Every movement needs a champion. When I first got involved in Quality in the early 1990s, our champions at the time (to the best of my recollection) were Motorola and Ericsson. They were quoted, cited, lauded, these boys were our darlings

Strangely, their role as champions came to an end not as the result of what we’d consider a classic “quality Problem”, in that there were no scandals, no products started flipping out, nothing like that. No, their reign came to an end when they got pezzled by the more agile, visionary and opportunistic Nokia in the market place. They came from nowhere and overtook the two giants by a strategic master stroke. They identified that there were more kids than businessmen, and they made a product that would be attractive to kids. Simple, but quite brilliant as a concept, and they executed it wonderfully well

We looked for a new champion and the mantle was bestowed upon Toyota. So the quality blogosphere has been to a large extent dominated by Toyota over the past 10 years, with that company’s practices being held up as models for the rest of us. Now it looks like there will be another changing of the guard

Anyway, I’m more than a little intrigued as to who will step up to the plate. So much so that I put out a shout on LinkedIn yesterday just to see who my peers were prepared to nominate

I was not too surprised when the question stirred a lot of interest and response. Right now “Toyota stories” are creating the buzz. I was more surprised to find that most of the responders were guessing that our new champion would again emerge from the automotive sector. It was almost like that time when all Popes had to be Italian, that the thought of a champion outside automotive was, apparently, to many unlikely

Only time will tell of course, but personally I yearn for our new champion to be one of those types that is good at a range of “qualities” – a bit like a Nokia. Conformity is one thing (making things that last and don’t break), but I have a fondness for companies that manage to align that reliability with a strategic awareness that blows away the competition on all fronts. I’m not seeing one of those in automotive just now

Anyway, I’ll be watching the landscape with interest and in time I’m sure we’ll see who the new Pope will be. If you have any ideas, please add your ten cents with a comment. I always reply

Post from: Capable People Blog

Last week I published a review of ISO 9004:2009. In it I noted just how “EFQM” it was. That sparked a short exchange between Mark Harbor and I on Twitter about the merits of the EFQM self-assessment approach and the limitations of the typical ISO 9001 audit-driven approach. Something from that debate concerned me and it was a while before I could put my finger on what it was. Now I think I have

It is my firm belief that when we compare EFQM and ISO 9001 the strength of one framework is the weakness of the other and vice versa. In other words, what one framework does well, the other does badly, and the match is almost a perfect negative

In this post I’m going to try to explain exactly what I mean by that

My history with EFQM and ISO

My involvement with each model goes well beyond academia. Those of you who know me from Capable People will be aware that I’ve been training ISO 9001 lead auditors for about ten years, however prior to that, in a past life (in the 1990s) I worked extensively with the EFQM Model. I assessed on numerous occasions for the UK Excellence Award and the North East Excellence Award, trained assessors for the North East Excellence Award on a couple of occasions, and also got involved in upwards of 50 internal EFQM self-assessments for various organisations. It is from these direct experiences that I draw my conclusions

The reason I found it necessary to describe my battle scars, particularly with regard to the EFQM Model, is simply because it works so well on paper. If you’d never been through the pain of self-assessment, and suffered the frustration of post-assessment inertia, you’d never guess it had a single fault … but it does

The strengths of the EFQM approach

Frankly the EFQM approach has a few faults, but let’s start with the strengths, because the glass might just be half-full. I’ll try and list them;

• Its criteria covers strategic processes in far more detail than ISO 9001
• It does the “systems approach” better too
• Its criteria are “weighted” and identify that some processes are more critical than others (which they are)
• It does “leadership” in a more detailed and academically sound way
• It makes a more concerted effort to direct assessors to identify cause and effect relationships (sometimes in vain of course, but it tries, nonetheless)
• It includes financial/business results and some financial processes within its criteria (not simply “quality”)
• It directs assessors to examine the integrity and breadth of “results” in a better way, including an appreciation of direct and indirect measures, and the benefit of a balanced range of metrics
• It actually has criteria that support the “Involvement of People” quality principle
• EFQM self assessment is surprisingly good fun, if you like that sort of thing

The weaknesses of the EFQM approach

Although it has strengths it does have its significant weaknesses or, in EFQM language, Areas For Improvements (AFIs). These are what I consider have always been the most significant ones;

