Quality Progress - American Society for Quality

feel comfortable that they can express their view, including disagreement with the VP's
when appropriate, you will start to see progress. If they work in an atmosphere where
upper management is comprised of a bunch of pig headed executives who care about
nothing but their bonus, you might as well not even attempt process improvement at any
level. They will not listen. You get a group of Directors and VP's together to make a
process improvement and all you are going to end up with is ego, smoke and mirrors and
cost cutting. "This goes against the basics of Six Sigma." ??? I have yet to see proof that
six sigma ever improved any process. Some of the tools are there, unfortunately the
process is hung up on "cooking up" numbers to justify the cost of the training and
initiating the project in the first place. In any case, as with any article, or book, not every
point will apply to all companies. You have to separate what will work for your
company at a particular point in time.
Just my 2 cents.
Regards,
Carl W. Keller
ASQ Certified Quality Manager
16935 Letter: Process Management Article Enforces Bad Advice
ASQ Staff
Sep-08-03
I was disappointed in Tom Dolan's article "Best Practices in Process Management"
(August 2003, p. 23). In part because it had very little new to say, but more so because it
served to pass along some bad, very common, advice. There are too many to address in a
short letter; they ranged from small to large. A couple worth mentioning: 1. Of the 10
processes identified on p. 25, only three (maybe four) are processes, the remainder were
departments or programs. HR, accounting or customer service and satisfaction are not
processes, no matter how many times the thousands of members from the Benchmarking
Exchange might have mistakenly thought they were. 2. A process improvement team
made up of representatives from all functional groups, all customers, all stakeholders will
sink under its own weight. It sounds nice but has a variety of flaws: * Customer needs
and requirements are best represented with accurate, reliable data and then followed up
with focus groups or focused work groups. Customer representatives on teams expect to
be listened to - even if they don't represent all of your customers. This goes against the
basics of Six Sigma. * Mixing employees and managers on a team will not bring out the
best in either. Contexts of knowledge and priorities will be too diverse. It may sound like
a good idea but will bog a team down. Team membership should be based on expertise
on the process, as it is, as it must become and what is required to get it there (if that is
already decided). It may sound undemocratic, but then process improvment isn't
necessarily a voting issue - geting results is what counts. I look to Quality Progress for
good ideas. This aritcle was way below your standards.
David N. Williams
davidw@williamsalliance.com