Glenn Mazur Case Study 2
• Glenn Mazur, Quality Service Division
• Quality Progress Magazine, December Issue

Strategy and Leadership: In this episode, learn a four-step method for setting organization-wide strategy that fosters employee engagement and empowerment, and get ideas for structuring your organization and communicating strategy … to employees to help achieve success. Read: Peter Merrill’s QP article on self-managed teams.

Making Strategy Visual – It is essential your staff connect goals, metrics and projects to get them engaged in the organization’s strategy. Hear how North Bay Regional Health Center in Ontario achieves this important goal by making strategy visual to employees and customers.

We would add Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems as our regular feature from this month.

Thought Power: Choose to think the best about yourself, your world, and those people who are there to support you.

Dealing with Challenges:  Learning to overcome our challenges is what builds character and resilience.

Embrace efforts: Decide to embrace and enjoy the effort, and you’ll reap wonderful benefits from it.

20 Most Popular Posts on the Curious Cat Management Blog in 2015

• The Toyota Way – Two Pillars (2010)
• Stated Versus Revealed Preference (2013)
• The Purpose of an Organization (2005)
• 94% Belongs to the System (2013)
• How to Get a New Management Strategy, Tool or Concept Adopted (2010) One factor at a time (OFAT) Versus Factorial Designs (2011)
• The Aim Should be the Best Life – Not Work v. Life Balance (2015)
• Why Don’t Football Players Just Thrown the Ball Out of Bounds to Stop the Clock (2010)
• No True Lean Thinking or Agile Software Development (2010)
• Steve Jobs on Quality, Business and Joseph Juran (2014)
• Don’t Treat People How You Want to be Treated (2010)
• Keys to the Effective Use of the PDSA Improvement Cycle (2012)
• Visual Management and Mistake-Proofing for Prescription Pills (2015)
• Toyota Post Record Profit: Splits $15 million in Pay and Bonus for top 21 Executives (2014)
• What to Do To Create a Continual Improvement Culture (2015)
• Peter Scholtes (2009)
• All Data is Wrong, Some is Useful (2015)
• Building a Great Software Development Team (2014)
• Paying New Employees to Quit (2008)
• Increasing the Adoption of Management Improvement Ideas in Your Organization (2010)

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…………

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – November 2015

Welcome to November, 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 we had a detailed look at one of the most discussed one: The Balanced Scorecard.

In this last part of our journey of Continuous Improvement, we will take a look at some of the representative articles on “Sustaining Continuous Improvement’.

How to Create and Sustain Successful Continuous Improvement Teams – Renee Bassett – Porter at Irving Oil: “Keep it fresh, keep improving the system.  Do not let it stagnate.  Your competition is making improvements every day; evolving change is now a way of life.” Click here to read how understanding human motivations can go a long way toward ensuring a successful continuous improvement program.

Sustaining Continuous Improvement Initiatives – Simon Bodie – Continuous Improvement Initiatives are often launched with a flurry of excitement .This can soon wane as executives fail to see value and question the rationale for continuing. Achieving longevity requires careful management of the program. Just completing ‘good work’ is not enough, benefits need to be understood calculated and extracted. Progress needs to be communicated effectively.

Sustaining a Continuous Improvement Culture in a World of Flux – It is not so much that we are afraid of change, or so in love with the old ways, but it is the place in between we fear….. like being in between trapezes……there is nothing to hold on to. CI should not merely be an institutional priority, but should be integrated into the strategic plan. A well-defined structure for implementing CI programs, transparent flow of information, listening to views of each stakeholder, showing the benefits to the individuals and maintaining the consistency of approach (towards CI) help build the culture that creates environment for sustaining the CI.

Visual Management Helps You Sustain Continuous Improvement – You can’t make your operations more efficient if your employees don’t know what is going on!  Communicating information throughout all departments and levels of your company is critical. Visual management is a fundamental element of process control that helps you sustain continuous improvement.

Creating and sustaining value: Building a culture of continuous improvement – Saleem Chattergoon, Shelley Darling, Rob Devitt, Wolf Klassen have narrated a phased approach adopted at Toronto East General Hospital . These are: Phase 1 – Setting the stage ; Phase 2 – Team-driven performance management and Phase 3 – The daily management system and cross-appointment model. The three phased approach takes the movement beyond individual projects to the cultural transformation.

