Replies: 54

James Howe Posts: 200 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Aug 30, 2005 7:20 AM   Reply My first and only exposure to the term "Chaos" came in the late 1980's when I was a QAE on the F-15 simulator. It was buzzed about the various offices as a new science best explained using the "Grand Canyon" as an example of Chaos. Supposedly the theory was that the grand canyon was not formed over millions of years by the Colorado eroding through bedrock and surrounding soil. It was, according to Chaos, form in a matter of seconds by some cataclysmic event. Does this ring any bells or am I way off base? Message was edited by: James Howe

Wes Bucey, Quality Manager Posts: 1,317 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Aug 30, 2005 8:25 AM   Reply This may be what you refer to (badlands, not Grand Canyon): @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_lake_missoula.html Glacial Lake Missoula From: U.S. National Park Service Website, Ice Age Floods, 2002 During the last Ice Age, a finger of the Cordilleran ice sheet crept southward into the Idaho Panhandle, blocking the Clark Fork River and creating Glacial Lake Missoula. As the waters rose behind this 2,000-foot ice dam, they flooded the valleys of western Montana. At its greatest extent, Glacial Lake Missoula stretched eastward a distance of some 200 miles, essentially creating an inland sea. Periodically, the ice dam would fail. These failures were often catastrophic, resulting in a large flood of ice- and dirt-filled water that would rush down the Columbia River drainage, across northern Idaho and eastern and central Washington, through the Columbia River Gorge, back up into Oregon's Willamette Valley, and finally pour into the Pacific Ocean at the mouth of the Columbia River. The glacial lake, at its maximum height and extent, contained more than 500 cubic miles of water. When Glacial Lake Missoula burst through the ice dam and exploded downstream, it did so at a rate 10 times the combined flow of all the rivers of the world. This towering mass of water and ice literally shook the ground as it thundered towards the Pacific Ocean, stripping away thick soils and cutting deep canyons in the underlying bedrock. With flood waters roaring across the landscape at speeds approaching 65 miles per hour, the lake would have drained in as little as 48 hours. But the Cordilleran ice sheet continued moving south and blocking the Clark Fork River again and again, creating other Glacial Lake Missoulas. Over thousands of years, the lake filling, dam failure, and flooding were repeated dozens of times, leaving a lasting mark on the landscape of the Northwest. Many of the distinguishing features of the Ice Age Floods remain throughout the region today. Together, these two interwoven stories of the catastrophic floods and the formation of Glacial Lake Missoula are referred to as the "Ice Age Floods." @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ -Wes Bucey, Quality Manager

Bruce Waltuck Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge <badlands and canyons> Posted: Aug 31, 2005 2:59 PM   Reply Hi there, I am not aware that there was a theory suggesting the Grand canyon was formed in a moment, or anything like that. Certainly, the complex and turbulent forces in nature created the amazing landscape. The museum exhibit I saw some eyars ago, and which opened my eyes to complexity, was called "Turbulent Landscapes." Many of the seminal exhibitas from that show are still on display at the Exploratorium, in San Francisco. The web material from that exhibit is still archived on the Exploratorium site, and you can find that through Google. Some of the natural forces that were portrayed include tornado-type vortices (whose swirling dynamics and emergent downforce vector, inspired my teacher Vlad Dimitrov, who works at the University of Western Sydney); laminar flow; erosion; self-organized criticality (think of sand dunes or avalanches that suddenly give way); and more. If someone has hypothesized a very different formative dynamic for the Canyon, I'd be interested to know what they thought. Be well, and thanks for joining us, Bruce W

Ganesh Raghunathan Posts: 1 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Aug 30, 2005 12:39 PM   Reply Dear Bruce Waltuck, Iam Ganesh Kumar Raghunathan, ASQ certified six sigma black belt and I have been involved in the quality field for almost 11 yrs now. It's very encouraging and exciting to see a discussion forum on Complexity and quality being moderated and a BoK initiative being launched. I have been exploring this area of chaos and complexity for quite sometime and My 1st exposure was through the Book by Ralph Stacey titled "The Chaos Frontier", James Gleick's "Chaos" and M Wladrop "Complexity". I firmly believe that the Complexity science has a lot in store for advancing the field of Quality in this "Networked World". As we are moving from a Knowledge economy to Creative economy, Organisations need to be more Creative & Innovative and In this aspect, just to quote a case in point --- The "Self Organisation theory" of Chaos science explains the process by means of which dynamic systems create innovation and new order out of chaos. I would be very happy to support this initiative and participate in the advancement of this initiative. Also, would suggest if we could look at coming out with a Quality Management Model drawn out using the principles of the Complexity science, Non-linear systems behaviour (Inherent Instability leading to order and chaos - Creative Tension) and Fractals theory that could foster continuous Innovation and Creativity in Organisations. I look forward to more on this journey... Ganesh Kumar Raghunathan India

Bruce Waltuck Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Aug 31, 2005 3:05 PM   Reply Hi there, I am extremely encouraged by the fact that you, as a Six Sigma black belt, are interested in the complexity connections. My own belief is that Six Sigma is fundamentally a set of analytical tools, deriving largely from the roots of SPC. Like any tools, they are only as good as the ways we choose to use them. Where the literature I have seen on Six Sigma (and I am not an expert in that discipline by any means) suggests a rigorous analytical methodology, the dynamics of complexity are far more fluid and subtle. So all the more interesting that an accomplished analytical practitioner would be attracted to the dynamics of complex non-linear systems. Where I see the connection between quality and complexity is in fact in the very foundation of variation itself. In manufacturing processes, we seek to identify and eliminate special causes of variation, to bring the process into control. We want as narrow a range of variation as possible in our outputs. We seek sameness, consistency, and conformance to specification. But to me, it is this very pursuit of sameness that is the antithesis of healthy variation in SOCIAL or human dynamics. In human interaction, the patterns of our iterated communication give rise to norms, values, and ideology - the organizational culture, for example. If we have too little variation (social process "in control" than we get stagnant, dogmatic, even cult-like behavior and culture. At the far end of the variation scale, we get chaos, or anarchy. But as you note, and I think this is the key for linking complexity to the work of quality improvement, there is a level of variation (or "turbulence" if you prefer) that brings the social dynamic to the "edge of chaos" level. Science has well-established that this is where the greatest potential lies for creative and innovative solutions to system problems, and the greatest potential for sustained growth and success. Can we measure social interaction or "turbulence" the way we make control charts? I think with some effort, we can. Can leaders manage and plan for this "edge of chaos" target the way they do for Six Sigma defect rates? I do not think so. As Deming said, there are unimportant things that can be measured. There are important things that can not be measured. Leading and managing in this context seem to me to be very different than traditional concepts would teach. I think Meg Wheatley has been very successful in describing leadership from a complexity pespective in her boks. I really like your idea of seeking to construct a model over time, that would describe the dynamics of what we might call "complex quailty." I believe it was Shewhart (or was it Deming again?) who, way back in the 1930's, talked about quality as a moving target, created by the customer's changing requirements. To me, this is the essence of the complexity dynamic. I believe we can talk about complexity in the context of defining quality; in the context of leadership; in the context of process improvement and assessing results. Like any good science, I would hope that over time, these theories would be provable and predictive, and suggest methods by which others can replicate and influence positive change. My thanks again for writing, and I look forward to more correspondence and dialogue with our complexity-quality community.

