Lesson one was “it’s not the logo”. Apparently lots of companies think that it is. Well, it’s not. Brand is about everything you do. It is what identifies you, what defines you and ultimately what differentiates you. In that respect it can work for good and for bad

If there was one nugget of wisdom that stuck with me it was the advice that consistency was the key. People trust consistency and mistrust inconsistency. It means that, so far as visual queues go, that consistency in your colours, fonts, use of language and your style etc need some firm “do” and “do nots”. For me it also means that I have to be able to walk the talk. So no fibs and no wild exaggerations in other words

Our trust, and ultimately our loyalty, in brand relates to the way we are wired as human animals. In our human relationships we prefer people to be consistent. Truth is more consistent than lies you understand, and we prefer consistency because this is much more likely to be the truth. Inconsistent people are likely to be liars – so we see inconsistency in brand as an indicator or unreliability

So anyway, if you understand nothing else about “brand” this may get you started. It certainly helped me a lot, and continues to do so. Like so may things, it is the simplest of principles that deliver the most valuable lessons

Post from: Capable People Blog

Why do people seek registration?
Check out this thread for some contributions. The simple inarguable truth is that most registered organisations seek registration to meet the requirements of an important customer, or an important prospect. It basically allows the company to bid for work they would otherwise be excluded from, as the customer has defined it as a condition to supply. Is this right? Well, we’ve talked about this in the past. The customer is king, if he says “jump!” we should all say “how high?”

Interestingly, when the benefits of ISO 9001 registration are debated, most people launch into often unquantified justifications revolving around control, conformity and efficiency themes, almost as if doing it mainly because the customer wants it is somehow something to be ashamed of. The fact that it opens doors economically is often overlooked. This obvious economic advantage of offering access to more contracts has to be a major benefit, and “quality guys” should not be afraid of recognising it

Is it a mark of excellence?
Some people might claim that it is but they are just plain wrong. There may well be a decent set of good business practices woven into that clumsy and badly written document, but the requirements set out in ISO 9001 are no more than a base line. Successful certification indicates that the bones of a documented QMS is in place, it is auditable and it is supported by a basic set of management processes and, if we’re lucky, a PDCA theme running through it. The company may be a million miles from world class and may even be going steadily out of business at the same time. So I’m saying, in quality terms, it’s no more than our starter for ten

Why the confusion then?
The ten thousand dollar question, but I can offer a personal opinion. From my own personal experience I find that quality guys don’t speak the language of business, and business guys don’t speak the jargon of quality. That means strategic, commercial and quality people often have parallel agendas and, because the communication and transparency are poor within the processes (the principle that we should all be seeking the same end result, a successful business), is lost in the ensuing conflict and battle for resources. How often do we hear the QA department moaning about poor top management commitment to quality? Time for a common language and a clear focus on what is important to the business and the customer, whichever way we want to badge it up

A business approach to managing quality
Another favourite theme, but let’s expand on it a little this time by exploring the cost of quality in economic terms. Quality, generally, is defined as “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements” or “conformity to requirements” or a variation on that theme. Often “quality” is stated only in product conformity terms, as if that was the only thing that mattered to the customer and, as a consequence, the lower the level of functional defects, the better things are. However there comes a point at which investing in conformity related improvements does not yield any economic benefits. Eventually we reach a point at which (at the current price) we offer the customer a tolerable level of defect, a lower rate of defect may come at a price that the customer is not prepared to pay. So “better quality” (in this situation) increases the chances the customer will seek a cheaper provider, possibly one with an inferior defect rate. So examining the likelihood of repeat business only from a conformity and defect rate perspective is a dangerous mistake to make. Customers care about lots of things. Once the level of defects is tolerable they start to care more about other things. After sales service, response times, ease of dealing with, user-friendliness of contact systems, flexibility, image even. If these are important to the customer, then they become the new conformity

Post from: Capable People Blog

The only problem is, as soon as ISO 9001 is put on the table, it is amazing how this criteria of “Management Commitment” gets assessed, with radically different interpretations of how that commitment must materially manifest itself. For example, is the failure of the Quality Policy Statement to be signed by the Top Guy (or Gal) a fatal weakness? Is it necessarily a weakness at all?