• The use of documented evidence or the requirement to provide “proof” (as opposed to testimony) within the self-assessment process is usually limited
• Although the criteria, in theory, covers strategic issues, financial measures and results, the output from assessment will only ever be as good as the inputs allow. In my experience of going through numerous assessments, there is an almost universal reluctance from the senior team to allow unfettered access to this sensitive information “warts and all”. Therefore the principle of “Garbage In – Garbage Out” (GIGO) usually applies
• Although the criteria includes financial performance, it does not do it in sufficient enough detail to allow a realistic assessment of the sustainability of the business. Assessors may well look at how budgets are allocated and managed, which is a good thing in itself, but sustainability is the $10,000 question. Consequently there have been numerous examples of award winners getting into commercial difficulties a very short time after receiving an EFQM based award. It could therefore be argued that the model awards a deceptively high score for companies that are going out of business albeit in an “excellent” way. This feature may well partially explain why it seems to have retained its popularity a little longer within the public sector in the UK. In this sector financial management more or less is management of budgets, and the issue of commercial sustainability is not really a factor in the mix
• The assessment does not identify any clear “rights” and “wrongs” – just a set of “coulds” and “could do betters”. Fair enough, you might think, but in my experience that almost always leads to strangulation of the process by inertia once the assessment is complete. Typically the assessment will yield upwards of 150 strengths and 150 AFIs, with no direction on priorities (that is for the company to decide). The problem is that this wealth of data  usually completely overwhelms the organisation and brings the process of improvement via self assessment to a sudden stop. You can have too much information
• The process, done properly, is incredibly hungry on resources and often struggles to satisfy even the briefest of cost versus benefit analysis

I must confess that between the years 1994-1999 there was no bigger disciple of EFQM than I. However, after a few years, Groundhog Day well and truly kicked in. I looked back over the fifty or so assessments that I’d been involved in and struggled to identify even a small hand full that had delivered real improvements. That is, improvements that I felt the organisation could not have identified anyway, simply by intuition. The fact was that most companies already knew fine well what their biggest problems were before the process began, and I could see in the faces of many a senior manager during the assessor feedback an expression that suggested “this is an expensive way of telling us what we already knew”. I’ve heard senior teams criticised on numerous occasions for a lack of “buy-in” or “commitment”, but sometimes you need to see things from their perspective. After a while I found myself asking, hand on heart, “is this an effective use of so much resource?”

My biggest criticism, however, is that these weaknesses have existed within the EFQM framework for almost 20 years. They are actionable, but the guardians of the model have done little to resolve them. Is that continuous improvement?

EFQM and ISO 9001

Each framework having more or less the exact opposite strengths and weaknesses actually carries a thick irony – the solutions are staring us in the face. To be fair, there has been some movement on the ISO 9001 side to incorporate some of the EFQM strengths. This was seen most obviously when ISO 9000:2000 was published. The under-pinning “8 principles of quality management” were introduced, as were some new EFQM-influenced criteria, most notably Customer Satisfaction and Continual Improvement. However, to my eyes, this was done in a very superficial and even a clumsy way. The clauses were brief and ill defined, leading to a large degree of elasticity in the way the are applied. Now we also have ISO 9004:2009, which moves even further in the EFQM direction. However, in Mark’s words, “does it ever deliver truly strategic information?” Probably not

And ISO 9001 does have its strengths

There is clear potential for a meeting of minds between the frameworks. For all its weaknesses, ISO 9001 has the inarguable strength that it requires auditability and proof. An ISO 9001 audit may not be strategic but, done properly, it should at least be factual, reliable and performed in a reasonably cost-effective way. ISO 9001 systems also usually benefit from two levels of independent scrutiny and regulation (again maybe not perfect but its there). Plus ISO 9001 certification is worldwide and widespread and it has found a way (by fair means or foul) to role out a commercially viable model and system of assessment

The conclusion? Put both frameworks in a blender and turn it on. We might just end up with a half-decent smoothie

3rd December 2009: Update to this article

Matt Fisher posted a very useful comment to this post yesterday and told us that the most recent EFQM revision has taken some of these issues on board

Here’s a link to a press release on the subject, from EFQM

The criteria has in fact been expanded with regard to sustainability. On a first review it does appear to relate to environmental as opposed to economic sustainability (profitability in other words), which was the weakness to which I was referring in my post

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How many people really understand “root cause”? How many people really make a serious attempt to apply clause 8.5.2c of ISO 9001 in the correct spirit? How many auditors (presumably for a quiet life) are quite prepared to be complicit in this charade?

