Saturday, February 7, 2015

Who influenced and Inspired me on Quality?

Bill's blog post of this month is on the topic "Finding Inspiration From Quality Leaders".    It was a great learning experience for me reading about these two leaders, Secretary O'Neill and Governor Cuomo,  who preached and practiced quality - truly inspiring personalities.

Bill highlights 3 key points that Secretary O'Neill implemented during his tenure as a CEO at Alcoa - i) Making safety on the job as his and organization's top priority, ii) to treat everybody with dignity and respect, and, iii) be the best in the world at everything you do.  I now understand the secret of success of great leaders - they simply practice and preach strong quality fundamentals.  Per Bill, Governor Cuomo transformed the New York State Local Motor Vehicle Department to reduce customer wait times and increase efficiency.  Governor Cuomo made it very clear that quality is the recognized and inspired standard for New York State Government operations.

Bill, in his blog post, asks the ASQ Influential Voices Bloggers to write about those quality leaders and their key teachings and contributions.

My teacher and Professor Dr. SM Kannan exposed me to the field of quality.   He is an expert in the field of quality in topics such as - selective assembly, design of experiments, Taguchi techniques, Total Quality Management etc.  I would like to list down some of his key teachings that transformed me from a student to a quality professional:

a) Always aim for long-term results  - I was taught to not get worried about short-term losses and my teacher always mentored me to focus only on long-term results.  Here, he indirectly taught me to focus on "quality assurance" over "quality control" as a success measure.

b) Ensure total quality - When it comes to any task, activity or project, one has to ensure quality at all levels - customer, process, product and culture.  He insisted to always practice Total Quality Management over fragmented approaches.

c) There is no substitute for excellence - Another key teaching was to always demonstrate excellence and there are no substitutes.  Continuous improvement is the key and regular measurement of incremental growth is very important.  He taught me to learn every day and up-skill regularly. Once he said, if you are unable to add a new entry to your Curriculum Vitae (CV), at least once every six months, that means your career is stalling.  The importance of quantitative measurement of results was a key learning for me.

d) Hard work is always rewarded - Last but not the least, he always practiced perseverance and hard work and made me firmly believe that I will be more lucky and successful only when I work hard.

My professor laid a good and solid foundation of quality for me and I believe that his teachings are really valuable to all.

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Next Generation Open Quality Communities

This was one of those blog posts by Bill that made me think quite a bit, before I could pen my thoughts.  The blog post revolves around the article by Brooks Carder, a long time member of ASQ. Brooks, in his article, makes a strong point about quality - "After all, quality is responsible for many of the things that makes life better".   Quoting some of Brooks thoughts, Bill has asked 2 questions to the fellow ASQ bloggers - how to encourage those who work on quality to understand their own value, and, how to spread the message of quality in a marketplace that is primarily focused on other objectives.

I agree with Brooks and believe that quality is responsible to make our lives better - directly or indirectly, visibly or invisibly.  Conversely, poor quality products and services give immense trouble to the society; examples are in plenty - from automobile recalls to airplane accidents - attributed to poor quality.

It is important to encourage those who work on quality - both individuals and enterprises.   Governments, ASQ, and Other Professional Bodies have put in various mechanisms in place for this.  For example, ASQ members with high experience and proven contributions towards quality are awarded with Senior and Fellow member statuses.  ASQ also recognizes Quality Practitioners and Gurus for their contributions towards quality through its prestigious Awards and Scholarships.   Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards (MBNQA) is awarded to US companies that excel in Quality.   In lines with MBNQA, there are other awards to enterprises and organizations that consistently demonstrate high quality and performance excellence; examples are Tata Business Excellence Model (TBEM) award in India for Tata group companies and National Quality Award by American Healthcare Association (AHCA) - for performance excellence.  A complete list of National Quality Awards can be found here.

We can now see that there are lots of mechanisms to recognize, motivate and inspire individuals and enterprises, in the form of awards, scholarships, rewards etc., to contribute towards quality.  The big question to ask is - are these mechanisms sufficient enough to encourage those who work on quality to understand their own value.  May be not!

While quality awards primarily focus on extrinsic motivation, the quality professionals and practitioners must ideally also be motivated intrinsically.   Like the open source software communities,  global quality professional communities will need to be formed that work on creating and improving innovative and practical quality concepts, tools, techniques and processes for the betterment of society.   Professional bodies like ASQ can facilitate the formation of such communities by creating platforms for collaboration, research and development, and implementation.   These communities will need to completely forget the commercial aspects, whatsoever, and primarily focus on contributions towards innovation in quality and improvement of human society.

Today's is a highly collaborative world.  Due to the advancements in smart devices, internet and network technologies, quality professionals, across the world, can stay closely connected and collaborate in real-time.   While various quality communities and groups exist today, they need to be tweaked, restructured or re-engineered for the modern world scenarios and needs.  The newer quality communities will motivate creation of newer quality concepts and tools and also bring to light newer quality gurus to the world.   ASQ Influential Blogger community is a welcome initiative from ASQ for such a collaborative platform that connects quality professionals across the world.  Further newer platforms are yet to emerge and evolve!

  

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Networking - An important benefit of professional membership

Networking is an important buzzword of modern day.  It has become much more popular due to the advent of social media.   Today, network connections, be it long-term or short-term, can be built with greater speeds.  One need not know somebody personally to get connected.  Connections happen at multiple levels (direct and indirect) and through different channels.

Professional organizations like ASQ have played a key role to connect quality professionals, around the world, and other stakeholders together to network at individual and group levels.   I always believed that networking is one of the most important benefits of membership with professional organizations.  Bill, through A View from the Q, has asked an important question - how do you encourage people to join a professional organization?  My immediate response is Networking.

I have personally experienced the following benefits, due to networking, through my continued association with ASQ (India and US) for the last 12 years or so:

  • Get to know others (quality professionals) - Get introduced and build good professional relationships
  • Learn  - Get to know newer things, ideas and identify areas of improvement. Prepare and clear Certifications 
  • Share knowledge with others - Forums to discuss, debate and teach 
  • Improve communication skills - Both oral and written skills
  • Gather thoughts, new ideas and alternate view points - Bring in newer perspectives to quality related discussion items, issues. Opportunities to innovate 
  • Do tasks together, bring-in synergy - Work in pairs/groups, resolve larger/complex issues
  • Work together for a social cause - Support the society and be socially responsible
  • Continuous Self-improvement - Learn and improve every day.

You might have observed, and sometimes experienced, that the face of networking is changing. I believe that it will dramatically change further, during the forthcoming days, and professional organizations have to be prepared for that.

Traditional networking was only through face-to-face meetings, emails and phone calls. Current day networking, especially for Gen Y,  is predominantly through social media - Google Hangout+, FaceBook, Twitter, Whatsapp, video channels like YouTube and Blogs.   In future, more real-time collaboration will be demanded for effective networking. Along with social media, high quality video and audio based newer services will play a significant role in enabling  networking with virtual connections happening through wearables and other mobile devices.

So, professional organizations need to be prepared to attract newer members while retaining existing ones.  They have to continuously evolve and improve.

Please note that ASQ is already way ahead on these aspects - Check these out:


  

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