The Seven QC Tools, Part 1

By Pascal Dennis

I used to think the so-called ‘Seven QC Tools’ were second nature to everybody.

Now I realize that our younger friends & colleagues may not have been as fortunate as we (somewhat) wily veterans.

When I graduated engineering school in the 1980's (prehistoric times) Ed Deming, Joe Juran, Philip Crosby and other great quality senseis were everywhere.

I inhaled their books & videos, which emphasized a way of thinking, supported by core tools:

• Run charts,
• Pareto diagrams,
• Checksheets,
• Histograms,
• Scatter diagrams,
• Process flow charts, and
• Control charts.

Seems every generation needs to learn the fundamentals for itself.

In that spirit, in blogs to come I'll describe these core tools & how they can help.

In the interim, I highly recommend The Memory Jogger II, by my friend & colleague, Michael Brassard.

Best regards,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Reflections on True North
Frontiers - Lean & IT
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
On Big Data

Reflections on True North

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

Strategy begins with our strategic & philosophical Purpose, also known as True North.

True North comprises:

1. a "Hard" goal, usually entailing critical end-of-pipe measures, e.g. Revenue, EBIT, fatalities, and,
2. a "Broad-brush" goal (hoshin), a few words defining our purpose, vision, commitment

I encourage leaders to draw a picture of where we want to be, how we’ll get there, and how we will go about our business.

The business chessboard is foggy, multi-dimensional, and unpredictable. Why bother to define a distant, uncertain future?

Because doing so forces us out of the rut of our current thinking. We engage dormant neural pathways thereby, and begin to see the clear blue sky of what's possible.

True North is also the ‘tie-breaker’, to which we turn for guidance at critical moments. “Is this who we are? Is this where we’re going and how’ll we get there?”

True North will tell us. For example, imagine we are a designer & manufacturer of high-end lighting solving challenging technical problems in high-margin niche markets. Our hoshin is Speed Style Invention. Now suppose a major automotive company, say Toyota, approached us and said, “We’d like you to manufacture lighting for our next Lexus model.”

How would we respond? The answer is clear, no? “We’ll have to decline, with great respect, because that’s not what we do, that’s not who we are.”

Our annual plans will be simple & modular one-pagers that express our hypotheses. We’re often wrong, but we adjust quickly. Life never goes according to plan. Clear hypotheses & modular plans enable the rapid PDCA cycles that’ll dispel the fog & get us closer and closer to True North.

Strategy Deployment is messy, humbling, intuitive, a marriage between the Right & Left brain, between intuition & logic, art & science.

I'm reminded of Jack Nicklaus, perhaps the greatest golfer ever, whose swing routine always entailed imagining the perfect shot.

Or of Michelangelo seeing the perfect sculpture in the marble block.

Have a good summer, all,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Frontiers - Lean & IT
Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
On Big Data
Why Lean Outside the Factory?

Frontiers - Lean & IT

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

By any objective measure, Lean has ‘done well’. Most major organizations have active Lean/Continual Improvement activities. Lean thinking has developed roots far from its manufacturing beginnings and into far-flung fields like healthcare, construction and the process industries.

Yes, there have been dead-ends, detours and growing pains.

Why do so many organizations fail to fully harvest Lean’s potential? How do we sustain Lean as a system, and not merely a set of tools?

How do we engage senior leaders more deeply?

Nonetheless, we’ve made good progress these past few decades.

So what’s next?

Information technology. How to translate the powerful Lean principles methods & principles in this vital, fascinating, yet often arcane field?

There has, of course, been some helpful cross-fertilization. Agile, for example, and its constituent methods (Scrum, Kanban..., are creative expressions of visual management, Pull and PDCA. But my sense is we've barely scratched the surface. (Are respect for people, quality in the process, and Strategy Deployment well understood?)

The obstacles are substantial. Information Technology language, mental models, and gembas are radically different than those in, say, manufacturing, logistics or the process industries.

IT value streams are among the most invisible my team & I have encountered. IT departments tend to be fragmented and often comprise multiple deep silos. (DEVOPS is a valuable attempt to integrate the software development and delivery process, and emphasizes communication and collaboration between product management, software development, and operations.)

On the plus side, IT practitioners are among the most capable and creative people we've ever worked with. As ever, shared experiential learning (Yokoten) begins with a shared understanding. I encourage Lean practitioners around the world to learn the language & business of IT, and to think deeply about how to support our colleagues there. (My daughter and I recently enrolled in a coding course, which took me back to my student days & reminded me I’m a bad coder…)

And I encourage our colleagues in IT shops around the world to learn & adapt the powerful thinking methodologies of Lean.

Should lead to interesting conversations.

Best regards,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World
On Big Data
Why Lean Outside the Factory?
Too Often, Power Means the Power to Do Stupid Things

Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World

By Pascal Dennis (bio)

I wrote a book called Getting the Right Things Done about protecting your core business. GRTD found an audience and my team & I have helped a lot of companies implement the methods I described. They’re a practical, and proven way to bullet-proof your company.

But that’s no longer enough. Today, we must also Ignite new Growth using methods pioneered in the world’s innovation hot spots. And that’s been my focus the past several years. How to create an ambidextrous organization? One that is bullet-proof in its core business, and yet able to intuit unmet customer needs, and rapidly build, measure, and learn its way up the innovation ladder. One that can not just improve existing customer journeys, but create new journeys, offerings, and even new businesses. I wrote a book about it called Harnessing Digital Disruption which describes my adventures in Singapore’s lively innovation ecosystem.

In fact, I’ve spent the past five years in the world’s innovation hot spots learning how to ignite new growth using Digital methods. My team & I have built and validated a powerful body of knowledge which we believe can transform your organization. And now I’d like to share what we’ve learned in a series of new workshops. The first is called Getting the Right Things Done in a Digital World. Our target audience is the organization that is serious about Innovation, that wants to become truly ambidextrous. Our workshops will available both on-site and remotely. They will not be available publicly because we want to focus on your business – your aspiration, winning logic, and challenges.

Protecting the Core business is no longer enough. We must also Ignite New Growth. GRTD in a Digital World and the workshops that follow will get you started in this essential journey. If all this sounds intriguing, please click on the link below.



Regards,

Pascal



In case you missed our last few blogs... please feel free to have another look…

On Big Data
Why Lean Outside the Factory?
Too Often, Power Means the Power to Do Stupid Things
When You’re Convinced You’re Right, You’ve Lost Your Ability to Learn