Tag: Risk management

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – Volume XII – March 2024 Edition

Welcome to March 2024 edition of the XIIth volume of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

The theme for the XIIth volume of our Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs is The Defining Trends of Quality Management – Raising The Bar.

For the present episode, we will take up managing the enterprise risks in the changing environment.

With the implementation of ISO 9001:2015, risks and opportunities have become the cornerstone of ISO standards. These standards define risk as “the effect of uncertainty on objectives, whether positive or negative.” This definition shifts the understanding of risk away from the possibility of a negative outcome and toward the uncertainty itself.

The world today is in the throes of permacrisis – a world in permanent crisis, grappling with profound, persistent, ongoing challenges.[1]

In the present-day world, the uncertainty comes not only from the changes but the rate at which these changes happen. The firms able to effectively deliver change will thrive and are more likely to emerge stronger from these changes. Effective change boils down to directing energy and aligning efforts toward three key elements:[2]

  • The strategy and thinking (The Head)
  • The people and behaviors (The Heart)
  • The underlying infrastructure (The Guts)

The types of risks are normally classified as:

Of these risks, financial, economic and technological risks are the domains of specialists in the respective field. So, we will not include these in the discussions here. We ill take up the other three types – strategic, compliance and operational risks for brief discussion in the next episodes.

And, of course, the one related to climate change risks, too.

Further reading:

We will now turn to our regular sections –

@ ASQ TV, we will listen to 2023 Most Viewed. The top one was Quality Culture.

More Material on the subject @ Culture

Finally, we take up the article Quality Headline: ISO now REQUIRES management to consider “climate change’ in your MSS By Roderick A Munro – Effective immediately, all MSS requirements have added two new statements to organization’s current registration.(These can be found across 35 standards with the notation of “Amd 1:2024 (amendment)” and are free to download..)

The additions are:

4.1 – Add the following sentence at the end of the subclause:

“The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue.”

4.2 – Add the following note at the end of the subclause:

“NOTE 2 Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.”

It appears that ISO has also released several free publications talking about how ISO is working with worldwide stakeholders to address climate change. Some of the free downloads include:

PUB100449 Climate change adaptation

PUB100271 Environment Climate Change mitigation

PUB100067 ISO and climate change

ISO Climate Action Toolkit

Climate action toolkit: case studies

I look forward to your views / comments / inputs to further enrich the theme of The Defining Trends of Quality Management – Raising The Bar.

Note: The images or video clips depicted here above are through courtesy of respective websites who have the copyrights for the respective images /videos.

[1] Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Trends in 2024

[2] Managing change risk – Ramy Farha, Chris DeBrusk, and Antonio Tugores

Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs – May 2020

Welcome to May 2020 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

For the year 2020, we have chosen the core subject of Revisiting Basic Quality Concepts w.r.t. the sustained success of the organization As of now we have visited

We take up Risk Based Approach as our core concept this month–

The most prevalent change that the advent of 21st century has witnessed is the extremely dynamic rate of change. If change was the constant of later part of 20th century, it is almost becoming beyond human comprehension rapid rate of change that is becoming the new-normal with passing of every year of the present century. This rapid change is making what w=is already ‘known’ now ‘known unknown’. The uncertainty that this rapid rate of change ushers in creates the world around extremely fluid.

For our present purpose of “Revisiting the Basic Quality Concepts’ we will briefly look at two articles published in HBR – one in 1994 and the one in 2012.

The first article, A Framework for Risk Management  by Kenneth A. Froot, David S. Scharfstein, Jeremy C. Stein  (November–December 1994 Issue of HBR) is based on finance specific perspective of Risk.

The risk-management paradigm rests on three basic premises:

      • making good investments.
      • to making good investments by generating enough cash internally to fund those investments.
      • maintaining adequate cash flow

A risk-management program, therefore, should have a single overarching goal: to ensure that a company has the cash available to make value-enhancing investments.