Clearly the contributors to this thread would argue the case for the prosecution. However, let’s be grown up about it for a moment. What actually happens as a result of this “weakness”? Will it affect the ability of  “the workers” to achieve their objectives? Wooooah!!!! Hold on a minute (some might say) if they can’t be bothered to sign the statement that will probably be the thin end of the wedge.

They’ll probably not participate actively in management review, they will probably under-resource quality projects and and and …. and they probably eat babies too! ….. (and then laugh about it later)

Well, wooooah yourselves. If some of those secondary issues are true then that would certainly constitute a lack of commitment that could easily affect the QMS in a detrimental way. However, the fatal weakness is the failure of the management review and resource allocation process. The policy signature “problem” pales into insignificance in the face of these bigger sins. In the same way if we see active participation in objective setting, management review and resource allocation, then the lack of a signature on the policy (again) pales into insignificance. It does not matter one jot either way, If we look at it in a grown up way, which, as it’s ISO 9001, we might not want. Then there is the punchline.

Despite what a lot of third party auditors would have you believe, a signature on the Policy is not even a specific ISO 9001 requirement. Check clause 5.3 yourselves. It may well be assessed through custom and practice as though it is a cornerstone of the standard and some sort of critical success factor, but it is a myth. And (for once) there’s a good reason that it is omitted as a specific requirement and that reason is, from a business risk perspective ….

IT DOESN’T MATTER

Post from: Capable People Blog

The Quality Policy

I’ve written before about just how much the requirement of clause 5.3 underwhelms me. Unlike a lot of third party auditors I just can’t get excited about it. If it were up to me I’d get rid of it completely. But it isn’t up to me so, so for long as it stays, we must find a way to conform in the most appropriate and practical way possible

The purpose of the Quality Policy is to define a statement of intent or management commitment. It is intended to be highly visible, up to date, relevant and communicated. All that is fair enough, but let us not go over board. There are a couple of myths about the Quality Policy that infuriate me

Myth number 1

“The Policy must be signed”

Check the requirements of 5.3 a-e. It does not

Myth number 2

“If you can’t get the Policy right, there is little hope for the rest of the system”

What a load of rubbish!

As I’ve suggested, so long as the Policy is documented, is up to date (correct company name etc) and is reasonably accessible, that’s good enough for me, and if it isn’t one or more of those things, it is a minor non-conformance, and MOVE ON

If I was being really controversial I could actually make the point the W E Deming was opposed to the use of slogans and the like in the workplace. He suggested they were actually counter-productive. If I am totally realistic and grown up about it (irrespective of what Deming says, even though I happen to agree with him) I will say that the Policy does not affect day to day work one jot. Its effect is neutral at best. We should have more important things to look at

Quality Objectives

Now I can get excited about quality objectives. They are the focal point of the continual improvement process. A weakness in this area will have a more fundamental impact on the way a key organisational process works. I feel strongly that we should be doing better here, as I see many organisations with the most woolly and aspirational statements masquerading as “objectives”. So let’s look at what we should be seeing

Clause 5.4.1 requires that the objectives should be consistent with the Policy and measurable. The “consistency” part of that can be quite difficult to audit in a positive way, but it is very easy to audit from a negative perspective. What I mean there is you need to check that there is no obvious clash or inconsistency, and if there isn’t then by default that means it must be consistent. With me so far?

