Tag: ASQ

WCQI Day 4

Last day.

Disciplined Problem Solving Demands Disciplined Communication by Frasier Pruitt

The Minto Pyramid Principle as a tool for problem communication. I guess I shouldn’t be snarky at a tool that came out of McKinsey. I’m sure organized crime has provided many useful tools for society.

Structuring information is critical, there are lots of tools out there to help utilize storytelling, I’m a big fan of the work of Nancy Duarte, and I have praised the A3 many a time for its use as for structured narrative around problems and solutions.

The Two Elements

Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE) is a concept that we cannot stress enough as it fundamentally gets to issues of cognitive load, and forms a great example of externalizing and constructing.

Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive (MECE)

Great structure, which originally appeared in Quality Progress, for utilizing this with a DMAIC.

Well done structure, this was a great writing training. This could be expanded into a workshop focusing on narrative structure. One recommendation for Fraser would be using a simpler paper for the writing exercise.

The Innovation Management Principles of ISO 56000 by Peter Merrill

Innovation is one of those things that requires system and process to truly be successful. I appreciate the ideas beyond ISO 56000, and the basis of the Innovation Management System

  1. Realization of value; and benefit
  2. Future-focused leaders; curious, courageous
  3. Strategic direction; will change
  4. Culture; creativity and execution to co-exist
  5. Exploiting insights for unmet needs
  6. Managing uncertainty through a portfolio
  7. Adaptability as context changes
  8. Systems approach; serial innovation

Love the focus on how QMS and Innovation interlink.

Closing Keynote by Jose Morey

Okay, I’ve fan-boyed Leonardo da Vinci in the past, but this did not work for me as an ending keynote. It was shallow and rather generic.

But I got my Bingo card completed.

Which is sad.

Good conference. It was great to be back in person.

ASQ 2022 WCQI Day 3 (second half)

Making a Quality Leader: From Theory to Practice

Always a pleasure to hear from the Human Development and Leadership (HDL) technical community. Their competency framework is a great tool that can help many a quality leader as they struggle to build the leadership competencies necessary to strive towards excellence.

Human Development & Leadership Body of Knowledge Model

Having done a lot of comptency frameworks I think the HDL has done a good job building theirs out as a progressive framework. I think a challenge is how do we make it easy to scale up to this more detailed HD&LBok from the QBok, and occasionally the same concept can be discussed a few different ways across different technical community boks and this lack of consistency is a detriment.

Stressing practice as the core part of a competency framework. A good conversation at my table was how often these competencies move back a little as we change roles and organizations.

No competency framework is valuable without a good development plan and the workshop did a great job at introducing how to use one.

Honor Deming’s 14 Points Through Modular Kaizen by Grace Duffy

Grace has always been a mentor who always brings thought provoking topics to the society.

Goes without saying that I’m a fan of the 14 points and the System of Profound Knowledge. I’ve written a lot about Driving out Fear. It ties in a lot of my thoughts about how much of what is happening now in organizational excellence is the evolution from these 14 points.

Looking to the past is an important part of building the future. I think Grace did a great job of respecting the past to drive innovation and new ideas within the quality practice. I loved the care for our past, and the urge to challenge the future in the audience. She really avoided the tendency in some quality circles to obsess about the past (Toyota nuts I am thinking of you) and thus trap the present and stifle the future.

Grace does an amazing job being a pillar of the quality community while still being an iconcolast. When you see her name on the conference session list I always recommend taking the time to attend.

Quality Past & Present

I found most of the videos to be a little personality driven instead of insightful pieces of history. I would hope this session would draw from our history in exciting ways, that was not realized. However the ending charge to create solutions instead of just solving problems is a pivotal one.

2022 Business Meeting

This business meeting drives home the struggle the ASQ has on figuring out what comes next.

As an organization we do not understand what a digital organization looks like. Only 2000 users of the app in the US is embarrassing. Teens can create apps with 100 times more users.