By recognizing and accepting this goal, managers will be better equipped to address the most basic questions of risk management.

If we paraphrase the message of this article for the organization as whole, we understand that basic aim of risk management practices is to ensure that while maintaining its near and medium term operating parameters the organization should sustainably manage its competitiveness in the areas of its core competence, as relevant to its present and future context.

The second article, Managing Risks: A New Framework by Robert S. Kaplan and Anette Mikes (June 2012 Issue of HBR), places the risk in a more broader perspective .

The article presents a new categorization of risk.

Category I: Preventable risks.

Category II: Strategy risks

Category III: External risks

The article goes onto examine the individual and organizational challenges inherent in generating open, constructive discussions about managing the risks related to strategic choices. The authors argue that companies need to anchor these discussions in their strategy formulation and implementation processes.

The authors caution the organizational leadership by bluntly stating that  managing risk is very different from managing strategy.

Active and cost-effective risk management requires managers to think systematically about the multiple categories of risks they face so that they can institute appropriate several and collectively interactive processes for each.

An approach based on adherence to minimum regulatory standards and avoidance of financial loss creates risk in itself. In a passive stance, companies cannot shape an optimal risk profile according to their business models nor adequately manage a fast-moving crisis.

In conclusion, the article looks at how organizations can identify and prepare for non-preventable risks that arise externally to their strategy and operations.

A thought provoking paper – Value and resilience through better risk management by Daniela Gius, Jean-Christophe Mieszala, Ernestos Panayiotou, and Thomas Poppensieker –  at Risk Insight studies by McKinsey and Compony provides a specific actionable perspective  –

More rigorous, debiased strategic decision making can enhance the longer-term resilience of a company’s business model, particularly in volatile markets or externally challenged industries..

Organizations need to manage their operations such that investments in product quality and safety/ environmental or societal expectations standards adopted by it can bring significant returns. And enable processes that are less prone to disruption when risks materialize.

To achieve standing among customers, employees, business partners, and the public, companies can apply ethical controls on corporate practices end to end.

Building robust, effective risk management is three-dimensional project: 1) the risk operating model, consisting of the main risk management processes; 2) a governance and accountability structure around these processes, leading from the business up to the board level; and 3) best-practice crisis preparedness, including a well-articulated response playbook if the worst case materializes..

Having accepted that uncertainty is a constant in business, robust risk management can help companies adapt and thrive. How risk management can turn a crisis into an opportunity is a re[presentative case study that demonstrates how using risk management processes and structures to identify and mitigate a wide variety of risks, even when what arises is not one of the feared scenarios, the business will be in a stronger position to respond to crisis and grow.

Risk Based Thinking and the risk management are very actively debated and documented topics in the management academics and the practice.

In a limited span of our present view, we recognize that by recommending these two additional readings –

To conclude, every organisation should see risk-based thinking as an opportunity and a step in the right direction of attaining the sustained success.

[N.B. – Detailed note on Risk Based Approach can be read / downloaded by clicking on the hyper link.]

We will now turn to our regular sections:

In the series the Organizational Culture, we have taken up  Organizational culture’s relationship with organization’s strategic direction. The critical message is that hat whatever form the relationship between organization’s culture and organization’s strategic direction shapes, in order to attain the sustained success, the culture and strategy should seamless aligned. .

We now watch ASQ TV, wherein we look at a few relevant videos from the archive:

  • Quality as Strategy – Greg Watson, ASQ past chair and ESTIEM professor, asks viewers if they believe there is, “a difference in having quality strategy or Quality as strategy?”

Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems posting for May 2020 –

  • Growth – It is natural to focus on our strengths and pretend our weaknesses don’t exist. To grow, however, requires that we admit where we’re weak and then work to strengthen those aspects of our life – personal and professional…Choose to embrace and engage those opportunities now while placed in front of us. Embrace these opportunities even though they may seem a little uncomfortable….And as we grow, the positive possibilities will grow even more superlative in our world.