James Shelor Posts: 553 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 1, 2005 12:23 PM   Reply Bruce, Granted, I am not as experienced at the practice of Six Sigma as many others who are responding to this thread but I have spent 30 years using many of the concepts of six sigma and quality to improve processes and products. I am a certified Project Management Professional and will be a certified SSBB in October. I have completed all requirements to take the SSBB certification examination and have been approved by ASQ to take the examination. This message is not intended to sound critical, it is simply intended to present some ideas for consideration. I am a little surprised by your belief that Six sigma professionals are limited in any way in the tools they use for process or product improvement. The tools available for use in all phases of the DMAIC process are completely at the discretion of the leader of the six sigma process, especially in the Define, Analyze, and Improve processes. A SSBB is expected to get outside the box and look for innovative solutions to complex problems. That is why the team is expected to be made up of the people who do the work as well as the SS professionals. The whole world of available tools and theories of improvement and analysis are expected to be used during these processes. Just as they are used by the quality professionals. A SSBB that does not get out of the box and use any available tool or theory to look for new and innovative solutions to problems is simply not doing the job correctly. I would also like to participate in this discussion. Jim Shelor PMP

Bruce Waltuck Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 4:23 PM   Reply HI there, I have been away out of state attending a conference, and decided to treat myself to some "online time off." Back now to work, and to the threads of this discussion. Please note I did not say, nor intend to suggest, that the tools available to Six Sigma practitioners are limited. If you read my words, I said that like any tools, these are only as good as how we choose to use them. I have seen people make flow charts that were literally 40 feet long (and which NO ONE ever looked at again), and seen fishbone diagrams whose "head" had nothing to do with the question the team really wanted to get at. My point is that any tool can be used in many ways, some more useful or productive than others. I was not suggesting limitations in Six Sigma. I did suggest (as many have eloquently done in Quality Digest, Quality Progress and elsewhere) that Six Sigma owes much to the fundamental statistical analytical tools of the quality control and improvement movements. In fact, my point in commenting on the earlier posting by the Six Sigma Black Belt, was that I was pleased someone with such extensive training in analyzing business processes for improvement, would favorably consider the implications of complexity science on the work of quality improvement. I hope others will come to this dialogue with an open mind as well, and all bring their own perspectives to the work of building a complexity/quality Body of Knowledge. Thanks for reading and for posting, and I hope you stay with us. Bruce

John K. Balor Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 11, 2005 4:52 AM   Reply Hello Bruce, I'm very happy to see somebody with knowledge of CAS taking charge of this group. Kevin Kelly's "Out of Control" (1994) was the book that got me rolling in respect of TQM and CAS, 10 years ago, and I've also read much of what Kevin Dooley has to say about quality and complexity, plus the other books mentioned on this group, including Meg Wheatley's "Leadership and the new science". Inspired by your previous post, I'm now reading "Leadership and The New Science" all over again, but although her ideas about "management by metaphor" is okay, I don't think this method is significantly better than "management by slogans". What seems to be missing in these books on Management and Complexity is how to develop quality management systems in accordance with the CAS theories. I have a suggestion on how to do this, but would like to hear what other have to say. 1) Point of somebody in the organisation to coordinate Quality Control. The responsibilities of this person should in compliance with 5.2.2 in ISO 9001:2000, and he should carry out his tasks as "action research" (Reg Revans). 2) Think of this person as a single-person company ("cell"), and make a local ISO 9001:2000 QMS for him, regardless of whether the rest of the organisation is following ISO 9001:2000 or not. 3) Make sure the QMS for this cell is consistent with the Deming Philosophy and the principles of Lean Management. Focus on establishing stable processes (SPC) and carry out experiment within the paradigme of continuous improvement (PDCA). 4) Let the whole organism grow until the company reaches TQM Excellence and beyond. What one should try to establish with the CAS approach, I believe, is to create a hive mind, or make the organisation work like an ant colony. As far as I can tell, this is more or less how Japanese Quality Management works at its best ("The Toyota Way"). There is no need to preach about culture, awareness etc., as culture is a function of structure and the way things are done. Just start growing TQM, and culture will follow. Six Sigma, I believe, is the extreme opposite of the CAS approach. Rather than growing quality, like at Toyota, Six Sigma companies try to install quality by running a quality project ("Six Sigma Project", "ISO 9000 project", "Lean Production Project", ...). Such projects create awareness, but I don't think awareness is necessary. It only helps boast egos. Quality management should be focused on creating flow and improving the system, in the long run, not on feeding egos in the top management group. The less one hears about quality, the better. The quality manager and his group should rather feed their egos by publishing in academic journals. John Balor

Wes Bucey, Quality Manager Posts: 1,317 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 12, 2005 10:08 AM   Reply Perhaps you'd like to rework your metaphors and similes. I, personally, do NOT believe any organization should work like a beehive or ant colony. Beehives and ant colonies have not changed significantly in millions and millions of years for the simple reason that individual initiative and "improvement" are stifled by the hive mentality. The only change that comes about is from "random genetic mutation" - this certainly denies the concept of Plan-Do-Check-Act, and completely controverts the philosophy of "continual improvement." -Wes Bucey, Quality Manager

John K. Balor Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 13, 2005 2:57 AM   Reply Wes: My impression is that Toyota and other successful Asian companies are being run like beehives and ant colonies. Why are they successful? I think the theory need for explaining this can be found in CAS. I think there are two important aspects of CAS management: 1) Small decisions are taken on intuition (kaizen) 2) Large decisions are taken on consensus (hoshin kanri) The two popular management books "Tipping Point" and "Blink!" illustrate these points, I feel, in an interesting manner. John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 13, 2005 7:46 AM   Reply John: Are you a sales agent of such junk books? Before Wes gets on deck to reply to you, I would like to correct your understanding a little bit. I hope Wes will correct mine appropriately. In my definition from my observation over some decades, their kaizen is “tampering”, and “Hoshin kanri” is “slogan posting”, as I wrote in some other threads. In Japanese old saying, the honest lose money. I do not like to believe that old saying, but it seems to hold true. Akio Miura

Timothy Folkerts Posts: 393 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 13, 2005 3:52 PM   Reply It seems to me that a more fruitful analogy than bees or ants would be a neural network. While not as intuitive as insects, artificial neural networks are a popular topic in computer science as a way to simulate the way a brain works and explore artificial intelligence. A brain is made up of many neurons. Some neurons receive info from the outside world, some send information back out, but many simply react to information from other neutrons within the brain. Each neuron is connected to 100's or 1,000's of other neurons - sending and receiving information via litle electrical impulses. As time goes by and the brain receives different stimuli, these neurons begin to react in ways that are beneficial for the brain - the brain learns. It is not always clear just what the role of each neuron is or how it fits into the big picture, but the result is a very powerful collective. A neural network like the brain can be useful for solving problems that don't fit the logic of traditional computer programming - like pattern recognition or dealing with incomplete or contradictory simuli. A computer can simluate this process on a small scale. Or substitute "neuron" => "employee" and "brain" => "corporation" and suddenly is sounds a lot like the operation of a pretty much any company. Several analogies spring to mind between artificial neural networks and organizations ... * some neurons help in some situations, but hinder in others * often sections of the network can be removed within significant impact * over time, the overall effectiveness increases, but often it gets stuck far from the optimal solution. In such cases, you re-adjust and see if you can head toward even better performance * effective use of feedback is vital for efficient training The more I think about this, the more I think it could be an interesting way to analyze organizations. Tim F Some reference for those interested in more info. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neural_network http://www.ai-junkie.com/ann/evolved/nnt2.html