Continuous Improvement through a Productive Culture

Actions that Build a Productive Work Culture

1. Practice good leadership at all levels

• Create trust and respect
• Be committed and persistence
• Be patient and understanding
• Be consistent
• Allocate resources fairly & where needed
• Explain the goals and reasons

2. Lead by example, by “walking your talk”

• Role model desired behaviours
• Coach, mentor and teach

3. Determine appropriate criteria for rewards, praise, and status
4. Select good people and supporters – Put individuals in the right roles
5. Practice open 2-way communication
6. Manage by walking around
7. Develop and communicate values, behavioural expectations and norms – Deliver common and consistent messages and behaviours at all levels
8. Focus on the quality of relationships – respect people
9. Ensure the physical and emotional safety and well-being of employees – Listen to ideas and concerns and take appropriate action
10. Let employees enjoy the rewards of their hard work
11. Help people to understand all the ways the change will be good for the organisation and also for them
12. Promote collaboration and cross-functional problem solving
13. Provide stability and consistency
14. Promote creativity, innovation & learning – Within boundaries remove obstacles and encourage rule breaking
15. Create personal responsibility for results
16. Provide employees with feedback
17. Create a sense of identity, ownership and pride of work
18. Provide development opportunities, new skills and fresh knowledge
19. Provide career opportunities
20. Provide challenges and challenging opportunities
21. Impose real-time consequences that matter
22. Be connected to your community

Continuously improve your chances for project success: Whitepaper 3 || kpmg.com/nz ||

Effective management of major projects relies on three key concepts:

1. early planning and organization
2. stakeholder communication and project controls integration, and

• Continuous improvement.

This third instalment of a three-part series, outlines the third key component in managing a major project, continuous improvement……A collaborative culture – where information is exchanged informally and through multiple channels – is preferable for inspiring continuous improvement.

From lean to lasting: Making operational improvements stick

The broader challenge underlying such problems is integrating the better-known “hard” operational tools and approaches—such as just-in-time production—with the “soft” side, including the development of leaders who can help teams to continuously identify and make efficiency improvements, link and align the boardroom with the shop floor, and build the technical and interpersonal skills that make efficiency benefits real.

Why do continuous improvement initiatives fail to sustain? By Thomas Liesener – The four most commonly occurring hot spots are: lack of will, support, commitment and leadership from (senior) management; not right metrics selected, monitored and reviewed (for CI and change); lack in professional human development / trainings and career pathing; not right and enough resources allocated or available for implementation and projects.

Sustaining the continual improvement will find as many variants as required by the as differing needs of differing circumstances, varying by the degree in which the people involved vary 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 continuous improvement sustains in thrives in the culture of people who feel involved, who keep evolving and openly share their views and feelings.

The journey of the continuous improvement never ends.

We will now turn to our regular sections:

Bill Troy, ASQ CEO presents four guest posts:

A Day With the Future of Quality – Edwin Garro presents a very intimate documentation of his visit to a junior high school class at the San Rafael de Poás Technical High School, Alajuela, Costa Rica. The Quality and Productivity Technical program was conceived as long term answer to shortage of skilled quality technicians. The visits talks about aspirations of the students of the program.

Big Data and Quality Professionals – by Ponmurugarajan Thiyagarajan – Big data is in play when data size is huge (Volume), moves in high speeds (Velocity), comes in variety of forms (Variety) and in varied quality (Veracity) which conventional database systems cannot efficiently process.

Analytics built over big data enable organizations to process structured and unstructured data to derive useful intelligence and provide actionable insights for end-users.

This has interesting implications for quality professionals who may become involved with big data efforts. Assurance of quality is key in such projects: data clean-up must happen in an automated fashion and reconciliation reports to be produced in real-time to track quality parameters. Thus, relevant tools need to be built for quality assurance. It will be interesting to see how quality tools such as Plan-Do-Check-Act, the 7 quality tools (Fishbone diagram, Check sheets, Control charts, Histogram, Pareto Charts, Scatter Diagrams, Flow Charts) etc., can be customized for a big data project.

Facing Cultural Barriers by Leaders to Strengthen a Culture of Quality – by Luciana Paulise – company culture is modeled upon top management behavior. So, in effect, leaders need to change their behavior first if they want to change the entire company culture—and they have to do it through a systemic model considering four types of intelligence, viz. spiritual, intellectual, physical and emotional.

Talking To the C-Suite About Quality – by Dr. Suresh Gettala – emphasizes the following five rudiments that are indispensable when talking about quality to the top management:

1. The long term – short term continuum
2. The Language of Metrics
3. Economic case for Quality
4. Success Anecdotes
5. “Big Q” Approach

The current month episode of ASQ TV is: Quality in Pop Culture . Celebrate World Quality Month by watching examples of quality appearing in pop culture. Quality touches nearly all aspects of society. And it’s not surprising to see it in mainstream entertainment—whether it’s being satirized for its seemingly complicated tools and methods, or indirectly referenced for how it improves our lives.

For the present month, our ASQ’s Influential Voice is Bill Troy, the CEO of ASQ.

We have been regular visitor to his View From the Q.

We had taken our first look at View from Q in September 2013, when it was under the guidance of the then ASQ CEO, Paul Borawski.

Presently, we seem to have reached the end of the present list of ASQ Influential Voices. We will take a different approach to visiting the views of ASQ Influential Voices, beginning January 2016.

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