The second part (the measurable bit) means that it should define the direction of the improvement. It should define what you intend to make better, faster or cheaper (in simple terms).Again, there are a couple of myths regarding the application of clause 5.4.1

Myth number 1

“Every part of the organisation must have its own quality objectives”

Well, no they don’t. The organisation needs to identify its organisational priorities for improvement. They may, for example, need to improve the process for supplier selection and evaluation, to meet the requirements of an important new customer. That does not mean that they also need to think about improvement targets for design, sales, admin, stores etc etc. It is completely unreasonable to ask a compny to try to improve all things continuously. they simply won’t have the resources to do that. Provided they have decided what is important and nailed their colours to the mast by defining the priorities as “objectives” that’s fine

Myth number 2

“Quality objectives must be communicated to everyone”

No they don’t. The standard requires objectives to be “established at relevant functions and levels”. In plain English that means that the people who are affected by the objectives, need to know about them, but it’s acceptable to communicate them on a “need to know” basis

Myth number 3

“Objectives must be SMART”

Many people interpret this requirement as objectives must be S.M.A.R.T – but that is not the case. If the objective is defined something like “We will reduce scrap levels” then that is measurable, you can measure a simple reduction. If the objective happens to be described in a S.M.A.R.T way, all well and good, that is good practice, but it is not required … not by clause 5.4.1 that is …

Quality Management System Planning

Hang on? Isn’t this article about Quality Policy and Objectives? Aren’t we going a little off-topic?

The answer to that question, judging by the way most third party auditors look at Policy and Objectives, would seem to be “yes”. After all, what has QMS Planning got to do with defining the Policy and Objectives? Well, so far as the Policy goes, the answer is actually “not much”. So far as the Objectives go, the answer is “lots”

Take a really close look at clause 5.4.2 a sometime. Hidden in there, in a deep recess, are the words

“the planning of the quality management system is carried out in order to meet the requirements given in 4.1, as well as the quality objectives …”

I would really love to take the technical committee up on the way that this absolutely crucial requirement is incorporated with all the priority of an after-thought. It says that our quality objectives need to be supported by a plan, and, as we all know, a “plan” is a statement that defines how we are going to achieve our goals, our methods, responsibilities, milestones, resources etc etc. It is this complimentary requirement that justifies why our objectives (as defined in clause 5.4.1) don’t necessarily need to be S.M.A.R.T – because the detail (the SMART-ness) can be defined within the supporting plan. That means that looking at the objectives and plan together we have the SMARTs that we want and need to see

My problem is that I have seen countless organisations that have never been held accountable for developing a plan to support any of their “quality objectives”. Is that a problem? Yes, because the absence of a plan significantly reduces the chances of achievement. And even if the objective is achieved, if it is achieved without a plan, the process was likely to have been inefficient at best

Anyway, that’s about as much as I have to write on the topic at the moment. I hope it has at least given you some food for thought. If you have any issues with these views please feel free to post your comments. Happy to hear them

Post from: Capable People Blog

Let’s start the story at the beginning. Sometime in 2005 I was on my way back home on a Thai Air flight from Jakarta to Heathrow, via Bangkok. In Bangkok I was joined by a casually dressed, youngish Englishman. One look told me he had some money because his clothes and shoes looked expensive, as was his seat on the plane. After a while we got talking. I told him what I did, he told me what he did. Turned out he was a professional gambler living in Thailand. I was immediately captivated by the glamour of his chosen profession, he seemed keen to talk and while away the hours, I was keen to listen. So in the intervening 12 hours or so I got a pretty good insight into the life of a professional gambler

Well, surprise surprise, it’s not all glamour and it’s not all luck. That was lesson number one and two. The man was a statistician by education, a former mathematics teacher of all things, who had turned a knowledge of statistics to his advantage in the arena of sports betting. The trick to making a profit in the longer term was, apparently, to have an ability to identify when the bookies have got the odds wrong. That’s when you place your bets. They don’t all come off, but the odds start slanting your way as opposed to the way of the bookie. Being able to identify when the odds were wrong involved a working knowledge of statistics, and a better knowledge of the event than the bookie appeared to have, and that usually involved some very painstaking research. He was based in Thailand because the bookies in South East Asia get the odds wrong more often than they do elsewhere. Makes sense

So what were his strategies? Well, here are some that I can remember:

