Developing QMS (Quality Management System) Measurables

Kevin Mader

One of THE Original Covers!
Leader
Admin
Hello gentlemen,

I guess I haven’t given the advice sought. I apologize. It is always difficult to advise not knowing all the specifics about a given situation. Still, I believe that there are many things far too common in business practice and are a safer bet to expect and to advise upon. Don Winton once caught me giving advice I didn’t believe in. He was right to do so, and I thank him for that. So, I hope I haven’t made matters worse by raising my opposition to the idea. I will continue to try and present fairly my opposition. Please feel free to disagree and try to change my mind. I enjoyed reading both of your posts and the comments you made. Pretty well thought, in my opinion.

Senior Management in Zeno’s organization: an unknown Quantity. Perhaps they are asking out of ignorance, or perhaps with a plan. I can not tell, but I suspect it is because they lack a method.

To set one’s measurables: sounds pretty good to most folks! Many would accept the task graciously. But dig a little deeper, I think many would come to the conclusion that it is not what it appears to be.

Christopher mentions the opportunity to prove your personal ethic or work attitude. An individual must create measures that will prove to his superiors that he is worth his salary. As he points out, set the bar too low, management will frown. Set it too high, miss the mark. A lose-lose proposition. To hit the mark, a person must determine a mutually acceptable goal with management. What will it be? Also, what is management’s role in all of this? Management’s job is to lead, manage, and supervise. By making this request, which is it that they are doing? Personal ethic and work attitude have a lot to do with work environment. What environment is management creating here? A bad one I fear. Additionally, they place the burden of proof on the individual, not themselves. This is wrong. Your job is to meet the needs of your subordinates, to lead, manage, and supervise and improve the System, nurture and motivate your people. This is also senior management’s charge. So the fear is that we may not recognize where we need to improve. Some one needs to kick us in the pants. Fair enough, but this activity initiates movement, not motivation. It has a short-term effect. Motivation is what should get the job done. Will a performance evaluation motivate or create movement? Continual guidance is the solution, not the annual review.

So now the dubious task of selecting one’s measurable or trying to convince senior management that there is another way. Which is easier? Setting one’s measurables. This isn’t my advice, in general. An individual must make this hard decision independently in consideration of all the facts. I can only offer an alternative perspective.

To set one’s measurables to me is a compromise. Lose-lose rearing its ugly head again. But people have mortgages to pay, children to feed and clothe, and the need for security. They will almost undoubtably compromise. Horrible, but true. All of us have done it, or are doing so now. We should resist this as best we can, but by no means am I saying quite your job foolishly or flat out refuse to establish measurables and get fired! Collaboration is the right way. It is also more difficult in Western Management. We must learn to collaborate. To do so, we must create the AIM and work together to achieve it.

The AIM is common to everyone in the organization. Having managers in various departments creating their own targets for performance deviates from the AIM of the organization. It works against it. As Deming has phrased it, “Managers heading this way and that way can do a lot of harm!” Working independently leads to unwanted internal competition, manipulation of numbers, sub-optimization of the System, and worse. It doesn’t take long before people figure out how to, or that they have to, manipulate data in order to achieve personal recognition. Budget money will be rewarded to those who ‘apparently’ have shown positive gains, where areas truly needing the money are left out. Andy mentions that he sees nothing wrong with having the chance to help establish measurables. I would agree that participation is a needed element, but it should be considered when setting the Organizational AIM and not for individual performance metrics. Communication is ESSENTIAL!

Selecting a personal development goal is a good idea. Blending it with the measurables, perhaps making the best out of the given situation. Everyone should have a personal development plan, IMHO. People should “preserve and nurture the yearning for learning that anybody is born with.” WED. But do so on your own terms. Learning and improvement MUST mostly be intrinsically motivated.

