ISO 9001 Survey

I just completed the ISO 9001 survey. It was quite comprehensive, asking about the current implementation and future direction of (mostly) 9001:2008. I was especially pleased to see requests for current strengths and weaknesses. It took me about 20 minutes to complete it.

It struck me that the survey creators do not seem to recognize the extremely strong connection between the standard and its use in third-party certification.

Throughout the survey, My input emphasized the need for inclusion of risk management, business continuity, and sustainability. I also suggested a current weakness on the general understanding of how to manage outsourcing/contract manufacturing/toll processing. My strongest suggestion was about the global misunderstanding of the differences between non-conformance control, corrective action, and preventive action.

The last question of the survey asked about my opinion of several options for the future of ISO 9001:2008. Rather than forcing me to respond with a binary choice, I was allow to rank my preferences for various options. Those options went from "leave it alone" to "massive overhaul" and all points between.

The Shift Index

On December 5, I was watching a live stream of the Humanity+ conference at Caltech. My interest was a speech by John Hagel with Deloitte. The topic of his presentation was "Harnessing Increasing Technological Progress in Business Performance." Seemed intriguing.

John is the author of The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion. He works at the Deloitte Center for the Edge.

Hagel started off his speech with some research showing that the return on assets (ROA) for all US publicly-traded firms has fallen to almost one-quarter of 1965 levels. Even though labor productivity has increased. Now that got my attention!

John is suggesting that the current methods we use for detecting and measuring trends are very much out of date. Things like the Composite Index of Leading Indicators isn't leading anymore. The data are too old and look at the wrong things. By the time we can see a shift, it has long passed us by.

During his speech, John reviewed the classic business cycle of technology change. Someone invents something really big, like a steam engine or electricity. Engineers develop ways to harness that new technology. A few early adaptors start to use the new technology. The adaption curve increases until nearly everyone is using the new technology. The business refine there applications and the curve flattens for a while. Then something else comes along. He wanted to point out that there is a fairly long period of time where the technology is known and being used. Things are stable between technology shifts.

But there is no stability for business anymore. As soon as the leaders are aware of a new technology and trying to understand and use it, it changes to something bigger and faster and greater. This is the Principle of Accelerating Change that Ray Kurzweil discusses so well in his book, The Singularity is Near.

John and his pals at Deloitte have come up with a new index for these challenging times. It is called the Shift Index. It is a conceptual model of the world economy based on complexity dynamics. Scott Page, with the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says, "Shift happens. If we can measure shift, we can manage it."

The Shift Index assumes there are three "waves" of change. The foundation wave affects fundamentals in the way business is conducted and involves mostly digital techniologies. It also covers resulting long-term public policy changes. The second wave looks at the flows of knowledge, capital, and talent that come after the foundation changes. The third wave looks at the consequences of these flows.

Each of these waves is supported by a dozen or so specific measurements. You can download and study the concepts behind this Shift Index by going to the Deloitte site. These are heavy ideas and will take some time to comprehend.

John Hagel finished off his speech by suggesting that current management practices are fundamentally broken. He suggests three things necessary to turn around the corporate decline in ROA:
Seek knowledge, build trust, and support talent

Much easier said than done.

Baldrige National Quality Award

In Paul Borawski's recent View from the Q blog, he told us that the Commission on Federal Spending in the USA had the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award on the chopping block. Paul suggested this program was too valuable to discontinue. I just read in this morning's ASQ Friday Fast Facts:

The Baldrige Performance Excellence Program is in danger of being cut in an effort to reduce government spending. ASQ has joined with NIST (National Institute for Standards and Technology) and other organizations to keep the Baldrige Program alive.  

Sellery Associates (ASQ's Washington [DC] strategists) and ASQ are implementing activities strategically. ASQ member comments will serve as an essential listening post for future activities—which may include enlisting ASQ members in a grassroots campaign.

Paul asked us if the national quality or excellence award programs have value. I would like to respond.

It is my belief that the value of these programs comes from their principles, their discussion, and their community. I also believe that the award itself has little effect on our profession, our nation, or our world.

Quality and excellence programs have value. Baldrige, Six Sigma, TQM, and other quality management systems contribute to many aspects of our society by giving us an opportunity to define the principles. PDCA didn't just happen by magic. These programs promote discussion and dissemination, through articles, papers, blogs, standards, regulations, and manuals. Lastly, the Baldrige program has embedded knowledge in the hundreds of local examiners around our nation. This is all good.