I look forward to your views / comments / inputs to further enrich the subjects of Basics of Quality and Organizational Culture and their role in Creating and Maintaining Sustained Success.

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, 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 Management Process - ISO 31000

RIsk_Proability_Effect
                             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 –

Jim's Gems

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 – December 2013

Welcome to December 2013 edition of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

For the current edition, we have captured more than the usually presented quantum of information from the selected articles.

We have also experimented with the presentation format. Each of the article title appears with its hyperlink to the original article as a bullet point, followed by key idea of the article. My interventions are in italics in verdana fonts.

Firstly, let us look at ISO’s definition of quality and risk.

– Quality is the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfils requirements (ISO 9001).

– Risk is effect of uncertainty on objectives (ISO 31000).

We even could define an objective as a requirement for a specific characteristic, so as to integrate quality and risk management.
(For more information and study, do visit) Reference

– ICH (2005). Harmonised tripartite guideline quality risk management. Current step 4, 9 November 2005. Website:  http://www.ich.org/fileadmin/Public_Web_Site/ICH_Products/Guidelines/Quality/Q9/Step4/Q9_Guideline.pdf

– Popescu, Maria; Dascslu, Adina (2011). Considerations on Integrating Risk and Quality Management. Annals of “Dunarea de Jos” University of Galati. Years XVII-no 1/2011. Website: http://www.ann.ugal.ro/eco/Doc20011_1/PopescuM_DascaluM.pdf

– Van Nederpelt, Peter (2012). Object-oriented quality and riks management. New York/Alphen aan den Rijn: Lulu Press/Microdata. Website: http://www.oqrm.org/English

One of the marks of great leaders is that they ask great questions.  How did they learn those great questions and where could you learn some to ask?
Five great questions – Mike Rother, at University of Michigan, has pulled together a set of five very useful questions that prove remarkably effective at helping organizations improve.  They are:

  1. What is the target condition?
  2. What is the current condition?
  3. What are the obstacles, and which ONE are we working on now?
  4. What is the next step / experiment we can do to deal with that obstacle and what do we expect? And
  5. How soon can we go and see what we have learned from that step?

Transparency is a key factor in sustaining trust in high-performing organizations. And that, in turn, helps drive innovation.

In a recent study at a manufacturing company, for example, my lab found that organizational trust had a positive association with closeness among employees. And we found that those in the top quartile of colleague closeness were 22% better at solving a difficult problem with others. They also enjoyed working on this problem 10% more than those in the lowest quartile of closeness.

The lesson: People innovate better as a group, and when they trust those in the group, creativity emerges. As Peter Drucker wrote, “Teams are based on mutual trust and mutual understanding.”

Fostering such a culture is a great way to help any organization fly high.

For many, quality suggests the superiority of design, materials, or workmanship in a product or service. You may think of high-end brands like Mercedes, Gucci, or even Apple. However, “quality” is vital to every business, even if the target customer is at the low-end or mass market.
Seven principles that provide a foundation for improving the quality:

  1. You can and must manage quality
  2. Processes, not the people, are usually the problem
  3. Find and fix the root cause of the problem.
  4. Quality must be measured
  5. Strive for continuous quality improvement
  6. Every person is responsible for quality
  7. Quality is a long term investment

Have you ever noticed how asking for feedback sometimes invites frivolous, nonsensical, and insignificant information?
A request for feedback is not an envelope that must be filled with something/anything just  to get it off your desk. A request for feedback is:

  • An invitation to engage in an important dialogue… one that you can decline if you’re not available or have nothing to offer.
  • A sacred trust… an opening from someone who values your opinion and is making him/herself vulnerable in the process.
  • A moment in time when you can make a significant difference – to a person, process, or project.

