Definition A 'New' Aspect of the Cove - A Definitions and Acronyms page?

[Wes Bucey]

Marc,

I started to put together a glossary of quality terms. (I must have been bored.) After 41 pages, I realized that it could be a life long effort and contain who knows how many pages. I don't know if you can use the glossary but I attached it. I kept track of references in general but not by specific word or phrase. It is actually somewhat entertaining to read if you are in the quality field. It covers a wide range of topics from management theory to technical words to some words and phrases that are not normally associated with quality.

Bill Pflanz

Perhaps we need a Wiki.
For some reason, I spotted a "broken quote" in the definition for Abilene Paradox almost instantly. The entire quote should be
""collective self-deception that leads to self-destructive decisions within organizations"
Blue text is completion to the quote. Entire definition is from

http://www.oqpf.com/download/a_quality_lexicon.html [font=Times,Times New Roman]Ohio Quality and Productivity Forum
[/font][font=Times,Times New Roman]A QUALITY LEXICON [/font]
[font=Times,Times New Roman]Abilene Paradox - Based on a story of a group of people that ended up agreeing to go to Abilene, when in reality none of them wanted to go. A book by the same name [1974] describes the phenomenon in teams or task groups that causes people to say and do things in order to gain or keep approval of others in the group. This, and the tendency to focus on differences rather than points of agreement may cause a group to fail to recognize they are each after the same goals. The need to be accepted as part of the group may result in a "collective self-deception that leads to self-destructive decisions within organizations", says the author Jerry Harvey.




[/font]

"Abilene Paradox" is one of my favorite tales when I work with people in trouble who start beating themselves up about "dumb decisions." In my mind, a lot of the problem is FEAR - similar to "The Emperor's New Clothes" where people are afraid to express their own ideas to avoid being thought of as "not a team player." I often wonder if there is a corollary in "mob action." Do the individual members of a mob fear the mob will turn on them if they refuse to participate?

Deming was correct - REMOVE FEAR!

 

[Marc]

Perhaps we need a Wiki.

I downloaded and tested wiki software. Basically there are several 'types'. The problem is control as a California newspaper found out when they added one to their online 'presence'. You have to have strong, every present moderators to screen out the junk and deliberate 'sabotage'. We have good moderators here but I can't ensure someone is 'on duty' 24/7/365.

In part I have struggled with this in my mind because of search engine indexing and 'appropriate' software. I *promise* that I will set something up which will be ready to use by next Tuesday.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Another (inherent) problem with wikis is that they lack authority that comes with the scrutiny and peer review that real encyclopedia articles get before being published. What's the point in using a wiki if you know in advance that the information you get isn't reliable? Wiki=information anarchy.

 

[Marc]

Well, we can try it out. I set up the software. I haven't 'configured' it yet, but will be working on that today.

If you want to take a look right now, go to Elsmar.com/wiki/

Feel free to play around a bit with it.

 

[Jim Wynne]

Well, we can try it out. I et up the software. I haven't 'configured' it yet, but will be working on that today.

If you want to take a look right now, go to Elsmar.com/wiki/

Interesting. I suppose it's worth a shot. I'm willing to help in setting up and moderating the thing if it does get going.

 

[Bill Pflanz]

Perhaps we need a Wiki.
For some reason, I spotted a "broken quote" in the definition for Abilene Paradox almost instantly. The entire quote should be
""collective self-deception that leads to self-destructive decisions within organizations"
Blue text is completion to the quote.

Good catch, Wes. There may be other oops but wouldn't you know that out of 41 pages of glossary, I made a mistake on one of Wes's favorite tales?

I remember putting the glossary together over a long period of time and adding to it when I found new quality definitions. My normal method was to copy and paste the definitions. As definitions were found, I started running into more formatting problems during the copy and paste. Besides not copying the entire definition, it was possible to lose some information during the formatting fix.

It was also to difficult to footnote the reference source. Sometimes I would see the same definition in more than one source which may mean that it was being used by multiple sources with the original source unknown.

Another problem that I had was choosing second, third or more definitions for the same word or phrase. Sometimes the differences were subtle so I had to decide whether to add another definition or whether the first was sufficient.

I am not familiar with Wiki but it sounds like its purpose is to provide editor control. It became a lot of work to maintain the glossary as it became larger. I wasn't sure how or when I would use it, got busy doing other things and never really thought about it until it came up here.

It could be a lot of work to build and maintain a quality dictionary.

Bill Pflanz

 

[Marc]

It's going to take me a while to figure out how to configure the thing, but it's oline for 'testing; purposes. If it looks like everythng works OK and there's interest, after the 'testing' period we can take it 'live'. I sorta like the idea, but I'm hoping there is an option to require folks to register in order to make changes, additions and such.

As to

Another (inherent) problem with wikis is that they lack authority that comes with the scrutiny and peer review that real encyclopedia articles get before being published. What's the point in using a wiki if you know in advance that the information you get isn't reliable? Wiki=information anarchy.

I would hope the people who visit here, as well as the forum moderators, will be the 'authority' ('peer review').

As I explained, I have some misgivings about this because it may become a 'runaway' problem. But we can see what happens.

Again, I want to stress that this is technically in TEST mode until 6 July. However, if, by Friday, I have everything figured out I'll let everyone know and we can go 'live' before 6 July.

 

[Marc]

Thread essentially closed - Please go to the Forum vs. Wiki thread.

 

[Marc]

Marc,

I started to put together a glossary of quality terms. (I must have been bored.) After 41 pages, I realized that it could be a life long effort and contain who knows how many pages. I don't know if you can use the glossary but I attached it. I kept track of references in general but not by specific word or phrase. It is actually somewhat entertaining to read if you are in the quality field. It covers a wide range of topics from management theory to technical words to some words and phrases that are not normally associated with quality.

Bill Pflanz

Is it OK by you for me to take your list and post it in a thread as text rather than as an attachment? I'm thinking of labelling the thread Standard Quality Assurance Terms Glossary and making it a 'Sticky' thread. It will be a very good place for quality assurance folks to start and will be indexed by the forum search engine.

 

[Bill Pflanz]

I have no problem with the glossary that I developed being used in the Cove. The only caution I would have is that I did not fully document the sources but used a general list of references rather than specific to each definition.

Bill Pflanz