Christopher points out that Management may be showing their ignorance about a given position by making this type of request. I believe he has this right. What bothers me most about this statement is that it is too often true. What bothers me secondly is that management makes little personal attempt to learn about it either. That is their job! Anyone needing to hear this is in the wrong position. Your statement about other management learning something from ones individual performance measures may be true. Almost any situation presents a learning opportunity in my opinion. But what does Senior Management learn from results that in the first year show a positive gain, in the second a loss? Do we have a trend here? One year, a decent raise. The next: perhaps probation. In order to develop a true understanding of a persons performance, the individual would need years of data to determine effectiveness. Nobody waits that long to be fair! So fudging the numbers becomes the norm, the way to keep your job and keep the raises coming in. This is learned by most quite quickly! The wrong type of learning.

Well, I hope I haven’t offended anyone. It was not my aim to do so. So enough of my rant, the floor is for someone else………

Regards,

Kevin
 
A

Andy Bassett

Kevin Mader said:
The AIM is common to everyone in the organization. Having managers in various departments creating their own targets for performance deviates from the AIM of the organization. It works against it. As Deming has phrased it, “Managers heading this way and that way can do a lot of harm!”

I cant really reply in the full detail that i would like to, so maybe i can just comment on a few points.

First of all to the quote above. I find this absolutely true, and different people pulling in different directions is without doubt the destroyer of many orgnaisations, and one reason why i beleive that consensus dominated nations like Germany and Japan perform so well.

I agree with all the rest of the comments, but what to do? I feel that we are hovering between the perfect and the possible a little. To give an example; I have been working with an organisation that has one major problem. The Management Team are not capable of defining, communicating and implementing a company strategy.

As this is potentially serious, what should we do? Call it a day, or soldier on with the development of the rest of the company. The management have of course been informed of this problem, and have made an unsuccessful attempt to resolve it.
Five years ago i might have laughed at the unprofessionalism of the people involved and gone home, nowaday i realise that business is a great deal more complex than the text books allow for, and i take a philosophical view that we should make the necessary changes where possible, and work parallel on the seemingly intractable themes, to resolve them at a later date perhaps with the motivation of seeing other areas develope.
Hardly efficient or high-tech, but at least progress of a sort.

And this takes me back in a rather long-winded way to Zeno's problem (PS Zeno could you give a little more info about your company, do they have a good strategy? Do they have clear company objectives etc.)

Zeno i would set your measurables, i would probably be tempted to take Kevins suggestions on board and discuss managements own ideas, ask what are the company goals, ask if there any special requirements that the dept may have to meet to match the company objectives.

Maybe by doing this you will encourage better strategy and goal setting from the management at some point in the future.

Regards
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Andy B
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NOTE: HTML edited (quote function).

[This message has been edited by Marc Smith (edited 08 November 2000).]
 

Kevin Mader

One of THE Original Covers!
Leader
Admin
Andy,

Thank you for responding!

What to do? This questions has my sitting back in my chair thinking about it all.

First, I also agree that if Zeno is still flowing the thread, I would like to know more about his situation. It might help to develop the topic better.

For example, what is the role of a QM in Zeno's organization? What does the Job Description say to this regard?

I would hope that in there somewhere there would be something regarding educating folks on Quality and Quality Management. Zeno, being both the ISO MR and the QM should certainly have this in there somewhere. So the question is, can he work from the middle being influential enough to show that individual performance measures are destructive? Can he show them a different way? A tall order I know.

The problem we have today is that very few have ever taken the time to fairly access the good of a Performance Review. We learn to rank and grade things from day one without regard to the System. Performance Reviews are no exception. We continue to learn the same paradigm. It is reinforced over and over in education, business, and in life. Sports statisitics ranking the best teams, teachers awarding grades, political polls are just a few. So in business: rank our workers.

The worst part of a paradigm like this one, we seem content to travel barefoot on sharp rocks rather than walk the soft grassy surface beside the path. Both lead in the same direction. But we have always walked the path, so we continue to walk the path! Paradigm paralysis!