The opportunity to offer feedback in support of others is serious business. So to make sure that your feedback is focused rather than frivolous, ask yourself the following questions.
– How hard am I having to work to come up with an answer?
– How important is it?
– How much am I willing to invest in helping the person address it?
Feedback requests aren’t obligations that require you to go through the motions and check the boxes. They are an honor bestowed upon you by someone who believes that you have something to offer.

We had taken a brief look at World Quality Month in our November 2013 edition. In the present edition we will take a detailed look.

The purpose of World Quality Month is to promote the use of quality tools in businesses and communities. Quality tools, such as flowcharts and checklists, reduce mistakes and help produce superior products. Quality principles could reduce headline-making errors, like food safety, toy recalls, and financial disruptions. World Quality Month calls on people who use quality tools to share their knowledge by submitting their stories to illustrate the value of quality principles. Success Stories is about learning how and sharing your story about the use of quality to make the world more efficient and profitable, whether on job or on or in the community. Knowledge Resources has collected popular videos, research articles and blogs about quality from around the world, to help the spread the word about the quality. Quality Events lists events happening over the world.

The Chartered Quality Institute has presented 10 of the best World Quality Day events.

  • We now take a look at BMJ Quality Blog and recent posts on the blog to capture the opportunity, for a closer look at the way medical fraternity views the quality:
  1. Coordinated Care and a Hundred Reasons to Be Cheerful /
  2. How to run a Quality Improvement Project (whilst working full time as a junior doctor) /
  3. Quality Improvement: Making the leap /
  4. BMJ Quality Improvement Reports: This is just the beginning… /
  5. Compassionate Care – Whose Job is it Anyway?

We would now take up our regular subjects. We begin with a visit to a Quality Institution.

  • The Chartered Quality Institute  is the chartered body for quality management professionals. Established in 1919, it gained a Royal Charter in 2006 and became the CQI shortly afterwards.

The philosophy that came with the new name was simple… ‘through innovation and care we create quality’. This is something that we now base all our activity on and will continue to do so.

The article refers to retirement of Sachin Tendulkar from his last leg of active cricket career.
His greatest legacy lies in the long line of batsmen dedicated to following his example and countless others aspiring to follow in his footsteps.
Coinciding with the anniversary of World Quality Day, when busy minds have a chance to reflect on past achievements and future trends in quality, what better time to reflect on our quality legacy? By “our” I mean not just that of our organisations, but our personal legacy.

We agree(d) that, in the spirit of World Quality Day this year, we would each undertake to make time for the people around us – customers, colleagues, suppliers – and yes, even our families, to better understand problems and perhaps identify some opportunities for innovation and change.

  • Whilst on the subject of expanding the ambit of Quality to every other sphere of our activities, October (2013) Roundup @ A View from the Q, presents a wide spectrum of views by ASQ’s Influential Voices bloggers.

Quality can and should be used outside the traditional manufacturing sector. That’s not news to anyone who works in quality and has seen how the field has expanded beyond its industrial quality control roots. Yet the expansion of quality is not without its challenges or some disagreement as to how quality techniques can be incorporated “outside quality”.

Learn why ISO 9001:2008, one of the world’s best known standards, is being revised. Then hear about the how and why of auditing standards. Plus, tips for auditors to help them prepare. For the full interview with Auditing expert and ASQ fellow Dennis Arter, visit The How and Why of Auditing for the tips and advice for auditors and auditees.

Edwin GarroEdwin Garro is an industrial engineer and entrepreneur from Costa Rica. He is the CEO of PXS Performance Excellence Solutions, the training and consulting firm focused on organizational excellence. He is also involved in several startups. He blogs about all aspects of excellence in Spanish on PXS Global.  Visit Edwin’s Blog ›› PXS Solutions Performance Excellence.

His site contains a page on Resources, covering topics like, INNOVATION | CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT | FINANCIAL ITEMS | OTHER ARTICLES AND LINKS OF INTEREST.

To all the readers of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs, I wish a great ending of 2013 and a very happy, momentous, “quality” 2014………