"Quality System Assessment (QSA)" - qualityg style

During these hard economic times it is critical that organizations (including educational institutions) take preventive measures to ensure that waste and non-value added activities are removed from their company (school system) before they let more people go to the unemployment lines.

I have been involved in many audits (Baldridge, ISO, Educational) that include large corporations and educational (school systems) and most of them have been a political joke. Have the time the auditors had no idea what they were doing and it came down to 1 or 2 people who made all the decisions regardless of data and information. Unfortunately, I have been on some of these type of teams and I was embarrassed to be associated with the group and the organization that conducts the audits.

The intent is good but like most plans they fall short because of political and monetary gain (by audit & company leaders) by those overseeing the audits to make sure they gain a long term commitment to keep the money, audits,recognition flags and patches coming.

Many managers/administrators have no idea what their people are doing in a full day. There are too many employees still making errors and their are still far too many consultants getting paid to come in and tell leadership what is already known within their own organizations.

Create your own internal Quality System Assessment. Use the following as a model:

Over the years I have created and developed a Quality Tool/Technique that I call "Quality System Assessment" (QSA). It was designed to be used for any industry (quality, business, education, government). The major design inputs were taken from the Deming Award, ISO 9000, Motorola, Malcom Baldridge and my own quality assessment experiences.

I have been certified and trained as a Baldridge Auditor and Judge (Michigan). ISO Auditor and Lead Auditor. Certified ASQ Manager & Auditor. Trained as a Lead Quality Advisor from Florida Power & Light (Deming Award Winners). Six Sigma Black Belt (AT&T). Attended numerous classes at Motorla University.

My hope in sharing this is for the reader to be able to have a model to create/design their own QSA that will help improve systems and processes within any organization.

I will post the Slides in a PowerPoint Presentation format.

Click on SLIDE To Enlarge & Print

Remember to Click PICS to Enlarge

Click Slides to Enlarge

It is my hope that you will be able to use my QSA Model to identify potential problems and improvements in your systems.

Soon I will provide some QSA analysis questions to help with the Assessment.

Updated 8/15/10 - go to http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2008/04/quality-system-qsa-commentsquestions.html

please let me know if the model proved useful to you or your organization.

Owned, Developed and Created by qualityg

Brainstorming - I THINK NOT!

Process Improvement and Quality Consultants get upset when I talk bad about some of their tools and techniques used to generate ideas and solutions on how to identify root cause and suggest solutions.

Today the subject is “Brainstorming,” and why it is not worth your time and effort.

I read the following headline today in the Detroit Free Press:

“Hundreds of people concerned about the ailing state economy came to the University of Michigan on Tuesday to brainstorm ideas on how to increase Michigan's role in the global economic environment.” (qg says ...why then do we have a department in Lansing that is supposed to know how to increase and improve our state economy - if they can't ---> get rid of them).

First let me provide a definition that is usually found in many quality and process improvement training books about Brainstorming.

Brainstorming:
Most problems are not solved automatically by the first idea that comes to mind. To get to the best solution it is important to consider many possible solutions. One of the best ways to do this is called brainstorming. Brainstorming is the act of defining a problem or idea and coming up anything related to the topic - no matter how remote a suggestion may sound. All of these ideas are recorded and evaluated only after the brainstorming is completed.

It is a means of aiming to facilitate problem solving through the maxim quantity breeds quality. The greater the number of ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a radical and effective solution.

Procedure:

1. In a small or large group select a leader and a recorder (they may be the same person).
   
2. Define the problem or idea to be brainstormed. Make sure everyone is clear on the topic being explored.
   
3. Set up the rules for the session. They should include:
   * Letting the leader have control.
   * Allowing everyone to contribute.
   * Ensuring that no one will insult, demean, or evaluate another participant or her response.
   * Stating that no answer is wrong.
   * Recording each answer unless it is a repeat.
   * Setting a time limit and stopping when that time is up.
   
4. Start the brainstorming. Have the leader select members of the group to share their answers. The recorder should write down all responses, if possible so everyone can see them. Make sure not to evaluate or criticize any answers until done brainstorming.
   