These questions and more are considered by Mike Mickelwright in this funny little video clip. We ALL know what he is talking about, right?

Post from: Capable People Blog

I got some good news a couple of weeks ago. I have been invited to speak at the IRCA 2010 Conference in Yokohama in June. I’ll also be running some workshops on the days preceding this event, which I’ll make sure are good fun. Getting involved with this event is a great honour for me and also a great opportunity. They’re interested in my views on quality in the 21st century, and its impact on the traditional view of 3rd party auditing, and they want me to develop this theme for the event

Third party quality auditing has a few weaknesses and a somewhat tarnished image. There’s a teeny financial conflict of interest in the mix, standards can be applied in a very elastic way and auditing can have a compliance-heavy bias, without taking a more “overall view”. As things are, few people would see something like ISO 9001 certification as any sort of guarantee we’ll get great service. For years you could say we’ve needed a people’s champion with real teeth, finally I think we’re starting to get just that

I’ve noticed how effective the use of social media such as YouTube and Twitter are becoming as guerilla agents for standards. These outlets are being increasingly used to “out” examples of poor service, and things can go viral pretty quickly. I think this is great. It gives the customer a direct voice and it should help to keep companies on their toes as, like the Spanish Inquisition, it can pounce at any time. Power to the people, you might say. It works a different way to certification, for sure, but in its own way I can see how it could help people make the right choice by giving them some useful information. Is it fair on companies? Who knows. There are many that would argue that if you have nothing to hide, then you’ll have nothing to fear

To illustrate the point, here’s a video clip from YouTube that was originally posted by Maria Palma at People2People Service. This is exactly the type of thing I’m talking about. In this case it is Comcast that gets the red face (you’d hope)

Post from: Capable People Blog

Frankly I am sick and tired of seeing articles and discussions on forums from so-called quality professionals whining that “senior managers” just don’t understand quality. They don’t understand the benefits, it would appear, of ISO 9001. They don’t appreciate the value of the Quality Department and only pay “lip service” to the QMS … and so it goes on

Well whose fault is that?

These simpering laments do nothing other than infuriate me. My question is not “when are senior managers going to appreciate quality?” I’m more interested in finding out when so-called quality professionals are going to make anything more than a half-hearted attempt to understand the dynamics and realities of business, and to truly appreciate the world that the senior team inhabits

“Quality” is a support service. It’s purpose is to support the organisation – sometimes you’d think it was the other way around!

I’ve met hundreds of these “senior managers” and, in my experience at least, there are very few imbeciles. They are generally very capable individuals who are trying to maximise the performance of their organisation and, again in my experience, are generally willing to listen to anyone who has some sound ideas for doing just that. More to the point, they have often learned a thing or two about running a business. So why don’t they “get” quality? … Why indeed

Its not just me who thinks this way, I might add. Philip Crosby famously suggested that Quality Professionals needed to be able to speak the language of the boardroom (dollars) in order to be effective in their job, but thirty-odd years on it would seem that this particular penny is still yet to drop. Fair enough, you do get the occasional MD who takes an interest and learns the lingo, but frankly, why should they be the ones that have to to learn the new language?

Here’s another inconvenient truth while we’re on the subject. Believe it or not, ISO 9001 DOES NOT have the answer to every single business challenge.  Often we find the Quality Department thinks every problem has a “quality solution” – I’ve also found that to be true of other departments, incidentally, HR especially. In truth, of course, myopia is seldom part of the solution, but if the only tool you have in your bag is a hammer, don’t be surprised if every problem looks like a nail …

I suspect this may well prove an unpopular post with many, but sometimes there’s a need for tough love, and right now I’m in the mood to dish it out

It’s not the first time I’ve been down this road either, but my plea  is the same. Come on quality guys, make the effort, and if it doesn’t work, try something else. If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got. There’s a bit of Juran chucked in for good measure