Wes Bucey, Quality Manager Posts: 1,317 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 13, 2005 2:51 PM   Reply You are almost scary, John. I can't imagine where you get the idea that ALL these ideas in the various books you cite are worth anything to a real world practitioner. You seem to seize on different "minor" ideas and rush to elevate them to major importance. Worse, you try to twist and bend everything else you see and hear about to this distorted view of what a well-run organization should be. I use an analogy often in my public presentations which seems to describe your activity: "My grandson got hold of a hammer. Sadly, to him, EVERYTHING looked like a nail which needed to be pounded." Often, close scrutiny of many books by so-called experts tends to expose the books and authors as "hack jobs." Any book which suggests a one-man organization needs or could possibly work with a 150 page Quality Manual (even with a lot of "white space") is just plain wrong. If it weren't possibly true, we might suspect the author is actually a mean-spirited little person who WANTS small businesses to fail by choking on their own paperwork. (My mom has a similar theory about women's fashion designers who proclaim that the "street corner tart" look is in for office business wear. Mom claims these "designers" really hate the idea of women in business and try to destroy their credibility by dressing them like hookers.) By inference, if the concept of a 150 page QM is wrong, how can we give any credence to anything else in the book? Management by consensus is a completely idiotic concept. The only viable consensus "might" be among the investors who put capital into the enterprise. Management by consensus implies EVERYONE has equal validity in terms of brainpower, background knowledge, and what Deming terms "Profound Knowledge." I wouldn't let this author of the book which describes a 150 page Quality Manual for a small organization in my door, let alone sit down at my table and help hammer out a consensus of the direction my business should take. Quite frankly, John, the primary reason I continue to comment on some of the absurd things you bring to the Forum is to guard against the chance that some naive newbie might take one of your unchallenged statements and try to implement it in real life. For those newbies, I say - take all these so-called Quality books which purport to "simplify" Quality by giving you a few simple formulas to follow and put them in the trash along with books like: "Make a Million in Your Spare Time Buying Foreclosed Real Estate" "Only $39.95 - Secrets You Can Use to Beat the Stock Market" "Eat All You Want and Lose 100 Pounds in 90 days!" Actually - you might be more successful with one of those books than with the Quality books John has been citing. -Wes Bucey, Quality Manager

Bruce Waltuck Re: Bees and Autonomous Agents Posted: Sep 15, 2005 2:05 PM   Reply Let's pause a moment and think about the difference between bees or ants, and a truly complex adaptive system - a HUMAN system. In the beehive or ant colony, each bee or ant follows certain limited rules about what to do. The bee or any may learn and engage in some slight adaptations to its environment (where the flowers are; heavy rains changing the colony's chambers, etc.). But there is little in the way of self-reflection and learning at the individual level, and little in the way of opportunity to choose and do something different than that which the drone/worker has always been and done. One of the cautions with thinking about complexity science is in trying to directly apply metaphors and concepts from the physical or natural sciences, to the world of us humans. Ralph Stacey in particular writes and talks about this. Analogy means SIMILAR TO but NOT SAME AS. As we begin to read and learn about the way that comlpex systems work - both in nature and in human endeavor, we can think about the actual underlying dynamics that drives communication, sense-making, negotiation of meaning and purpose, and changes over time. I suspect we wuold all agree that these dynamics play out VERY diferently in a typical human organization (Toyota or any other) than they do in the hive or colony. One aspect of complex systems that we observe both in nature and in our own behaviors, is that the collective patterns of local interactions among individual autonomous agents (each of us, in the human context) create higher-order patterns of behaviors and consequences. The mass of iterated ongoing communication that we all have with each other in the community or workplace, ends up generating our norms, values, and ideologies, for example (and my thanks to Ralph Stacey for this understanding). Over time, we may get locked in to patterns of behavior just as the bee or ant does. But we can focus our attention and notice what is happening around us. We can recall the past, in the present, and make a choice to do something new or different in the future. We affect, and are affected by, the people and environment around us (this is very well articulated in Wheatley's work such as "A Simpler Way" and in Sally Goerner's "Chaos and the Evolving Ecological Universe" for exampe). Bringing this post to a close, I'll relate back to the more traditional processes of Quality Improvement. Deming and others spoke about CONTINUOUS improvement. The "journey, not destination." I refer people often to Deming's point about Constancy of Purpose. We maintain some norms, values, and ideology even as we adapt to changing conditions, and keep making improvements towards our agreed-on (but also changing) objectives. Shewhart wrote about quality in terms of the ever-changing expectations of the customer back in the 1930's, as I recall. So relax and know that a complexity perspective isn't going to turn anyone into an ant, or a Kafka-esque cockroach. Sometimes in our workplaces it only FEELS that way <smile> Be well, Bruce W

Bruce Waltuck Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 4:34 PM   Reply HI there, welcome again to this discussion. While I hope to focus on the building of the Body of Knowledge, I am glad to see comments on all aspects of how learning from the complexity sciences applies to the work of quality and organizational improvement. I know Kevin Dooley, and in fact was amazed to learn from his web site, that one of his favorite musical artists is a guitarist I grew up with and am still friendly with. Small world. Kevin has written as much or more about Complex Adaptive Systems (the CAS referred to earlier) and TQM/Quality, as anyone I know. I hope he'll find the time to join us here and contribute to the BoK dialogues. With regard to Meg Wheatley, I would say that Leadership and the New Science is in a way, already a dated piece of Meg's work. Her next book, "A Simpler Way" has what I consider profound explanations about the ways that people act in organizations (and elsewhere in life). It gets to the heart of issues about competition and command-and-control, for example. But my best recommendation right now, is to get Meg's current book, "Finding Our Way." It is a re-worked volume of her ideas about leadership over the past ten years, including much from A Simpler Way. Personally, I do think businesses around the world will come to realize what some are already finding- that they can be eco-friendly; collabhorative instead of domineering; responsible corporate citizens and STILL make good profits with satisfied customers. In fact, I believe that adopting methods implied by complexity science can unleash innovation, creativity, business success, and employee satisfaction in very powerful ways. But having said that, the barriers to such change are also powerful, and will not yield easily in many cases. I used to teach a college class on organizational culture. Each semester I opened the series with a reading that described a drab building filled with drab offices, drab furniture, and dour drab people doing mundance routine work. It was a rather depressing place. The students assumed this was from some business book- Tom Peters? Peter Drucker? Deming? No, I told them it was from a grat book on organizational culture - Le Carre's classic "The Spy Who Came in From the COld." take care, Bruce W

John K. Balor Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 3:28 AM   Reply Tim: I like your ideas of using the brain as a metaphor. Gareth Morgan has a complete chapter devoted to TQM and the metaphor of the organisation as a brain in his highly interesting "Images of Organisation" (1997). Norbert Wiener, Ross Ashby and Stafford Beer have written exensively on the subject. Personally, however, I have some difficulty with the image, so I'm hoping to gain more insight from thinking about the organisation as a beehive or an ant colony. How do ants organize? To me it appears they do TQM by instinct and consensus. Wes and Akio seem to disagree as to whether this particular application of complexity theory will actually help creating a sustainable system of quality control and continuous improvement, but the books I've read indicate otherwise. Do you have any ideas on how to carry out experiments for testing out CAS theory with real organisations? John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 5:11 AM   Reply John: In csse of ants, 80% of them work while balance 20% is goofing. That is their organization. (I am not sure of these figures, but the percentage is always same.) The best TQM is being done by the group of "caracara" (the bird similar to hawk or falcon) in Falkland Island near Argentina. I watched a TV program about it a couple of years ago. It was maybe the film of British TV/film company. Their teamwork was like rugby football players. If we practice the team work like caracara or ruggers or American football players, it would be much better to acquire good management than reading any such books. By the way, what is TQM? All people are using it in different senses. The ways except that of caracara and ruggermen look to me "Totally quite manukeh". (manukeh is the synonym of poka). Akio Message was edited by: Akio Miura (corrected a typo on Aug. 12, 2006)