So, the statements made by Paul in support of Baldrige are all true. Excellence sells.

As a government program and/or award, the value of Baldrige is marginal at best.

Ability of winning organizations to sustain their excellence programs over several years is quite low. Sometimes politics seems to get in the way. The Baldrige program is hidden within NIST. I wonder how many people know what a "NIST" is. I wonder how many people under 30 know who Malcolm Baldrige was.

Let's face it, elimination of the Baldrige program is low hanging fruit. Removal will have absolutely no effect on our nation's massive debt associated with Social Security, Medicare, and the Military.

If we truly believe continuation of the Baldrige program will help our nation and our global community, we should fund and administer it. Call off our efforts to protect it from government elimination and bring it internal. Let Baldrige mix with ISO 9001, Lean Six Sigma, and Social Responsibility. To lobby the politicians for continued funding in these troubled times makes our professional society look small.

“I’m part of the ASQ Influential Voices program. While I receive a variety of quality resources as honorarium from ASQ in exchange for my commitment, the thoughts and opinions expressed on my blog are my own.”

American Public Education is Broken

A neighbor of mine just retired as a public school teacher and administrator. We have discussed Sir Kenneth Robinson's wonderful TED Talks and other commentaries on our K-12 education system here in America. He recently gave me permission to share his thoughts with you.

Sunday’s featured newspaper editorials on education were depressingly myopic. C’mon folks, lets get serious. American children go to school 180 or fewer days a year while international students go 220 ten-hour days. Their parents pony up big bucks for Saturday tutorials while our parents pony up for Saturday sports uniforms.

It requires little imagination to see that requiring the typical American child to attend school for ten hours a day for 220 days of the year would be disastrous. Doubling school time would probably double the dropout rate for two endemic reasons.

1. One: As it is, our nation’s schools are staffed with so few good teachers that 25% of our kids don’t hang out in school long enough to graduate. In countries that revere teachers and learning, many of its most able and brightest young will opt for a career that is regarded by its citizens with reverence rather than mocked for its mediocrity.
2. And two: After 34 years in my own classroom, plus seven years of visiting many of my colleagues’ classrooms as a mentor teacher, I have not the smallest particle of doubt that too many students come to class with no real intention to learn. How do I know? I asked them.Too many have no clue that there is a difference between attending school and becoming educated. We shortsightedly test students for their knowledge and skills but we ignore students’ readiness to learn by not assessing their levels of intellectual curiosity, for their ability to persevere and learn through failure, and for their ability to develop and ask questions. I have asked class after class of students through the years how they came to believe that becoming educated means twelve years of parroting answers to questions they didn’t (and too often couldn’t) even ask. Without curiosity, perseverance and asking questions, students’ knowledge and skills make good test data, but little else.

The majority of my students felt pretty good about themselves, though.

The American Educational system was born in and remains in the agrarian, 18^th century pre-industrial age. Millennium age technology applied to a system that recesses for the summer so that youngsters can help the family plant, cultivate, harvest, butcher and preserve food is absurd. We, the adults, have led our children to regard a three month summer furlough from anything resembling rigorous learning as another of their inalienable “rights” that come with no responsibilities. But working hard so our children have it better than we did does not mean making everything easy for them.

 Tax-phobic, “me first” Americans care so little about their children’s and our nation’s future that we condemn public schools students to our ridiculously low expectations, and grudgingly pay for too little time in school for them to become internationally competitive. Meanwhile our young, whose talents could raise the teaching profession to achieve the social status (if never the pay) of professional athletes, are so able and so bright they see the mess that passes for American Public education and pass over it as a career choice.

I have worked long and hard with many other dedicated educational professionals to improve educational opportunities for students here in our town, and I can confidently state that we offer our students some of the best educational opportunities available in America’s third-class public education system.

This topic of teaching kids to learn is increasingly being discussed. Mostly in blogs and op-ed pieces. In my profession of adult learning, we are encouraged to engage those attending our training courses. Make them true participants and not just passive receivers. I wonder how long it will take for the establishment (print and television media, politicians, and community activists) to address this issue of American public education? I wonder how much longer America can retain its edge in creativity?