Starting from Scratch

By Nicole Radziwill, Diane Olson, Andrew Vollmar, Ted Lippert, Ted Mattis, Kevin Van Dewark and John W. Sinn

This article appeared in the September 2008 issue of Quality Progress. With the alphabet soup of approaches to quality that are available, we wanted to sort through the available methods to produce a flow chart that could be used to figure out how to quick-start a program – to give its implementers a little guidance:

“My company has just charged me with starting a quality program. Where do I start?”

This situation was examined a few years ago in QP as several authors reflected on this challenging question—one any quality professional might be asked at some point during his or her career.

The collection of articles discussed ISO 9000, Ford Motor Co.’s quality operating system, lean, Six Sigma, lean and Six Sigma combined, systems thinking, complexity theory, the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria, combinations of methods and unique approaches. But the full article collection ultimately failed to answer the central question: “Where do I start?”

Most readers liked the article and found it useful, but one reader was (as he explains it) “livid that [the authors] did not distinguish between tools and philosophy.” Here’s how I responded:

If you read the 2003 QP article that initially posed the question, philosophies, methods and tools are ALL TREATED EQUIVALENTLY. This is reasonable since it was a collection of short articles written by multiple authors, but it can get people confused: how can you take a philosophy (Baldrige) and build a quality system from it? Hard to do, because it’s not actionable. Unless I know the eight points that characterize ISO 9000 as a minimum standard for a quality system, for example, I might not recognize that I need to map my processes, figure out how they interact, figure out which quality goals I’m trying to accomplish through each, and keep records to see how I’m doing. Baldrige suggests all of that – and it’s a solid philosophy compared to the quality BOK – but does not prescribe action. I agree with you that we need to take special care in the message that we send to the readership – that clarifying how to build a quality system does not eliminate the need for a strong set of core values that honor a commitment to quality. Our team recognizes the need to balance both, and in fact, if you look at the links to the full QSDR package online you’ll notice that this was one of the formative concepts as we developed the roadmap.

Fundamental Concepts for the Software Quality Engineer, Volume 2

From Amazon: “This volume provides selected articles gathered from the last five volumes of Software Quality Professional (SQP), a peer-reviewed quarterly publication applying quality principles to the development and use of software and software-based systems. This collection of articles provides you with insights from authors around the globe, which is vital in today’s global economy… Software engineers should use this book to broaden their knowledge in several important aspects of software quality. The field keeps growing and expanding to meet the changing needs of technology; the insights presented in this book can help you meet the challenge and begin your journey.” Espresso Labs associate Nicole Radziwill contributed the chapter on professionalism and ethics in software engineering.

Knowledge Management Strategies: A Handbook of Applied Technologies (Knowledge and Learning Society Book)

Espresso Labs associate Nicole Radziwill is a contributing author to this book. She provided the material on Communities of Practice as a basis for organizational innovation.

Springer published Web 2.0: The Business Model

Espresso Labs authors Radziwill & DuPlain contributed the chapter entitled “A Model for Business Innovation in the Web 2.0 World”. The Table of Contents is available for preview.

If you are used to really really thick froth, or accustomed to a really fast frother, this machine will not meet your standards. In fact, it might not be able to do a traditional cappuccino. But if you’re like me, and the coffee counts a little more than the froth (or if you expect that you’ll be making many more cups of espresso than lattes) this machine is a great bargain.