William Pflanz Posts: 1,405 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 9:46 AM   Reply > > By the way, what is TQM? All people are using it in > different senses. The ways except that of caracara > and ruggermen look to me "Totally quite manukeh". > (manukeh is the synonym of poka). > > Akio I agree that TQM has many different definitions. Here is one description that I found. Bill Pflanz What is Total Quality Management? The term was first used by the Naval Air Systems Command in 1985 to describe its Japanese-style management approach to quality improvement. (Quality Glossary compiled by Karen Bemowski, Quality Progress, February 1992, pg. 28) “TQM is a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction. TQM is based on the participation of all members of an organization in improving processes, products, services and the culture they work in.” (Quality Glossary compiled by Karen Bemowski, Quality Progress, February 1992, pg. 28) Here is how quality is defined in our Baldrige award criteria. “Quality is judged by customers. Thus, quality must take into account all product and service features and characteristics that contribute value to customers and lead to customer satisfaction, preference, and retention.” (Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award 1998 Criteria for Performance Excellence, U.S, Department of Commerce, pg. 40)

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 10:50 AM   Reply Bill: Thanks for the definition of TQM. I think Karen Bemowski does not know the TQM in 1980s. It was the model of Malcomb Baldridge Award, not the copy of Japanese Totally Quite Monkeylike program. I know how they claimed they were doing TQM around 1990. It was merely their TQC (Total company-wide Quality Circle) JUSE learned from Deming. I used to call it Totally Quite Crazy then. This thread is not the place for me to call them monkeys, but I just want to say that Karen did not know the fact and wrote the paper merely from some misinformation then, and you do not have to be misled by her article. Maybe the Naval Air Systems Command in 1985 described its Japanese-style management approach to quality improvement. However, around that time, Japanese people were just enthusiastic to learn every quality tools and methods from the US. The misunderstanding by the Naval Air Systems Command was caused by Deming’s misinformation, I guess. When I first heard about Japanese TQM, I had to utter my Six Sigma Acronym "OMG" (Oh My Gosh". Of course not in the BOK of ASQ) because they started to call their TQC (Totally company-wide Quality Circle) "TQM". I helped JUSE from 1990 many times. So I know the actual status of their TQC and TQM. Their program did not have anything to do with customer satisfaction. So I wrote an article in the magazine of Japan Standards Association in 1990 “your quality control is not for customer satisfaction but self-satisfaction.” In that article, I wrote the importance of quality management system meeting to ASME codes, ANSI Z series, GMP and ISO. I had quite a tough time to teach Japanese Standards Association and JUSE which are like "evil empire" in the Dark Continent in the Dark Age. So I can say like this. Akio Miura Message was edited by: Akio Miura

Bruce Waltuck Re: Monkeys to humans Posted: Sep 15, 2005 2:15 PM   Reply Hello again, I apreciate the enthusiasm for discussing the history of the term TQM. I am less enthused about sarcasm, which my 53-year-old mind tells me is almost always about power differentials at its root. That may be a subject for another discussion board - or at least a complexity thread about leadership and human relationships. Does it matter in fact who coined the term TQM? Over my own years in the field, which began in 1981-2, I must have seen dozens of variations on what organizations called their improvement initiatives. Total Quality Control, Continuous Quality Improvement, Quality Circles, Quality of Work Life, and on and on. It is more interesting to me, and I think more relevant to our work here in considering a Body of Knowledge about complexity, to reflect on the HOW and WHY of our different views of what TQM MEANS, and fundamentally, what QUALITY itself means. Some of you may have read my article in last December's Quality Digest on this topic. It's online at the QD site (12/04, "The Last Word"). I view QUALITY as a strictly inter-relational dynamic process. The quality of the product or service doesn't really get called into play or assessed, until the customer interacts with the service provider or product itself. I believe this is "qualitatively different" (pun intended!) from the more static definition of "conformance to specification." SO--- one question we may consider is HOW DO WE COLLECTIVELY NEGOTIATE THE MEANING OF THE WORD QUALITY SO WE CAN ACT TOGETHER TO IMPROVE IT, WHATEVER IT IS? More later, Bruce Waltuck

John K. Balor Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 14, 2005 5:08 PM   Reply I can't help laughing out loud when reading Akio's posts with his constantly new and fascinating interpretations of familiar acronyms and biting satire of all sorts. Caracara birds? Oh dear! I'm happy having a good sense of humour is something that is appreciated on the ASQ discussion groups. Cheers John

Bruce Waltuck Re: humor and satire and sarcasm Posted: Sep 15, 2005 2:18 PM   Reply hi all, I thought I better clarify -- I DO have a sense of humor (honest I do!), and I appreciate the kind of Dilbert-like SATIRE that illustrates our human foibles. What I would prefer to avoid on this discussion board is SARCASM - remarks whose underlying function is to assert "more rightness" over another person or their ideas. We can respectfully disagree without demeaning others, and I hope that is what we'll all do. Thanks for understanding (humor intended!) bruce W

John K. Balor Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Sep 16, 2005 3:53 AM   Reply Hello Bruce, Do you have a template or some kind of instructions for creating the BOK, so we could get a structured discussion? John

Bruce Waltuck Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge <template> Posted: Sep 16, 2005 1:19 PM   Reply Hi there, While I am sure that ASQ has some criteria, or template, for how a BoK should be structured, I did not want this effort to begin with that imposed structure. Rather, I began by sugesting the things that I personally think a BoK should begin with (core concepts, metaphors, and terminology), and asked the participants here to respond with their own ideas about how to organize the BoK. A few days ago i sent out an email to the 40 or so people who attended the initial Complexity-Quality session that ASQ/GoalQPC/Plexus put on in Boston (just a year ago exactly). I also attended the Plexus Summit in Florida this past weekend, and have another 75+ people to invite here. Then, I have encouraged people to further spread the word and invite others into the conversation. So in terms of structure, I don't know that we need one quite yet. In keeping with the concepts of complexity, I would encourage this group to discuss, negotiate meaning and purpose, and see if a structure for the BoK emerges from this iterated process. There are certainly several ways to do this. One which I think I mentioned in the first post, would be to organize information about complexity and quality in terms of the Baldrige model. Another way would be to enumerate the characteristics of complex systems, and then have the complexity-quality info under each of these. Whatever structure is finally used, I personally hope it will reflect the rich dynamism of complex human systems as well as the applicability to the work of quality improvement. While we get ourselves a bit more "organized" (pun intended), I will inquire with ASQ as to what they would like to see for the BoK. Thanks for this great question, Bruce Waltuck

John K. Balor Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge <template> Posted: Sep 22, 2005 2:31 AM   Reply Are there any journals dealing with research on CAS and TQM? What are the most important questions in academia are asking themselves about CAS and TQM at the moment? John