Post from: Capable People Blog

I think most people would agree that the quality of internal auditing (of any discipline) isn’t always what it should be. Typically reports are run off in a rush, with a poor level of detail, calling into question how rigorous the audit process actually was. And as for overall value …

There are a few techniques that people can use to increase the chances that the audit process will have the rigour and depth of scrutiny necessary to generate decent management information, turtle diagrams, for instance. Lately, though, I’ve been looking at how we can borrow part of the EFQM assessment approach to improve our internal audits. In an earlier post I highlighted a few EFQM weaknesses, but I think there is an opportunity to take one of its most simple and easy to apply strengths, and apply it to internal auditing – and it is equally applicable to quality, environmental and health & safety audits

For those of you who don’t know, the EFQM assessment process uses a numerical scoring system. Its not an exact science, of course, but it does help assessors rank and rate comparative data between companies and processes, and maintain a consistent approach. At the moment that scoring system is based on the “RADAR” Scorecard (see below)

The EFQM RADAR assessment approach uses a type of balanced scorecard to encourage the assessor (or auditor for that matter) to ask a series of key questions, namely;

R. To what extent are results used to set targets for process performance?

A. To what extent is a clear approach (procedures for example) defined and understood?

D. To what extent is the approach deployed (i.e. does everyone follow the approach or is deployment patchy)?

A. To what extent is the process assessed (i.e. measurement that asks the question “is it working the way it should”)?

R. To what extent is the process reviewed? (i.e. a review of whether the overall approach is still relevant and suitable)?

My view is that many internal audit systems could benefit from using this type of framework. It would improve the depth and consistency of process scrutiny no end. Internal audit report forms and checklists could be constructed to force auditors to follow the discipline. A similar scoring system could even be used to try to generate comparative data, audit to audit

Its a different approach, right enough, but worth thinking about maybe? Drop me a line if you’re interested in working with me to integrate this approach

Post from: Capable People Blog

The $10000 question. What do customers care most about, standards of service or price? Clearly, in an ideal world, we’d all always want both, but what if it was either/or? To what extent is the customer prepared to sacrifice decent standards of customer service to get the best possible price?

Well it seems like we’ll soon get an answer to that question because “budget” “airline” Ryanair appears hell-bent on testing the tolerance of the customer to shoddy standards of service

Even the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is starting to pass comment. Its not often the OFT uses words like “puerile” to describe a company’s approach to customer service, but they’ve just done so with this outfit. And I’ll bet many of us who have “enjoyed” the Ryanair experience will be easily able to identify with the sentiment

For years Ryanair has been chipping away at the service that they deliver. Continually parring it back to the bare essentials. In the early, heady days of budget airline travel these new boys provided a much needed kick up the back-side to an all too cosy market-place. Their strategy was to get the prices low by streamlining processes and removing a few things that most customers were not that bothered about, such as allocated seating and in-flight meals. But with some the process has become obsessional and lately it seems to have gone a bit far. For example, it may be quite fair to state that a person can avoid the cost of an in flight meal by carrying their own snack on board, but the same argument simply cannot be applied to the use of the toilet. I can’t say whether we’d be allowed to carry a bucket on board a Ryanair flight, but I’d not like to see it tested either way

But its not just the parring back, its the defiant attitude that Ryanair seems almost proud to promote. Never one to pass up an opportunity for free publicity, their rugby shirt wearing chief executive Michael O’Leary is never slow to deliver a personal counter attack to any criticisms that the news channels care to run. This is generally along the lines that the “no frills” service is what the customer must accept if he wants to enjoy their low prices. Put it another way, if they sell at the lowest price and the customer accepts it, then there is no case for complaint about the standard of service. It comes with the turf, get with it. So the low price becomes a bullet-proof excuse for poor service. Its almost as if poor service has become an accepted or even an integrated feature, rather than an undesirable consequence

We need to watch this closely because if Ryanair continues to go the way they have been going, we’ll soon know what the breaking point of the customer is, as they appear to have an unhealthy desire to find it