* Bet with a clear head. If you have a favourite team, leave it alone
* Avoid accumulator bets. With each accumulated event, the odds lurch further the way of the bookie
* Do your research. Pick, say, ten football teams a year and study them continually. Find out which games they tend to win, which they lose, which players appear to be key, injury situations etc. This will all give you a clear advantage over the lazier bookies
* Stick to sports you like and understand. You’ll have to study hard, but it will be easier for you if you happen to enjoy the game
* Steer clear of boxing

There were a few others, but that gives a feel for it

Very interesting, (you may say) but what’s this all got to do with Deming? This is (supposed to be) a quality improvement blog, is it not?

Well there is a point to this tale, and here it is

Remember in the earlier post, Deming’s inconvenient truth, I suggested that Deming taught that management decisions should wherever possible be based on hard facts and evidence? But also that a lot of management information is both unknown and unknowable? Well that summarises in a nutshell that business is one big lottery. There are no certainties, and for every success there is a failure. If all management information was knowable there would be a scientific formula to remove all elements of risk from the decision making process. But it isn’t and there isn’t. That is a lot like the world of professional gambling. All bets carry an inherent risk, and professional gamblers accept risk and occasional failure as an unavoidable fact of life. HOWEVER the most successful gamblers use as much Management Information as they can get their hands on to slant the odds their way

That, I propose, is probably as close to an absolute definition of “Management Information”, its uses and limitations, that you’re ever likely to get

As definitions go, it is a bit on the long side. Sorry

Post from: Capable People Blog

The thrust of our discussion centred around a business process that had historically been subject to quite a high level of scrutiny and audit. Right now the organisation concerned was thinking about easing back on the level of sampling for audit purposes in the hope that placing more trust in the abilities of the people would actually have a more positive effect – it would also deliver an added cost saving by reducing the surveillance and monitoring overhead

As a principle it was certainly worth a discussion. Over-scrutiny certainly can have negative consequences. It can impose an additional and unnecessary cost on the process, and it can get up the noses of people who, you’d hope, just wanted to get the job done free of continual interference. I could certainly see the argument

The obvious danger in this is that you get the balance wrong. Not many people would argue for a wholesale switch from a monitoring culture to using trust as the primary control mechanism. That would be very dangerous indeed. Stakeholders generally want to see some sort of hard data relating to process performance, transparency in other words. The trick is getting the level of monitoring right. That is, using just the right amount to give us the data and confidence we need. The problem is that not too many companies think things through carefully enough when they do this. Sampling levels can tend towards being arbitrary. They can be driven by how much resource the company has available (irrespective of things like levels of risk, past problems and the like). So in slack times they have time to do a lot of monitoring, so they do a lot, while in leaner times they have less resource, so they do less

I’ll keep in touch with my contact just to see what happens. I think they understand the general concept of needing to get the level right, and I’ll be really interested to hear just how they do it. Most of us get there by trial and error in my experience and, unpalatable as that sound to quality professionals, that may actually be the most effective technique

What’s the worst case scenario? Well, something terrible happens when the system of trust falls over and when the organisation is held to account for the failure, the only defence is “we decided that the best method of control was simply to trust people to do the right thing”. I’m not sure how well that would stand up … in fact … that reminds me of a highly topical news event over the summer …

Post from: Capable People Blog

The old obstacles are still there, though. The main one being that the systems are not actually designed to be efficient. This is no comment on the will, commitment or talent of the people who work there, you understand, but just on the way the system is set up. It is unintentionally designed to resist efficiency. I will elaborate

There are significant features of public sector systems that make them resist efficiency

• The way budgets are set up and managed
• The system is designed to try and protect its own equilibrium

Budget underspend is a problem not an achievement

As a manager I had a budget. I was given that budget at the start of the year and told to make it last. So I did. I knew that I’d be in trouble if I overspent. I also knew I’d cause myself a headache if I underspent. So I did neither. I, like all of my peers, made it last. This was generally achieved by a combination of two quarters of cautionary spending, followed by two quarters of progressively care-free spending (depending on how much I had left and how quickly I had to get rid of it). If I didn’t spend my budget I knew I’d get less next year, and I didn’t want that if I could avoid it, especially as there was no reward in it for me for giving anything back, and it would only give my staff a harder time next year. So why would I try and save? Who would?