Bruce Waltuck Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 22, 2005 9:00 PM   Reply I am not aware of any journals that specifically focus on Quality and Complexity. This forum right here might be as close as we are at the moment. There are journals on various aspects of complexity (and again, note that not all theorists refer to Complex Adaptive Systems - CAS). In constructing a Body of Knowledge, perhaps it would be useful to identify relevant journals, and mine them for useful BoK info. I'll use this last point as a springboard for a moderator-like comment-- While I love debating and discussing these general issues as much as anyone, this is NOT the stated purpose of this Discussion Board. Unlike most, this one has a goal, a real-world work objective. We want to PRODUCE SOMETHING. In order to DO that, we need to: - understand the objective - define and agree on what the product should look like - step up and volunteer to do some work alone and together, to produce the desired BoK WHAT - HOW - WHO? I have offered as a starting point, the foundations of core concepts, metaphors, and vocabulary. But the contributors to date have mainly posted discussion on a broad range of issues, and less so on the BoK objective. I believe we can do both, and I am willing to try that approach. SEPARATE THREADS for the general stuff, and for the BoK stuff. If all the energy moves to the general, and no work is being done on the BoK, then I may have to intervene in some fashion. Is that a "power differential?" Yes. Do I want to impose my will on others? No, not at all (with the exception of seeing us collaborate on a BoK). But if that idea is not sufficiently appealing to motivate any of you, then I'll need to re-evaluate the objective. Cheers, Bruce W

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 23, 2005 3:20 AM   Reply I agree on this. This group seems to work like a CAS, all chaos and complexity. Do you think the patterns of the BoK will emerge by itself from the process of running a discussion group in a totally chaotic manner? It is an interesting thought... John

Wes Bucey, Quality Manager Posts: 1,317 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 23, 2005 6:16 PM   Reply > WHAT - HOW - WHO? > > I have offered as a starting point, the foundations > of core concepts, metaphors, and vocabulary. But the > contributors to date have mainly posted discussion on > a broad range of issues, and less so on the BoK > objective. I believe we can do both, and I am > willing to try that approach. SEPARATE THREADS for > the general stuff, and for the BoK stuff. If all the > energy moves to the general, and no work is being > done on the BoK, then I may have to intervene in some > fashion. Is that a "power differential?" Yes. Do I > want to impose my will on others? No, not at all > (with the exception of seeing us collaborate on a > BoK). But if that idea is not sufficiently appealing > to motivate any of you, then I'll need to re-evaluate > the objective. > > Cheers, > > Bruce W @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ An injection of reality and levity vis a vis "creating a new BOK" Organization Unity of Purpose This is a story about four people named ___Everybody, ___Somebody, ___Anybody, and ___Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done! Paragraph 6.2.2 (d) of ISO 9000:2000 requires "[The organization shall] . . . ensure . . . personnel are aware of the relevance and importance of their activities and how they contribute to the achievement of the quality objectives" to prevent this from ever happening again. -Wes Bucey, Quality Manager

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 24, 2005 3:14 AM   Reply You make a good point, Wes, but CAS is a difficult subject. Gary Flake tried to make some structure out of it, but mostly it seems to be a bunch of random ideas from biology, chemestry, quantum physics, mathematics etc. What is the natural starting point for understanding CAS? My impression is that the fractal geometry of self-computation may perhaps be a natural starting point. I don't think leadership has anything to do with CAS. People like Richardo Semmel, creating organizations without leaders, are perhaps the only ones who actually attempt to use CAS for practical organizational purposes. John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 24, 2005 4:47 AM   Reply John: The reason why Wes and I discuss TQM is that you often refers to TQM without knowing its correct meaning. (You could not reply to my question “what is TQM?” Now you know it from the good definition by Bill Pflanz.) According to Feigenbaum, “quality is everybody’s job, but because it is everybody’s job, it can become nobody’s job.” In my interpretation, everybody expects that somebody except he will do it. “He” is everybody here grammatically. So nobody is left, i.e., nobody will do it. This can be proved correct mathematically (using Georg Cantor’s set theory and Venn diagram). Wes’s statement is more specific and in-depth. It is perfect to describe the actual state of TQM in most cases. It is not written in any books, but the truth. Either in TQM or CAS, caracara birds in Falkland Islands are more smart and diligent than human beings. In the TV program I watched, about a dozen of caracara birds were surrounding the camp site in a forest and watching the campers pitching a tent. While the campers are taking a nap after completion of tent setting, all birds flew at the tent. Four or five were lifting the tent sheet with their beaks, while five or six were pulling each peg from the ground, and two birds were tearing the tent sheet with their beaks and claws to make the entrance holes. In a couple of minutes, they disassembled the tent, got food stored inside it, and flew away. Every bird was doing different jobs in parallel. Moreover, each bird took different food so that they can share with each other. If we drew a PERT chart for their project, every event is in parallel with the same length, i.e., with no slack time. I was amazed with their team work. It is the ideal TQM with excellent project management and perfect performance, I thought. Akio Miura

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 24, 2005 11:37 AM   Reply Akio: Your story about the caracara birds is amazing, and a wonderful illustration of the CAS concept, if we accept that the birds were acting as a "hive mind", i.e. without some kind of central leadship. When it comes to the definition of 'TQM', I am aware that the terms was coined by the U.S. Navy in 1985, but personally I prefer to use the operational definition of TQM as that of an organization working in compliance with the Malcom Baldrige criteria (or the EFQM in Europe, "European TQM", and the Deming Prize in Japan, "Japanese TQM"). As Deming said, verbal definitions mean nothing. The only thing that counts are operational definitions. John

Wes Bucey, Quality Manager Posts: 1,317 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 24, 2005 4:26 PM   Reply The birds were exhibiting intelligence and thinking, not an instinctual hive mind. They were cooperating more like a wolf pack or a pride of lions (or a group of humans) to accomplish a goal. Many animals think and learn. Learning is different from "adapting." A spider may adapt its web size and shape to conditions of anchoring surfaces, but each species of spider continues to make the type of web characteristic of its species. Similarly, bees may make their hives in hollow trees, clefts of rocks, or within the walls of buildings, but they still make individual cells of the honeycomb the same way they have for millions of years. Their food source is still nectar and pollen from flowers and they haven't learned, as hummingbirds have, to obtain sustenance from human-built contraptions when flowers are in short supply. I recently saw a documentary of a captive orca (killer whale) which learned to bait a trap for seagulls and taught the technique to fellow orcas in its tank: The orca regurgitated some of the fish it had been fed by keepers. Gulls flew into the tank to feed on the regurgitated fish. The orca lurked below the water until the gull settled on to the water, then WHOOSH, the orca swam up and snarfed down the gull. Then the orca retreated until a new gull landed, then WHOOSH! Goodby gull! Soon, all the orcas had taken up the sport, even though they had plenty of fish for food. In my opinion, that is certainly LEARNING, not instinctive hive behavior. -Wes Bucey, Quality Manager

