How to Improve
Posted on December 12, 2006 Comments (10)
My management philosophy is guided by the idea of seeking methods that will be most effective.* There are many ways to improve. Good management systems are about seeking systemic adoption of the most effective solutions. What this amounts to is learning about the ideas of Deming, Ackoff, Ohno, Chirstensen, Scholtes, Womack… and then adopting those ideas. In doing so learning about management tools and concepts as they are applied to your work.
Here is a simple example. Years ago, my boss, was frustrated because an award was sent to the Director’s office to be signed and the name was spelled wrong (for the third time in a short period). After the first attempts my boss suggested these be checked and double checked… Which they already were but… I was assisting with efforts to adopt TQM and the time and when she told me the problem I asked if the names were in the spell checker? They were not. I suggested we add them and use the system (automatic spell checking) designed to check for incorrect spelling to do the job. Shifting from first looking to blame the worker to first seeing if their is way to improve the system is a simple but very helpful change to make.
This example is simple but it points to a nearly universal truth: if an improvement amounts to telling people to do their job better (pay attention more, don’t be careless, some useless slogan…) that is not likely to be as effective as improving the process. The example includes ideas such as poka-yoke (mistake proofing), respect for people and root cause thinking. I find it most effective to apply tools within an system that has some understand of the management concepts of Deming, lean, six sigma…
The tools by themselves can be useful but it is much easier for them to be misapplied when there is not a more comprehensive understanding. If an organization wants to commit to a serious effort to improve that does not mean that improvement must wait for this education. But it does mean the most effect way forward is to initially strive to improve performance and at the same time build the capacity of the organization by building a broad understand of these ideas. Building that capacity is an investment that will pay off over the long term (and can be “funded” using the gains made using the tools and concepts).
* Update – in re-reading this my first sentence strikes me as a bit obvious, to the point that it is meaningless. Let me state it another way. I am not focused on getting the best result this minute, I am focused on finding the best methods that will produce the best results over the long term (predictable, repeatable system performance). I do not believe that the best management system is one that relies on heroic effort (fire fighting, large sacrifices…). That is most often the sign of failed management not successful management. CMMI covers this idea well.
Categories: Deming, Management, Process improvement, Quality tools, Respect
Tags: build capacity, continual improvement, Deming, management, managing people, Quality tools, tips
10 Responses to “How to Improve”
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January 1st, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
Read 11 great posts on management improvement ideas, and lean more about several management blogers…
July 29th, 2007 @ 6:53 pm
I see building improvement capacity of the organization, which largely means building the capacity of the people, as an extremely important focus of improvement efforts…
August 21st, 2007 @ 8:50 am
Often the two go hand in hand – there is little more educational than actually participating in using quality/lean/improvement tools and concepts to solve your own problems. That is the best way for managers to learn about lean thinking…
October 1st, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
What they are saying is: if you know of a problem but don’t know of a solution I would rather have my company continue to have that problem than admit some of my staff don’t know how to fix it…
July 28th, 2008 @ 3:17 pm
In meetings writing down decisions (what is the issue, who is going to do what…) is very helpful. It is very easy for people to think people agree to some somewhat clear statements made in the meeting. Only later it becomes obvious several people have different understandings…
July 28th, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
With an understanding of the systems, and interactions, people can make the distinction between simple changes that are very unlikely to have an undesirable affect later and other types of changes…
December 1st, 2008 @ 7:06 pm
The question of where to start improvement is not an ‘either/or’ choice of top-down or bottom-up approach. The place to start is both…
January 3rd, 2009 @ 7:53 pm
[...] them to understand management improvement ideas. My efforts in this vein are focused on two things: building organizational capacity (and their individual capacity) and attempting to move them from dissatisfaction, or satisfaction, [...]
April 9th, 2011 @ 8:23 am
[...] evidence based management, focuses on customer value, improves processes rather than blames people, builds the capacity of the organization over time…) then quality is everyone’s [...]
November 15th, 2011 @ 9:49 pm
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