The status quo is the safest option

Every tow or three months I would be asked by the Chief Executive (via his secretary of course) for some “words on quality” for his ministerial briefing. It was my job to make sure he had plenty to talk about, so we did a lot of things on Investors in People, EFQM, Chartermark etc. I don’t want to sound big-headed, but I have a way with words and I could make these activities sound fab-u-lous. No-one ever asked me to justify anything or put numbers on anything (god forbid), so the “quality improvements” it could have been argued, were almost entirely cosmetic – smoke and mirrors. And that, at the time, was good enough. No-one really wanted any of these improvement projects to put anyone’s nose out of joint, so we were channeled towards safe territory. We redesigned forms, we moved photocopiers to reduce travel time, that type of thing. We never did anything like ask “You see that fellow over there? What does he get paid? More to the point, what does he actually do?”  I’ve since heard it called “the elephant in the room” syndrome. Things like identifying underloaded jobs, or over-staffed departments would cause managerial problems and we didn’t need go round creating any of those. Provided we showed a bit of willing, we’d be left alone. That meant the equilibrium of the system was not upset. No-one lost their jobs, had their budgets cut or anything like that. So no-one complained. Then after a while the Government as usual got distracted by something else and we were completely off the hook for a while. You could buy a lot of time with great anecdotes …

Things might be different this time round. I get the impression that this time words will be no good. They’ll need deeds, and deeds with numbers attached. Governments are spent up and need to make some savings to off-set all of those so-called “financial stimuli”. Consequently the option of cosmetic improvement may well be removed this time round, and kicking things into the long grass may prove more difficult

That made me think. If I was a manager in the public sector right now, what would I do? It’s a fair bet that “quality improvement” and “efficiencies” may well become the buzz-words once again, but would I try to steal a march right now and put myself ahead of the game? Score some early points maybe? I’m not sure I would

It could actually work against me. I could end up with the worst of both worlds if I made my savings before I was asked. The big risk would be that I’d make my command a lot leaner, but then this new “lean” position would be used as my starting baseline and I could be asked to deliver yet more on top of that, with no credit being given for my earlier voluntary endeavors. Better I sat and waited till I was ordered to do it, I might decide. That way I’d have more scope to find improvements with it being in its current inefficient state

Now all of those features and quirks I’ve described might sound just plain wrong, immoral even, considering its public money we’re dealing with. But that is the way the system is set up. Don’t blame the people. You would do exactly as they do in the same position – I guarantee that. It will be interesting to see if the new reality acknowledges that the way systems behave are generally down to the way they are designed

——————————————–

As an aside as I write this I am listening to Gordon Brown addressing the Labour Party Conference and he has just used that old “JFK touring NASA talking to a cleaner who says he helps put men on the moon …” quote. Nothing like fresh material. Will his closing joke be about his dog having no nose … ?

Post from: Capable People Blog

ISO 9001:2008 Auditor Transition training is available from Capable People worldwide in an electronic distance learning format

Post from: Capable People Blog

Section 7: Product Realisation
Now here’s a term that’s not even in heavy use in manufacturing. Ask someone to tell you about their “Planning of Product Realisation (clause 7.1)” and more often than not you’ll get nothing more than a vacant expression and maybe some mutterings suggesting you’d better talk to QA about it. Ask them to talk to you about their approach to production planning on the other hand … Ahhhhh! Production planning! Why didn’t you say so? Well …