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 24, 2005 8:22 PM   Reply Wes: Thanks for the good explanation about learning of birds and orca whales. It is a very good learning for me. It reminded me that our ancestors (even such sages as Lao-tse in China) learned many things from animals (mostly monkeys, bears, deer, foxes, and wolves) and birds, for example, good foods, good medicines (both herbs and minerals), and good hot springs for remedy of injury and sickness. I have to add one thing to the story of caracara birds. They did not have any “meeting” before their implementation of project, but it was very well-organized and coordinated. Their formation was as beautiful as the formation play of the MLB baseball fielders. (John may not be familiar with it. So please let me explain it here. Nine fielders run in different directions when the ball was hit deep outfield. It is the system for “backer-upper” and preparation for the next movement. It looks like kaleidoscope if we watch it from the higher level of grandstand. I utilized this principle in company management.) John: Thanks for getting back. I agree with John that the only thing that counts are operational definitions. Your TQM definition is almost good, as far as “working in compliance with the Malcom Baldrige criteria (or the EFQM in Europe)”, but Japanese TQM is wrong. You are still infected by some junk books. I found Totally Queer Monkeys in Japan started claiming their way of TQC (actually, Totally Quite Crazy) is TQM around 1990 because MBNQA related people in the USA started to use the term TQM in 1980s. I do not like such monkey business. They did not know about MBNQA then. As I wrote before, I have never seen any good management at the companies being proud of having Deming Prize awards. They were Totally Quite Messy, so they needed so-called kaizen continually, one after another. They did not have a good design control system until I taught them. They had design and development department, but it did not function at all. Some of them followed me and started design control and got certified to ISO 9001. But one big car maker did not follow me and they got certified first to only ISO 9002. This is the reason why I never recommend my son to buy Japanese car. By the way, I do not think we learnt monkey business from monkeys. May I ask one thing? Back to the books you mentioned in previous post. I wrote sometimes that their poka-yoke or kaizen examples written in such books are mostly patchworks at shop floor level. If you found really good examples in such books, please let me know. It may be worthwhile for our CAS study to discuss such things if any. Akio

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 25, 2005 3:45 AM   Reply Wes and Akio: The story about orca whales is fascinating, and it illustrates some ideas relevant to CAS, I believe, such as the other whales learning by mimicking. Richard Dawkins would perhaps describe the new behaviour as a CAS of memes. One of the essential ideas of CAS, as I see it, is how a group of fairly unintelligent individuals can, nevertheless, create an intelligent group. In the case of ants and bees, this is clearly reflected. With caracara birds, orca whales and baseball players, it may also be that a new level of intelligence emerges, but whether it is an "emergent property of the system" is somewhat less clear. What I feel we should be looking for, in the case of understanding TQM from the viewpoint of CAS, is probably something similar to Adam Smith's invisible hand, i.e. how selfish behaviour wihtin a group may actually help the group as a whole. Perhaps viewing the company as a eco-system is the best way of starting the writing of a BoK. The eco-system is a standard examples of a CAS, I believe, but, although it may be highly sustainable, it may be severly difficult to grow. Methods for growing a corporate ecological system, by using TQM, should perhaps be the main focus of the BoK. What do you think, Bruce? John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 25, 2005 10:15 AM   Reply John: I have to supplement my posting of yesterday. It is about TQM. You may have forgotten my replies sent to you on June 15 and 16. So I repeat part of them. Please forgive my redundancy because the redundancy system either active or standby is very important thing in reliability engineering. (From my posting on June 15) QUOTE Right TQM is covered by the MBNQA. Also, it is covered by the BoK of the ASQ CQ Manager exam. So you have to fully study the books for the CQ Manager, and you will get it. I do not think the Deming Award is for TQM. So-called Japanese TQM is merely “Topless and Quite Messy”, I found decades ago. In mid 1980s, some Japanese people started to use the TQM for it. It was just because some American firms started to use TQM for MBNQA. Japanese TQM was merely the C-W-Quality-Circle. Quality Circle was first brought by Deming to Japan in 1950s as the tool being practiced by Ford, etc., but it became the “bull session of the lowest floor level workers” in Japan, I found. I taught several Deming Prize Holders in Japan the correct TQM. Before that, they had no design control, no document control, and did not know calibration of measuring device, no management. Japanese TQM has nothing to do with customer satisfaction. I wrote the first article about customer satisfaction in Japanese magazine in 1990, where I had to write that Japanese quality is far from customer satisfaction, but merely for self-satisfaction. My article did not work so well because they had no interest in customer satisfaction then. They woke up after ISO 9001:2000 because there is the element of customer satisfaction. I have been saying to them that true customer satisfaction (and delight) is not by means of golf, beer and wine, but by quality and sincerity. UNQUOTE (From my posting on June 16) QUOTE Japanese Deming Prize model has nothing to do with Deming’s teachings to them. It is terribly deviated and altogether in a mess, as I wrote somewhere. I know it well because I taught many such companies having the Deming Prize. They were first “substandard” in management and control, but woke up after having my management course and consulting service. We do not have to care about it because it is useless to think of it. UNQUOTE I am very serious every time when sending any message to you, my good friend. I am still trying the CAPA to keep you from becoming “Mr. Ixion” that is merely turning the regression wheel eternally at the same place, as the continuous improvement. Akio Miura

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 25, 2005 10:55 AM   Reply Akio: As I've understood it, there are three regional operational definitions of TQM; MBNQA, EFQM and the Deming Prize. All three models are used for measuring the 'excellence'. My impression was that the Deming Prize was the most prestigious of them all, but you have repeatedly pointed out that the focus in the Deming Prize is different from the focus in the two other models. Thanks for pointing this out, over and over again. John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 25, 2005 9:27 PM   Reply John: Thanks for understanding me, but I just wonder why you think Deming Prize is the most prestigious of them all. Who wrote such a thing in his book? I do not think it is Gitlow. Many knowledgeable Japanese people think it is just crazy and stupid, and almost none of them think it is any prestigious. Of course, they are not taking it for measuring the 'excellence'. I just realized how terrible the false information of junk books is. Mitsubishi Kobe was awarded Deming Prize about 30 years ago. That time, it was taken to be a good measure for the quality control performance. So Mitsubishi Kobe got it. After advertising it in newspaper and printing it company brochures, the Plant Manager directed all employees never to do any Deming Prize activities because they all are crazy and ridiculous and not value-adding. That Plant Manager was a good friend of mine then. So I know of it. In one fighting art textbook published in Japan in the latter half of the 19th century, there was a section about the technique against the enemy with a gun or pistol as follows: “You hold a short stick or a fan vertically in front of your nose, and watch the enemy’s gun or pistol, and the trajectory of the bullet from it calmly. If the bullet comes to the left side of your nose, you flick it with the stick or fan off its course to the left. If it comes to the right side, then, parry to the right.” Will you try this technique because it is written in a good looking Japanese textbook? I will never practice it. I thought it is not based on the actual experience. I think many junk books are no big difference from this textbook. It is beyond my control whether the reader blindly believes books and does not believe the fact because it is not written in books. Akio

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 26, 2005 2:34 AM   Reply Akio: The Deming Prize is mentioned in several books I have, although it is seldom discussed in detail. From what I've understood, the MBNQA was inspired by the Deming Prize, and the European Quality Award (EQA) was inspired by the MBNQA. I knew there were differences in how the different models were designed, but I though essentially they were very much alike. Thanks for adding comments on Deming Prize award winners. Deming was rather distrustful of the MBNQA, and in one of the Deming Managment books there is an interesting example of a company that put all effort into winning the MBNQA while failing as a business. If not used for the rights purpose, I assume these models can do more harm than good. John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 26, 2005 4:04 AM   Reply We know the European Quality Award (EQA) was inspired by the MBNQA, but none of us think that the MBNQA was inspired by the Deming Prize. Many copy cats here have been trying to copy the MBNQA system since 1980s. Finally one Japanese group bought MBNQA model from ASQ and started its imitation 5 or 6 years ago. They are using fake instructors and just ridiculous. Deming Prize is not the model, nothing alike MBNQA. It is quite messy. Its content has almost nothing to do with Deming’s principles. All such companies are like “topless management”, the President of one of such companies said to me years ago. About 10 years ago, a big Japanese economist magazine attacked JUSE and Deming Prize system with a long term series of articles. Everything was the fact. So no one objected to it. I know the big company who put all efforts into winning the MBNQA while failing as a business. I heard it from some friends in ASQ about 10 years ago. If not used for the right purpose, these models can do more harm than good, as you pointed out. They will need to be much more complexity adaptive. It is like forcing rugby footballers to use ice hockey gears. This would be more suitable than saying “that is like using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut.” Akio