5. Once you have finished brainstorming, go through the results and begin evaluating the responses. Some initial qualities to look for when examining the responses include:
   * Looking for any answers that are repeated or similar.
   * Grouping like concepts together.
   * Eliminating responses that definitely do not fit.
   * Now that you have narrowed your list down some, discuss the remaining responses as a group.
   

Brainstorming has many applications but it is most frequently used in:
Problem Solving - issues, root causes, alternative solutions, impact analysis, evaluation
Process Management - finding ways of improving business and production processes
Project Management - identifying client objectives, risks, deliverables, work packages, resources, roles and responsibilities, tasks, issues
Team Building - generates sharing and discussion of ideas while stimulating participants to think

qualityg says … If your PI Consultants or Management Team have no idea on how to capture problems or generate sound solutions then you are in big time trouble. Using subjective ideas and information (Brainstorming) for possible solutions is WRONG and more than likely will result in “Tampering (special vs. common cause)” and “Sub-Optimizing your processes/systems.

Forget about the feel good of giving all employees a chance to participate in decision-making. You better be gathering/monitoring your processes to tell you where problems are located with objective data and information (including subject-matter experts).

Look again at the steps above, do you really want to waste time, resources and dollars making suggestions that may or may not have any value to your current situation. Once the team generates these probable ideas/solutions then they go out and try to collect data to justify their conclusions.

How stupid is that? Sounds to me your Consultant and Management Team have no idea what they are doing, and that does not surprise me!

Standardized Tests Do NOT measure Creativity

If you have been reading my posts you will know of my concern with the loss of creativity and innovation among our school children. With all the focus and pressure to obtain the goals for the federal and state standardized tests I’m wondering if we want all our children to be the same. Are there standards for music, arts, vocation, drama, etc…? How do we determine their GPA or ACT/SAT scores?

Newsweek Magazine had an article recently (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html ) that stated students in the USA creativity scores are falling. However, last week I read an article in the Detroit Free Press stating some state scores are on the rise? In the Newsweek article it states that every generation the IQ of our students rises about 10 points but creativity testing now shows a decrease.

Newsweek defines creativity as the production of something original and useful, and says it requires divergent thinking (generating many unique ideas) followed by convergent thinking, in which those ideas are combined into the best result.

Well qualityg needs no scientific testing I just watched the children around me and for a long time I have seen the decline in creativity among our children.

Last month while I was working on my mother in law’s computer I had a chance to see and hear my young nieces and nephew (ages 5- 11) playing in the backyard. As I listened and watched them play I had forgotten how much fun kids have when they are left alone to play, explore and make up games as they go. No adults standing over them to make sure they throw the ball correctly or play the game according to the rules.

When I think of the well-known inventors, artists, authors, etc… most of them were different, they had a passion for what they were doing and I bet they also had fun! They were not part of the status quo based on “Standards” that are supposedly good for all of us. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not for throwing away the standard testing completely, I’m just not willing to do it at the expense of sub-optimizing the creative talents of the children. There needs to be a balance between creativity and intelligence and there is none in our educational systems today.

Just before the get together was ending my sister-in-law came in and showed a web-site that displayed the artwork of my niece had done at school, being in fourth grade (age 9) I was amazed at her talent (I was discouraged from being an artist in the first grade, the Nun did not like my coloring and stuck me under her desk and kicked me periodically during the day, it was the end of my art career, but I did do well blocking kicks on the football team).

I believe a big part of the problem is the over scheduling of children's free time (Guilty as Charged). Kids are run from one lesson to another, from adult organized sports to child care programs that structure the whole day. They don't have time to think, to dream, to create their own games and act out their own stories, or to make things out of nothing. Look at out sport systems today. When summer starts many parents already have the camp dates for basketball, volleyball and football. This does not include the travel teams that kids play on during the week and the tournaments on weekends. Some try to fit in a vacation but that is usually planned out by the hour or day because someone decided we had to do this or go see that in order to have fun and be creative.

Now let’s add to that the planned mess when school starts and the focus and concentration on standardized test scores.

I can remember getting up in the morning during the summer or on Saturdays during school and going out after breakfast and not returning until dinner or the street lights came on. We played baseball and many other games with a variety of balls (football, basketball, dodge ball, kick ball, etc.). We made up games on our bikes and invented new ways of getting neighbors mad as we played Man from Uncle as we ran through yards and jumped fences in order not to get caught (tackled).