From a customer service point of view I worry about this approach. I stayed in a Travelodge last week and noticed they were going down that same line, charging extra, for example, to park your car overnight, with steep prices also for the use of the internet. This presents two problems as I see it. First (like Ryanair) you can never really be confident that you know what the final price will be, all add-ons considered. Second, I think it runs the risk of promoting an unhealthy organisational culture. At the start of this post I suggested that in an ideal world we’d all like good service AND the lowest possible price. I have no problem with efficiency, or companies parring back the specification, taking out costly and low value adding features and passing on the saving to the customer, but I do worry about the cultural side effects. Principally a culture of “if you come with us, this is what you get”. So far as service is concerned it often costs little or no more to be nice than to be indifferent. The risk is that staff become obsessed with what constitutes the basic paid-for service, and what should be charged as an optional extra

Looking at Ryanair it looks like the “no frills” strategy has over time promoted a culture, a policy even, of defiant indifference to the customer, and I shudder to think what their complaints policies look like

Ultimately thinking about this has helped me get one thing clear in my own mind:

Service delivery and customer service are not the same thing

Thanks for taking the time to read this post. Please don’t leave before you’ve watched the video clip. It’s a hoot

Click here to view the embedded video.

Post from: Capable People Blog

Here’s a round up of a few ISO 9001 posts from the past couple of years that I think will be most useful for people feeling their way with the standard, or perhaps wondering if it is right for them

ISO 9001 a short overview – a pocket sized summary of ISO 9001 requirements

Permissible exclusions explained – a summary of what can be excluded and under what circumstances

ISO 9001 & continual improvement – what the standard needs with regard to the improvement process

ISO 9001 and the process approach – the process approach explained

Quality Policy and Objectives – what you need to know to get these right

The real benefits of ISO 9001 – don’t listen to consultants. They have a vested interest and half of them have no idea about the economic realities of running a business. Here’s the low down

ISO 9001 for service providers - a translation of the jargon for my beloved followers in the service sector. You are the future

ISO 9001 Internal Auditing – a summary of what you need to know to implement an effective audit program

Changes ISO 9001:2000 to ISO 9001:2008 – a summary and explanation of these largely cosmetic and wholly disappointing set of changes

A comparison of ISO 9001 and EFQM approaches – useful for anyone wondering whether EFQM can help deliver the “next step”

You’ll find even more on these themes by browsing the ISO 9000 category in the left side bar. But these will give any new starters a a decent low down. Hope you find it useful

If you have any further questions, you can contact me here

Post from: Capable People Blog

I was on a quality management discussion forum the other day and stumbled upon an argument that made me wonder if I had lost my sanity

The gist of it was whether or not the management of “risk” had anything to do with quality management and whether an understanding of “risk” was necessarily a knowledge pre-requisite for a QMS auditor. The case for the defence cited that nowhere in ISO 19011 was there any specific reference to “risk”. And on that point, they were quite right – I checked

That really made me wonder whether the “quality fraternity” had actually lost the plot. Or, more to the point, whether they had ever had it in the first place

It started me on a bit of a quest to see if I could unravel any semblance of rationale from this apparent nonsense. After all, it could be just me. So I started by looking in ISO 9000:2005. I found this

“2.8.1 Evaluating processes within the quality management system

When evaluating quality management systems, there are four basic questions that should be asked in relation to every process being evaluated.
a) Is the process identified and appropriately defined?
b) Are responsibilities assigned?
c) Are the procedures implemented and maintained?”
d) Is the process effective in achieving the required results?”

On the face of it that doesn’t introduce much controversy. those are, after all, reasonable questions. But there is no mention of assessing how well risks are controlled, so should there be?

Well I’d have to say “yes” to that, and my reason for that is why should a quality management system be any different to any other management system? If we take the example of ANY other management system, financial, information security, environmental, occupational health & safety, the identification and control of risk is an absolute cornerstone. It is the inarguable starting point. No debate about that at all. So why is “quality” different? What is it about quality management that justifies developing the management system from a completely different starting point, with almost completely different priorities, and to somehow justify side-stepping the whole concept of risk management at every stage?

One question that it does leave unanswered (for me at least) is how this all sits with the inclusion of “quality” within an integrated management system?

So, what do you think? Am I right? Am I the one who has lost the plot? Am I missing something? Seriously, tell me

Post from: Capable People Blog

Here is a link to a comprehensive narrative and analysis of the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster, featuring some quite alarming lapses in the safety management system. It also illustrates the significance of promoting the right culture on the implementation of effective systems

Part 1

Part 2

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