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 27, 2005 2:46 AM   Reply Akio: I feel we are drifting away from the main theme of this discussion thread, namely the use of MBNQA as a structure for describing CAS theory as applied in the area of TQM. My impression is that the Asian mentally of quality control (working like ants) is perhaps closer to the ideal of Complex Adaptive Systems, but if I know you right, you will say that there is no "Asian mentality" or any regional mentality of doing quality control. There is the right way of doing QC and the wrong way. John

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 27, 2005 6:05 AM   Reply John: I think our off-the-topic talk has already come to an end. I do not think that the ant type people are representing Asian mentality. I think each person has different type of mentality. Please get back to the main theme. I would like to be silent as a lazy ant type spectator. Akio

John K. Balor Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Sep 28, 2005 1:49 AM   Reply Akio: I don't think you are like an ant. I think you are more like one of those intelligenct orcha whales, eating seagulls who feed on TQM junk books. Heh heh. John

Frank E. Watson Re: BODY OF KNOWLEDGE - MODERATOR COMMENT Posted: Jun 26, 2007 2:17 PM   Reply I want to take the caracara birds to the orca tank and see what happens.

Bruce Waltuck Re: Parallel Birds Posted: Oct 3, 2005 8:26 AM   Reply The example of these birds' actions to dismantle the tent and obtain the food is compelling. Akio offers it as a story about excellent TQM. Those of us who have designed or practiced "TQM" (whatever we may precisely mean by this) will appreciate the story. In human endeavors, particularly in manufacturing (but I think we may say in service delivery as well), we also tend to seek uniformity/consistency. So we seek to bring a process into control. We define procedures, create job descriptions, do quality assurance, and so on. In my view, we get too concerned about adherence to process, and that this creates a kind of "static" quality. There is no impetus to continuously improve if we believe we have designed the correct processes, and brought them into control. This changes however, when we perceive that the "voice of the customer" is a constantly moving target. The fact that customer expectations do themselves change and evolve over time, is evidence of the complex non-linear dynamics at work in society. How do customer expectations change? New technologies emerge. New ideas and opinions and fashion trends emerge. Where do they come from? What is innovation? How do the new ideas spread and become dominant in the marketplace? What must a business do to react and respond to the challenge of a shift in customer demands? I believe this is an excellent illustration of complexity and its linkage to quality improvement. The birds in the initial story didn't suddenly find themselves hungry, and somehow, magically, know what to do about the tent and the food. Rather, over time, through the exploration of possibilities, they responded to their hunger and tried many strategies. They didn't blame each other for those attempts that failed. They clearly just kept on trying until they found a strategy that worked. In other words, the birds' success occured because they engaged in complex and adaptive behaviors/dynamics. From a seemingly disordered array of options, over time the optimum strategy emerged, and the birds achieved success. What I also find important in this story is the issue of the division of labor. I studied economics as an undergraduate, and this topic fascinated me back in 1970. How did so many human beings each act alone in deciding what their jobs would be, and yet fulfill the needs of the collective whole? I didn't know it then, but clearly a complex adaptive process was at work (or as Ralph Stacey calls them, "complex responsive processes of human relating"). We note that the birds acted "in parallel" with each assuming a different part of the task and process. Did anyone tell them what to do? How did each know what specific skills they had that would contribute to the whole group's success? Did any one bird tell another "hey - who said you could do THAT job- you don't know anything about tents?" Again, the birds SELF-ORGANIZED. This is another fundamental aspect of complex system behavior. In the human world of business, the books of Ricardo Semler (Maverick, and last year's excellent Seven Day Weekend) show a large successful company that is as close to this model as any currently appears to be. If you do not know the story, I highly recommend these to you. If campers and tent-makers themselves respond and adapt to their failure, and post guards, or make some sort of impervious tent-material, then what happens? Hopefully the birds will adapt, try new strategies, and perhaps find one that works. If not, they may need to abandon the lucrative tent market altogether, and seek some new source of food that is easier to obtain (see Gladwell's book The Tipping Point, and also the book Somebody Moved My Cheese). In the business world, and in our own lives, Darwin's observation prevails. It is not, as he wrote, survival of the fittest that determines who succeeds over time, but it is those who best adapt to changes in their environment. Thanks for the story, and this opportunity to connect it to our understanding of complexity. Bruce Waltuck

G. Templeton Posts: 2 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Feb 11, 2006 4:42 PM   Reply Complexity theory hit me directly: (a) information input overload, (b) information synthesis to actionable items overload, and (c) communication of the new synthesized information to others. Example: I continue to read the primary literature for genuine improvements in quality technology. Across 5-7 journals, I cull out 5-10 articles/year. I then study those to understand them, possibly talk with the authors, etc. I then convert them into "executive summaries" with localized examples that accompany our ASQ section's newsletter and that I plan to make into podcasts. I, also, review manuscripts and articles for Quality Press. The manuscripts I get often rehash the benchmarked data of the 1990's. These are written by the senior members of ASQ. It appears that they don't have the proverbial 20 years' experience, but five repats of four years' experience. How do we keep them up with current thinking? My answer is self-organizing knowledge of QBOK. However, unlike chemistry or the military we don't have template species or squads that train one another, except maybe sections. And, ASQ seems focused on trying to siloize these into industry/interest divisions. Is this the counter strategy to solving QBOK complexity?

Steven Prevette Posts: 1,488 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Feb 13, 2006 11:22 AM   Reply > Complexity theory hit me directly: (a) information > input overload, (b) information synthesis to > actionable items overload, and (c) communication of > the new synthesized information to others. > > Example: I continue to read the primary literature > for genuine improvements in quality technology. > Across 5-7 journals, I cull out 5-10 articles/year. > . I then study those to understand them, possibly > talk with the authors, etc. I then convert them into > "executive summaries" with localized examples that > accompany our ASQ section's newsletter and that I > plan to make into podcasts. > > I, also, review manuscripts and articles for Quality > Press. The manuscripts I get often rehash the > benchmarked data of the 1990's. These are written by > the senior members of ASQ. It appears that they > don't have the proverbial 20 years' experience, but > five repats of four years' experience. How do we > keep them up with current thinking? > > My answer is self-organizing knowledge of QBOK. > However, unlike chemistry or the military we don't > t have template species or squads that train one > another, except maybe sections. And, ASQ seems > focused on trying to siloize these into > industry/interest divisions. Is this the counter > strategy to solving QBOK complexity? I am very proud to say the methodology that I have been using with quite some success is 70 years old (Shewhart control charts). Sometimes I find we are in too much of a rush to go to new things that we never understand the old. My hope would be that those involved with Systems Thinking and Complexity Theory would understand the history, work the basics, and build upon that foundation moving forward. For those that have to leap onto the latest fad, they seem doomed to repeat history. Now, I hope this is not seen harshly - perhaps I have over reacted to your words. But, I find in the Systems Community a lack of awareness of what SPC and statistical knowledge can do as part of Systems Thinking. The call for papers for such conferences seem to focus only upon what can be called "new" without the understanding of the foundation principles. Steve Prevette ASQ CQE Fluor Hanford City University