The challenge is to educate people on the benefits of one method over another. When people are trapped by a paradigm, they know no other way (Joel Barker). We are unfortunately in the grip of the Performance Appraisal Paradigm! The trouble with getting folks to change is simple. People have been successful with their paradigm. Ask them to trade it in for another 'unproven' method you meet with resistance. The higher you go in an organization, the more one has to lose, the higher the risk, the greater the fear of change, and the most resistence to it. If what made you successful was a good watch, how reluctant might you be to give up your watch for something else? It would not be easy.

But that is what exactly needs to happen to achieve progress. Otherwise, we become caretakers, always wanting to do them the 'tried and true method'. We need to educate people on the benefits of leadership, management, and supervision (believe it or not, this paradigm, although realized, is not widely practiced). It must substitute the Performance Appraisal!

To do so, we must be demonstrate that although we are in a paradigm of this type, no one is specifically to blame. Management needs to know this, or else, they will feel it is an attack on them. Appeal to their better judgement and tactfully express your idea. We must endeavor to educate!

Regards,

Kevin
 

Proud Liberal

Quite Involved in Discussions
Sorry it took so long to respond (been away from the office for a couple of days).

We are molding and extrusion business in the midst of a company re-structuring. My plant is the extruder. The new president has begun the task of setting up a global strategic planning process (new to the company). BTW, I been here for two years and this is the third president. He comes with an impecable background of both knowledge and results. The main focus of his management style is to have everyone working on the following four goals:
1. Quality – includes safety, training, metrics (ie PPM), ISO, etc
2. Timeliness – includes delivery, time compression (ie cycle times), etc
3. Innovation – new products, packaging, processes, etc
4. Waste Elimination – scrap, inventory, space, paperwork, etc
These goals are listed in the order of importance and my measurables should fall into these categories.

As the Quality Manager and ISO Coordinator, measurables in #1 are really critical but seem all too often beyond my orginizational control. To that concern, the President says that if the goal is important enough for me, then it should be added as a measurable for any other manager whose cooperation is required to achieve that goal. Although I agree (shared objectives and all that), the concept of my bonus being tied to managers performance just doesn’t feel right.

On my offer sheet when hired, I was tasked with obtaining iso9000 registration and 6 sigma to the extrusion plant. The first task is still not completed because of lack of cooperation from other departments and lack of resources. Both of these make it impossible to setup a time schedule for completion. I have no control over missed dates.

The 6 sigma is beyond the capability of the production processes as they now exist. By not meeting the offer sheet “requirements”, I have been passed over on bonuses the last two years. After the second time, I questioned what I was doing “wrong” only to be held accountable to the offer sheet. Additionally, the new President (who I greatly respect) says that the past is past and I must be accessed by some metrics. Certainly, some of which, will be tied to ISO implementation and Quality performance.

I hope this paints a better picture of the task at hand.
 
A

Al Dyer

Zeno,

Look at this situation as the glass being half full!

1: Develop a matrix with the proposed measurable. The matrix shuld include the up and down side of each measureable and how it fits into business plan goals and/or key business indicators. (Hopefully the business plan is developed and the key measurables may already be somewhat developed)

2: Meet with the powers that be and review the matrix. This is the time that negotiations begin and management either agrees with your choices or determines that they should (as a management team) already have in place job description and functions and the related measurables that should be in place for each job function.

It really sounds to me that if management does not already have in place measurables for personal performance there is a long way to go.

(Just venting on that last paragraph)

ASD...

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Al Dyer
 
Y

Y Khoo

Hi Zeno,
Sounds like the whatever metric that you are measured against will not get the performance bonus you want.

Suggest that you use the only metric that managment understand . $$$$
eg..
Cost of Failing to get ISO cert in time =
Lost of business $$$
Cost of Poor Quality = Rework + Scrap +Customer lost

Thats how Mikel Harry basically sold His Six Sigma project and how GE promoted 6 sigma.
It stands to reason that if you are able to achieve a return of magnitude 2x to 3 x the saving (Easily). That your bonus is secure.

regards.. KY
 
A

Andy Bassett

Cant argue with Y Khoo's comments.

