"K" Is For the KEY Principles to Quality
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As always, I want to offer my sincere apology to Sue Grafton for using (stealing??) her approach for the titles of her many outstanding mystery novels for this series of articles that I hope makes YOU a happier and more effective leader working with a truly empowered team that really enjoys what they do! Oh, and if you have not read any of Ms. Grafton novels I highly recommend that you give her a try.
What Is Quality?
“Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”
- Aristotle
The simplest definition I can offer for quality is the “conformance to requirements or expectations.” But that simplicity often doesn’t address the typical real world, that is the Organization’s questions, problems and concerns with quality. So let me try again, quality is having the products or services of your Teamers match or exceed the expectations of your client or customer. Now, let’s make it really simple! You order a cheeseburger with pickles, lettuce, onion, mayo and NO tomato and you GET a cheeseburger with pickles, lettuce, onion, mayo and NO tomato!! Enough said?
Much has been written about quality and improvement by famous writers including Peter Drucker, Tom Peters and Stephen Covey and many, many others but I think that the two writers and thinkers that influenced me the most were Philip B. Crosby and W. Edwards Deming.
The best book that I can recommend to you is Quality Is Free by Philip B. Crosby. It was written in 1979 and I read it in the early 80s as part of a quality improvement program that was started in my Organization’s engineering team (my thanks to Senior Tom). This book introduces the principle of “doing it right the first time” (DIRFT). It dispels the myths that quality costs more or takes longer to achieve. Crosby’s belief was that an organization that started a quality program would have savings returns that more than paid for the costs of the quality program and offered these four major principles for any quality program:
The definition of quality is conformance to requirements. Do your projects meet the requirements or expectations of your client or customer?
The system of quality is prevention.
The performance standard is zero defects.
The measurement of quality is the price of non-conformance.
But my interest in quality didn’t start with Crosby. I started being interested in quality in the late seventies (I’ve always been a geek; you know chess club and debate team in high school!). I had read an article by W. Edwards Deming who had saved Japan from producing poor quality products and services. Perhaps you aren’t old enough to remember when “things” from Japan were terrible, and often the laughing stock of the world. What turned me on to Deming was that he had been teaching quality here in America but was largely ignored. Times were good then! But Japan found him in the early fifties and asked him to help them in their pursuit to improve quality. A number of manufacturers in Japan used his teachings and achieved greatly improved levels of quality and productivity. The improved quality and lower cost created a worldwide demand for products from Japan. But as I said, his teachings were largely ignored here in America! It wasn’t until 1981 when Ford Motor Company with sales falling recruited the services of Deming to jump start a quality movement.
I feel that Deming’s teachings were to say the least way ahead of his time. His basic philosophy was that “The key (to quality) was to practice continual improvement and think of manufacturing as a system, not bits and pieces.”
Deming offers the following Key Principles for management to transform business effectiveness:
Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service.
Adopt the new philosophy. We are in a new economic age.
Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality.
Institute training on the job.
Drive out fear.
Institute leadership.
End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag.
Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement.
Break down barriers between departments.
Eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the work force asking for zero defects and new levels of productivity.
Put everybody to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody’s job.
The bottom line is that W. Edward Deming was the founder of the “total quality management movement.” He and Philip Crosby will provide you with all that you need to know on quality. I highly recommend all of their publications.
Lastly, perhaps you and your Teamers can identify “quality” as what it is not, rather than what it is. I fondly remember one of the first quality improvement launch meetings that I had with my Teamers. The team had a tradition of each member bringing in doughnuts and pastries for sharing with everyone when you had a birthday. I never understood why it was you who brought doughnuts in on your birthday, but anyway everyone loved a good doughnut or pastry and we often starting meetings with doughnuts and pastries “on me.”
But this meeting I arrived with the typical “big white box from the bakery.” I sat the box on the meeting room table and opened it up to share with the team five packages of cheap store bought mini doughnuts! I pushed a package toward each group of my Teamers and said “please help yourself and enjoy!” Their reactions and faces were priceless. This wasn’t the quality that they were used to or expected.
And we all had a “got it” moment that is “what quality isn’t.” Sometimes it is easier to start quality improvement by identifying what is not quality; a process step that often fails, a project hand off between Teamers that has failed or simply training that’s needed. Consider working on the obvious things that aren’t quality to get you started on defining what quality is for you and your Teamers.
Oh, and by the way, I did excuse myself from the meeting above to get another big white box from the bakery filled with the expected goodies and everyone’s satisfaction level went up immediately! Matching expectations will always do that!
“Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.”
- Henry Ford
I wish you empowerment, happiness and every success! - Jonesy