With a service organisation it’s not quite so straightforward, but the solution is the same – just a simple case of word substitution. Here’s the trick – wherever you see the words “Product Realisation” (Yuk) – just substitute the term “Service Delivery” and hey presto! It works. That means clause 7.1 becomes “Planning of Service Delivery” and it covers our deliveries, shift patterns, hours of work, scheduling of work, roles and responsibilities etc etc. And so it carries on throughout section 7. Easy
Clause 8.3 Control of non-conforming product
This term is lifted straight from its manufacturing origin where it still makes perfect sense, but it translates less easily (surprise surprise) when we attempt to apply it to foreign territory – service industries

In order to understand it better, we need to be clear about what it means historically. Basically in manufacturing applications you make things and every now and again you’ll identify through your product inspections and tests that you’ve made a wrong ‘un. Clearly we don’t want this defective item boxed and packed off to the customer, so we need some sort of procedure by which we identify it and put it safely to one side while we decide if it can be salvaged, or if we have to scrap it. This is commonly known as the “Quarantine Procedure”. All manufacturing facilities will have something akin to a “Quarantine Area” which, at various times will be populated by sorry items waiting to learn their fate. So let’s be clear about one thing. Clause 8.3 is not a procedure for “control of non-conformities” – it is a procedure for a special type of non-conformity where we need to apply some sort of isolation or STOP! to the process. Not all non-conformities require a STOP! as such. For example complaints may require corrective action, but they may not initiate any sort of isolation activity, so we need a broader “Corrective Action” procedure (or procedures) to define what we do with other kinds of problems

So what happens if you don’t make “stuff”? You can’t isolate something that is intangible like a service. Well, yes you can, just not in the same way. If you are a service provider, your product is your service – you may provide financial or legal advice for instance – and these services need to be fit for purpose and do what they’re supposed to. Now it could be that somehow we discover that our service is not doing what it’s supposed to – our financial advice may be out of date and it could fail to take into consideration some new piece of legislation for instance. In that instance we’ve got to take that service off-line till we sort it out. That would be our “quarantine procedure”

It takes some thinking through in some cases, but think it through we must, as I’m sure many of you old hands will have spotted, it’s one of those areas where a procedure is MANDATORY

Lesson over. Hope this helps

Post from: Capable People Blog

It’s an interesting read, but this post isn’t a review of the book. No, the theme of the book, whether or not you agree that Mark Earls is right or totally wrong in what he says, made me realise just how narrow a view of the customer realtionship typical quality frameworks tend to take. They will, for example, encourage the implementation of enquiry handling, ordering and complaints systems. They’ll encourage a systematic approach for agreeing your customer specifications and (lately) encourage you to measure your customers’ satisfaction – but that is about it. Now on one level I could accept that there is nothing actually wrong with any of that, all of those things are good to do, but I do worry about this growing trend of ISO 9001 auditors to exaggerate the scope and nature of their conformity audits. All of a sudden we have “assessors” who “assess” the “business management system”. The problem with statements like that is that firstly they are distracting and secondly, worse, they are factually incorrect. A certification audit to ISO 9001 assesses the degree to which the system conforms to the requirement of the standard – period. To suggest otherwise is just plain wrong, and the area of customer relationship management demonstrates that

Lately we’ve seen a drift towards seeing the terms “quality management system” and “business management system” as synonymous, when they plainly aren’t. If they were, as an example, the scrutiny of the effectiveness of how the business manages its customer relationships would go far beyond the current bits and bobs dotted around ISO 9001. It is a rich and complex subject, awash with strategic planning and subtle techniques executed by people who understand the subject and its underpinning psychologies

I like Seth Godin’s books for a jump start on getting your head round the cornerstones of the human dynamics. Seth writes short books that you can read front to back on a plane. More importantly (unlike Mark Earls) he only tends to tackle one or two subjects in each book. He’s accessible in that respect, even if you could argue that he doesn’t quite give the same value for money as Mark. One point he makes very well in his book “The Dip” is (to paraphrase) if it was easy we’d all be doing it. So success, while clearly possible, is no certainty, and there is real peril in oversimplifying complex concepts by boiling them down into a few mechanistic “do” and “do nots”

If only things were that simple

Post from: Capable People Blog