It is nice to admit that actively listening to the members is crucial. I look forward to that consistently happening. We don’t always do a good job of using the tools at the heart of the QBok.

Finances are still rocky, though the Federal Stimulus has left the ASQ in an okay place.

I was actually shocked to hear the chair of the ASQ say it is hard to have metrics for meeting strategic goals. We have entire methodologies dedicated to that.

There are a lot of challenges ahead of us.

WCQI 2022 Day 3 (first half)

Heather McGowan

I am a huge fan of The Adaptation Advantage: Let Go, Learn Fast, and Thrive in the Future of Work by Heather E. McGowan and Chris Shipley. So I was thrilled when I heard Heather was going to speak. I could write for ever, but you are much better off listening to her yourself.

One of the things I think the quality community is bad about is forming connections with researchers who are basically researching topics at the heart of quality. Heather is a great example of this, she should see herself as a fellow traveler, but I do not think she does. Feels like another post.

Anticipating Disruption in the Supply Chain: Rethinking Business Continuity by Russell Snyder

I chose to come to this session because I was really curious about a practical application of Adam Grant’s model from Think Again.

And my bingo card quickly gets another spot marked off by the speaker extolling Steve Jobs as some sort of good role model.

The central point that in times of constraint everything is a quality issue is an important one for us all to ponder.

Does a good job discussing the rethinking cycle vs the overconfidence cycle, and other parts of Grant’s rethinking model.

The rethink approach is Model (scenarios and revenue impact); Map (all sub-tier supplier networks of key components); and, Mitigate (design your supply chain to withstand disruptive effects).

Very much aligned with a risk-based approach. The examples he discusses were pretty valuable shares relevant across many industries. I am already adapting several of his slides to an ongoing project I have.

I love seeing Grant’s work percolate into quality thinking. Applying it to supply chain disruptions was as fascinating as I was hoping it would be.

Bingo Card at Half-day

My pessimistic self is surprised I’m not complete yet. Well, one more day to go!

Design & Construction Technical Community Body of Knowledge

Based on the member leaders day on Sunday (I need to finish that post, so may thoughts) I was really curious how a body of knowledge was developed recently by a technical community.

A body of knowledge for a broad area like construction is interesting. You need to make it specific enough to be relevant to construction but broad enough to avoid niches. The speakers spoke passionately about this balancing act.

I wish this had gone deeper. I’m really fascinating to understand how we talk about commonalities likerisk based auditing or knowledge management differently in this body-of-knowledge. It is really that quesiton of application.

ASQ Insights on Excellence Tool

I am so excited to see this tool out in the world. I had the priviledge of providing a few ideas to it a while back, so seeing it in use, at the conference was just amazing.

Enabling the Process Owner to Drive Improvement

The process owner is a central part of business process management yet is often the one we take for granted. In this session, the speaker will share through case study how organizations can build strong process owners and leverage them to drive improvement in a highly regulated environment. Participants in this session will learn: ~how to identify process owners and competencies for success, ~how to build a change management program that leverages process owners as the guiding coalition, and ~how to create and execute a training program for process owners

2022 ASQ WORLD CONFERENCE ON QUALITY & IMPROVEMENT

The presentation I gave at the 2022 World Conference on Quality & Improvement.

ASQ Webinar August 4, 2021

I am speaking with the ASQ’s Human Developlement and Leadership Division on August 4th at 3 pm eastern on “Trust & Adaptability: Servant Leadership Lessons from Joining an Organization During a Pandemic” exploring from what Steven M. R. Covey wrote in Ken Blanchard and Renee’s Broadwell’s book Servant Leadership in Action that the key outcome for a servant leader is trust. Trust and servant leadership are both built on intent. The Trust built will allow your organization to be more adaptable. Adaptability builds resilience and allows innovation and transformation.

This talk will mostly focus on my continual learnings as I’ve worked, and usually struggled, to build trust during this pandemic in an environment where I’ve never met most of my co-workers.

Registration Link is https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5744331842761271563