Yeah, my kids are smarter than I was when it comes to standardized testing but they never went on a bike hike that lasted all day or went down by the river and rode on ice breaking in the spring or hopping trains to Ohio. There was some Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer in all of us when we got creative.

Empolyee Goals & Objectives "again the big hitter"

It's amazing that every July and January over 90% of the visitors to my site are searching on Employee Goals and Objectives or some derivative.

No wonder Leadership is still in trouble when so many employees have to search for how to formulate a plan or objective for measuring goals.

It is simple - "What gets planned and measured gets done" - greg campbell


1) Employee Goals & Objectives - 90% +

Other Categories for June & July
2) Quality Tools & Techniques (Especially SIPOC Analysis & Pareto Charts)

3) Education

4) Leadership

5) Autism - ASD Mainstreaming


What I find most interesting is that "Employee Goals and Objectives" is not one of my main labels and the hits are world wide and not just in one area like the United States or Germany.

Employee Goals & Objective continue to be the most misunderstood of all Management and Employee Tools. They remain a once, twice or four times a year exercise in futility that brings no meaning to employee or boss all the way up the corporate ladder.

One should click on my Label for Dr. Deming to learn from the Master about Employee Goals and Objectives.

How sad that open communication and trust can not be tolerated in the workplace. People with numbers who have no sense of "Predictability" (Number One Skill of a Manager) and continue to Tamper with both human and corporate systems.

Below are some Links to some of my more popular posts on this subject:

http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2008/10/evaluating-team-effectiveness.html

http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2008/07/team-goals-and-objectives.html

http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2006/02/quality-tooltechnique-systems-thinking.html

For more posts on this subject click on the label to the left "Employee Objectives & Goals"


Good Luck & Remember - When you meet with your boss ask the following:

"By what method or data did you determine my ranking and rating or did you pull it out of your butt?" - greg campbell

Thousand and thousand of people have visited the above links (and more). I wonder if my methods and examples are being used and credited to me (I do have a copyright tracker)? Who cares I provide these examples because ratings, rankings and goals pulled out of the air are as useless as the leaders who believe in them!!

Michigan has no educational leadership - "Stupid"

qualityg says ... "Wisdom - in this case meaning "Common Sense" sounds stupid to stupid people who do stupid things."

It continues to amaze me that the Michigan's leaders in education (except Kalamazoo), and how they follow each other like Lemmings when it comes to creativity and innovation – THEY HAVE NONE!
I am referring to proposed cuts in education and job training. Why do we sacrifice our future for present and past mistakes? The reason is because our leaders have no foresight except the next election or the next bottom line quarterly report.

Another reason, it has to do with incompetence and taking the easy road out to make them look good. Why can’t for once leaders represent the people you SERVE! In case you don’t know who they are they are your constituents.

We never learn, result measures for education improvement and business measures go month to month, quarter to quarter and year to year (MEAP Tests). Like traffic accident reports these are nice to know (What) but in education I never see action plans and measures (How) to improve the system. Newspaper results give us the "What and the Who" but never the "HOW."

Short term educational results are not an indicator of good leadership. Business leaders for years have shown us that it is easy to show results by cutting training, removing workers and providing meaningless measures.

Current educational result measures do not help students learn math or how to read. They make no contribution to improvement. They only make conversation of ignorance. In short they are STUPID!
School accreditations and assessments are nice but the attention and focus given by leaders are before, during and for a short time after the accreditation or assessment is done. In between the visits, reports and so-called improvement measures it’s business as usual and no means of actual improvement is done except for annual standardized reports that are not process improvement but a means used for recruitment brochures.

Certifications and Assessments of an educational system (school) are result measures. School official’s year and after provide results and “cursory” plans that have no structure, time or means of measurement to show they are implementing process improvements or if they do that they actually work.

Education Improvement will not come from accreditations or certifications, it will only come through improvement to the on-going improvement of the system (end-to-end) and this can not be done through actions that are result driven and not a combination of process and result measures led by an “active” leader.

STUPID, STUPID and more STUPID!!!