Hello Mike:

In this article, it is hard to tell when you are writing in a sarcastic voice or when you are serious. Lean has nothing to do with quality? Six Sigma belts are only attratractive as resume pad-ers? I am not supporting or defending anything. I am simply saying I had a hard time determining if any text prior to the conclusion was sarcastic fun or your real position on things.

I don't think "Quality" will be cool in our lifetimes. But I study these ideas becasue they are intrinsically cool to me.

Thank you,

Dirk

Mike,

Thanks for another very provocative article on making quality cool again.  I thought your insight that Deming was a statistician who spoke to Japanese CEOs ... and they actually listened  ...  was an important point.  It seems to me that recent wisdom has been to speak the CEO's language ("$$$$$$ $$$$ $$$$$$$ $$$$$$ $$$$$$$$$???") and they will listen. 

Deming took the opposite approach.  He advocated teaching the CEO about quality.  The Deming chain reaction started with "improve quality" and ended with profitability and growth.  Now it seems we work that in reverse.   We start by trying (often in vain) to describe the financial impact of improving quality and then end up with maybe a few quality projects based on the financial justification.  Have the CEOs changed or have we changed or is it both?  Or maybe time has gone by and mass amnesia has set in. 

I don't know that Deming had all the answers.  But I think he did ask the right questions.  I think that is where we should start.  We should be asking the right questions.  These are questions like:   Why do we spend untold amounts of corporate funds on deciding who is most valuable and how people are ranked?  Why is no understanding of variation used in deciding actions to be taken on key metrics?  Why do we continue to drive Ys when we should be driving Xs?  Why is there so much churn at the top? 

- Mike Harkins

Hi Mike, as always, you bring a provocative message to the fore in a provocative way.  

But you're right, if those of us who were electrified by the quality movement are growing old, we need to find a way to pass on that passion to our children.  I asked my 14 year old son if he ever heard of Deming (a bit of a sin in a household with our family history), and he said, of course, "who's he?"   And I then asked, do you think Facebook has a "constancy of purpose?" (Deming's first point).  My son replied, "they don't know what they want.  It changes all the time."  When I inquired further, it was his (and mine) frustration with all the continuous tweaks.  So we talked about Deming...

Quality can be cool, or whatever quality really is... excellence, performance, process engineering...  perfection?

Jeff

Mike,

Help us Obi-Mikiewankanobe, you are our only hope! 

Loved the article, very funny.  Maybe we should follow your lead and create the association with Quality as always fun and funny.  Who could resist that?

I had a customer e-mail me in a panic that the main menu of our software had shrunk to only two items.  I e-mailed her back and told her I had designed in a feature that gradually removed main menu options until she paid me. (Actually it was just a setting she didn't know was available)

She thought it was hysterical, and made a point of looking into my last invoice.  :-)

Seriously, though.  Why don't we practice what we preach and do a little root cause analysis on the issue.  Have you ever noticed how the quality profession seems to attract a certain type of person?   How would we characterize that type, and why is that type so often different than the CEO type that has control of all the decision making and direction setting?

My guess is that a serious root cause analysis will put us into the psychological differences and dynamics between these two groups.   I think when we understand ourselves at that level, the next direction will become obvious.

Of course the next direction is always obvious if you do the root cause analysis correctly, right?  (I got that from your book, by the way)

David

PS.   In deference to Demming, I decided to go with a shaved head look this year.  Maybe that's what the Quality Movement needs, a new look.  Something tangible people can do to look cool? :-)

Note to previous reader:  You have to read Mike as both serious and sarcastic simultaneously, then you'll get it.

Really enjoyed this article, it gave a few bouts of laugher heard around this office. I only want to make a couple of points. Quality really has come a long way from my beginnings back in the 70's. ISO9001 and other standards have standardized the industry and compliance forces continuous maintainence. Because of this, Quality has become an expected commodity, and not just a nice to have if the price is right, or depended on what industry you were in. While procurement decisions are still based in price, quality is a given part of that formula. ISO has globalized quality the way that NAFTA did trade. Just one other point. Do we really need any new quality ideology? As far as I can tell we haven't really mastered the ones we have. If to sustain ourselves we should initiate a new idea, how about " Super Quality", the new generation but with all the same principles. The new generations won't figure it out.

                                          Steve Raczka

Excellent article and funny yet authentic insights.  If Bhutan can talk about replacing GNP with GNH - Gross National Happiness, then maybe we should be looking to optimize our GNQ.

One sign that quality has come a long way is that we shop at Wallmart or Target and still come to expect a certain standard of product reliability and customer service.  Once upon a time, premium brands like Rolls Royce or Mercedes Benz made a name for themselves precisely because of superior quality and reliability. Now it's mostly just the name and status.

Whither quality in our time? Should we look to Isaac Asimov's 3 laws or robotics (re-interpreted for quality):

1. Protect the Customer
2. Fullfill all company quality objectives, except when this may violate #1; 
3. Further our careers and enjoy the work, as long as this does not conflict with #1 and #2

Then, let's add the zeroth law, just as Asimov did.

0.  Protect the integrity and quality of the entire ecosystem, including the supply chain.