Look at it like this. YOur average stressed manager is being bombarded with proposal and projects from each dept in the building.

Up pops the QM and mentions something called ISO 9000, a quick research (maybe using this site) reveals that even amongst the experts there does not appear to be a clear consensus on its benefits.

Unless you can come up with something clear and tangible that can be presented in 300 seconds your project is probably lost. The only way to approach this in these sort of environments is to hit the CEO's with the bottom line figures ie savings.

If you accept this line, then maybe you could agree that we possibly dont do enough to promote this side of things. At least i hardly see; 'we implemented ISO 9000 and saved 2.5% of turnover'.

We could possibly all help ourselves if we used and promoted this approach a little more ie As consultants we could encourage the use of before and after cost measurements. We could share knoweldge on what and how to to measure things. Maybe Marc would be interested to set-up a benchmarking corner on this site.

Just a few loose ideas on how to make our life simpler. Does anybody else have any suggestion how to use financial measurements to justify or prove the worth of Quality initiatives.

Regards


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Andy B
 

Kevin Mader

One of THE Original Covers!
Leader
Admin
My two cents (again):

Zeno, the picture you paint is all to common but IMHO, still awful. The new President is no different than the others; still Management by Numbers. The fact that there are 4 main goals suggests this to me. There are 3 too many! Quality drives the rest and it is plain to see. A company needs a single AIM and a method to achieve it. I see neither in your post.

I feel badly that there is also Management by Objective in your organization. Leads to manipulation of numbers, suboptimization, and worse. Two years the carrot has been dangled. Others have gotten their carrots, but sadly, you did not. It is NOT your fault. It is the fault of the System, one which the new President you respect is content to run under the same worn out theory (warning: I am loosely interpreting the Presidents method based on your post). Too bad.

Six Sigma is another bad joke, again IMHO. It has been reduced to a bad program by the likes of folks like Mikel Harry and Jack Welch. Worse, it is promoted as a cure all, fix all. It is not. Statistical Control is a tool to be used to refine the process (the voice of the process), but the recently endorsed Six Sigma program still focuses on Management by Numbers and Objectives. Just nasty!

I can't agree with Al's statement regarding the need for management to create personal measures as an indicator of forward progress. For me, a goal like that will only set progress back. Presidents must Lead! They shouldn't pass the buck to others by presenting challenges to QMs, especially one in which they haven't a solution to offer.

Y Khoo is advising you to speak the language of Senior Managers. Not a bad idea if you are trying to get their attention. But the problem is that Money is not the only consideration. Senior Managers are handicapped because they mostly only speak this one language. They need to be multilingual. Many do not realize this. Pitching Harry's program gets their attention sure enough, but it serves only to achieve short term succes and eventual collapse. The successes touted by himself and by Welch are due to other factors carefully omitted by both men. This appears to be invisible to many, and sadly, they step into the trap that is set (my personal opinion).

Unfortunately, Andy is right: CEOs want bottom line figures. This is because they are results-oriented, not process-oriented. With this dominant Management Theory here and in Europe, we are doomed to repeat our failures! They need to adopt the New Philosophy.

So once again I guess I haven't helped much. I hold a different viewpoint on this matter than those who responded. I respect their opinions.

So what is the solution to this problem? In my opinion, Education. Everyone needs to be educated in the New Philosophy. Everyone must understand that we are were we are because many key people in positions of authority are suffering Paradigm Paralysis. No one is to blame for this condition. Still, we must break from the clutches of the old Management Paradigm and adopt one that works. In time, that Management Paradigm will run its course, and we will need to adopt another. We must move from being comfortable or in denial to being uncomfortable and looking for insight. Change can only take place under this circumstance. Well, enough of my babble.

Regards,

Kevin
 
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