Blog posts on quality tools

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• Resources for Using the PDSA Cycle to Improve Results

  "Using the PDSA cycle (plan-do-study-act) well is critical to building a effective management system..."   

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• Software Testers Are Test Pilots

  Software testers should be test pilots. Too many people think software testing is the pre-flight checklist an airline pilot uses.

  ...

  Checklists are extremely useful in software development. And using checklist-type automated tests is a valuable part of maintaining and developing software. But those pass-fail tests are equivalent to checklists - they provide a standardized way to check that planned checks pass. They are not equivalent to thoughtful testing by a software testing professional.

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• Mistake Proofing and Mistake Making Less Easy

  Making it harder to make mistakes and making them more visible is good. Preventing them is even better.

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• Root Cause, Interactions, Robustness and Design of Experiments

  A single root cause is rare. Normally you can look at the question a bit differently see the scope a bit differently and get a different “root cause.” In my opinion “root cause” is more a decision about what is an effective way to improve the system right now rather than finding a scientifically valid “root cause.”

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• Mistake Proofing Using Enhanced Stop Signs

  The video shows a system that cascades a sheet of water and displays a stop sign directly in the path of trucks ready to crash into a tunnel (because the truck is too tall).

  The driver had ignored several less obvious signals that they were headed for danger. This is an application of one of my favorite management (and industrial engineering) concepts: mistake proofing. As I have stated before, often it is really mistake making more difficult (as it is in this case) rather than mistake proofing.

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• A Powerful Tool: The Capacity Matrix

  One of the things that I learned about at that seminar was using a capacity matrix to improve student learning. It is one of those ideas that when you hear about it, immediately you realize this is a vastly superior method to those current used. I am cynical/experienced enough to know that just because much better methods are available, and explained to people, is no guaranty they will be used.

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• Deming’s Stage 0: By What Method?

  Ron talks about W. Edwards Deming teaching a 2 week course on consumer research in Japan in 1951: that course included a section titled “the art of questioning and interviewing.” Dr. Deming had participants go out into the street of Tokyo and interview potential customers. Those interested in Lean Startup will recognize this activity.

  Ron Moen’s presentation explores what “stage 0” should look like (Deming provided little guidance). Ron decided it was important to start with the customer need. When gathering data, to learn if the idea has merit, the data collection should be made at the actual place of work by the people doing the work (gemba).

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• Podcast with Lynda Finn: The Value of the Simple Run Chart

  Looking closely at a specific result is helpful if the result is “special”; has an identifiable special cause for that result. But in most cases the result is do to common causes of the system and the most effective strategy to improve is to look at all the data and seek to find improvement to the overall system that will change the overall performance of the system.

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• Data is Important and You Must Confirm What the Data Actually Says

  If you do not have operational definitions for data provided in your organization, as you often will not, you need to figure out if the data is worth trusting (possibly by visiting the gemba) or whether you need to establish operational definitions and make sure new data is collected using the operational definitions.

  Often the variation in the collection of data will hamper your ability to use PDSA. If you practiced PDSA as you should, this wouldn’t be a problem, because you would make sure data had operational definitions.

  Without reliable data, the conclusions that will be drawn from results ads a great deal of potential for error to your effort.

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• Visual Management and Mistake-Proofing for Prescription Pills

  Mistake proofing is often really mistake-making-more-difficult (for some reason this term of mine hasn’t caught on).

  But the idea is pretty simple: when you have processes that are important and at risk of failure, design processes with elements to make mistakes hard (and ideas such as mistake-proofing and visual management can help you guide your mind to ways to create better processes).

  The entire process needs to be considered...

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• W. Edwards Deming and the Leander Way

  Often people will say Deming isn’t just the tools. That is certainly true. But using tools and data to make improvement efforts concrete is important. 

  As Deming said, best efforts are not enough, you have to know what to do. But he also said, “Best efforts are essential.” Tools are not enough: and like best efforts, using them without understanding the management system can do damage. But tools are also essential and Leander’s experience shows a long term effort to integrate quality improvement tools into the management system to achieve long term continual improvement.

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• Inquiring Minds: Improving Elementary Science by Linda Lippe

  This presentation also makes it obvious how well Leander ISD intergrates the use of quality tools into their efforts. Quality tools alone are not sufficient but the effective use of quality tools is extremely important to long term success of efforts to improve the system. And most organizations use quality tools far too infrequently.

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• Cliff Norman and Ron Moen Discuss the History of the PDSA Cycle

  Ron emphasized the importance of the iterative nature of learning supported by the PDSA cycle. The importance of iterating the PDSA cycle multiple times is something that I find most organizations would benefit a great deal from. Another API consultant spoke on this importance at the 2006 Deming conference.

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• My First Trip To Japan by Peter Scholtes

  At the Aisin Seiki Company:

  Throughout the plant were the charts and graphs we had come to expect in companies pursuing quality. Each work station had formed it storage for tools, warning systems telling when drills should be changed and systems to assure the reorder of parts when the supply was low. Their kanban system applied not only to the component on which they were working, but to the drills, etc. which they used in their work.

  I recommend reading Peter’s full report which includes thoughts on visits to: Toyota, Yokogawa Hewlett-Packard, Takeanaka Komuten, Kansai Electric Company and more.

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• Management Tools for Quality Improvement Succeed When Practicing Respect for People

  An article, by my father, also addresses this area very well, while explaining how to capture and improve using two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity. It is only by engaging the minds of everyone that the tools of “technical” quality will result in even a decent fraction of the benefit they potentially can provide if used well.

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