Akio Miura Posts: 1,514 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Feb 13, 2006 6:09 PM   Reply As Steve wrote, we are in too much of a rush to go to new things that we never understand the old. I know Steve is very good at Operations Research and it helped him practice good Systems Thinking and Complexity Management. I like also the comment of Mr. Templeton especially “It appears that they don't have the proverbial 20 years' experience, but five repats of four years' experience.” My way for complexity theory is based on the traditional system thinking, configuration management, as well as the operations research and probability theory (by American textbooks) of 45 years ago, and I find nothing new in recent fads. As Steve said, we have to understand the history, work the basics, and build upon that foundation moving forward. Akio Miura

William Pflanz Posts: 1,405 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Feb 15, 2006 6:30 AM   Reply The current management fad appears to center around creativity and innovation. The problem is that management is constantly looking for the Holy Grail that will solve all their problems. I think there is more than enough theory out there that can work but very few real practitioners of the theory. As far as the 20 years of experience repeated five times, it must be remembered that even on this board what seems like the 20th time that we have answered a question it is new to that person. Repeating those articles is not for the benefit of the experienced quality professional but for those new to quality. For those who regularly give advice in this board, the biggest frustration can be in getting the new quality professionals to implement SPC and other tested quality improvement techniques before they try some new theory. Deming and Juran also thought innovation and creativity were critical to survival but they thought it should be promoted along with the tried and true methods. Bill Pflanz

Janice McGowan Posts: 1 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Nov 16, 2006 3:07 PM   Reply You state that complexity theory is fairly recent but references to McCabe Complexity at this SEI reference site indicate McCabe was working in complexity as far back as 1976. Complexity is applied in software development to assess risk for development and maintenance changes as well as test planning and re-engineering. I think his work should be included in any body of knowledge proposed by ASQ. http://www.sei.cmu.edu/str/descriptions/cyclomatic.html

J Posts: 35 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Dec 8, 2006 9:30 AM   Reply Chaos theory in Quality? While I'm not a Chaos theory SME, I have a little knowledge. Chaos theory suggests that small influences can have significant, even catastrophic effects on the bigger picture. One commonly sited example is that the flap of a butterfly's wings in Africa somewhere, might create tiny changes in the atmosphere, which could, over time, be the root cause (or a significant contributor) of a tornado to occur in Kansas. In my view, the impact of chaos is "covered" in DOE science. I'm not sure how else you could apply Chaos theory in a practical way to the Quality Sciences. While Chaos theory is fascinating, and the associated formulas can makes lots of very impressive pictures, I'm not really following how it could help me solve problems outside of the tools I already have. Anyway, there are a lot of people out there much smarter than me...Maybe they can figure something out. I will be very interested to see how chaos theory will bring value to the Quality Sciences. -John Perry ASQ CQE CRE

Bruce Waltuck Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Feb 22, 2007 8:54 AM   Reply Hello again. A long time since I have posted here. Life does have a way of interfering with even the best of plans. In the past months, among other things, I have completed work and received my Master of Arts degree from the University of Western Sydney. It is an "M.A., Complexity, Chaos, and Creativity." A few other quick updates, and then a complexity comment or three. - For those interested in the public sector, I will take over as Chair of ASQ's Government Division this Summer. - I highly recommend the series of webinars produced by the GovDiv. We have one coming up in March on Lean Six Sigma, with a professor and ASQ partner from RPI. Our last webinar featured ASQ Executive Director Paul Borawski, discussing the Living Strategy model that ASQ is using to influence positive change. - if you are interested in Leadership, check out the Leadership Dialogue day in Orlando this May (at the Conference). These events are unique forums to go far beyond the usual "talking head with slides" and enter into meaningful discussion with experts and peers. On Complexity. . . - For work specifically on Complex Adaptive Systems and TQM, Google Professor Kevin Dooley. Kevin has written what in my searching, is the only journal article specifically on connections between quality and complexity. You can find it on the web. I've come to know and meet Kevin, through the Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology and the Life Sciences. - For past presentations on complexity to ASQ audiences, check Google for Dr. Laurie Fitzgerald. Laurie was based in Colorado for a long time, and gave a talk to I believe the QMD a few years ago. She lives in Buenos Aires now, but you can reach her by email. - If you have not read Paul Borawski's articles about the Living Strategy model that is being used by ASQ, you can find them at the web site of the Center for Association Leadership. They appear in issues of the excellent Journal for Association Leadership, freely available on their web site. The Living Strategy model is firmly rooted in the complex non-linear systems perspective. The webinar with Paul has been archived and is freely available on the web. Contact me to get the link. - a short list of my most-recommended books includes: .. Facilitating Organization Change by Olson and Eoyang. Practical manual, with explanations of Complexity concepts, but also real-world "how to" tools and methods. Glenda Eoyang also has a great article in the journal Emerging available online, on complexity consulting tools. .. Working Live: Experiencing Risk, Spontaneity and Improvisation in Organizations, by Patricia Shaw. patricia remains the best writer I know, in describing the feeling of being right in the moment as a change agent. .. A Simpler Way, by Margaret Wheatley. Probably the most profound book I have read on the subject of human organization. ..The Seven Life Lessons of Chaos by Briggs and Peat. Wretched title in my view, but a fantastic book. Not a "new age" tome, this is a clear, easily accessible exploration of seven basic characteristics of complex systems, and how to use an understanding of these dynamics to improve one's leadership. ..The Intelligence Advantage by Michael McMaster. You can still get this excellent book through amazon. Cites many business case studies, and has numerous references to TQM. McMaster also gives very clear descriptions about complexity concepts, and how the understanding and application of these non-linear human dynamics is critical to business success in today's accelerating world. For those still skeptical, I'll add that the fundamental dynamic of BOTH Quality and Complexity is rooted squarely in the world that Deming and Juran have taught us. That is, in understanding VARIATION. In complicated factory process, we can and do seek continuous improvements to eliminate special causes of variation, and keep the process in acceptable limits. But HUMAN BEINGS are not linear in their interactions. The root of our challenges in interaction also lies in variation - the differences in understanding and perception and thinking that we all have. Unlike a component in a manufacturing process, each of us is constantly assessing information coming in, weighing options in a multitude of intersecting spheres of influence, and then acting with far less than the "Profound Knowledge" that Deming brilliantly taught us to seek. More later. Peace and understanding, May every day be filled with Wonder, Discovery, and Joy! Bruce Bruce Waltuck, M.A., Complexity, Chaos and Creativity Chair-elect, Government Division, ASQ Associate, Plexus Institute

Brendan McCarron Posts: 1 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Mar 29, 2007 4:13 PM   Reply Hi Bruce, I was musing over the lean board when I came across your posts. I have been a government div member for some time. I run the UK Chartered Institute of Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Performance Improvement Network's Performance Theme which means I cover lots of quality related issues for my members in UK local government. Two things, one I have just sponsored and chaired the first meeting of a UK local government lean interest group (though "interest" and "local government" is not altogether descriptive of the situation). and thus, I may have some material that you may want the Gov Div to tap into. 2) if you are interested in complexity and quality you should read http://www.jrsm.org/cgi/content/abstract/94/12/613 a truckload of stuff on non-linearity and the UK's NHS

Bruce Waltuck Posts: 6 Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Jul 17, 2007 1:47 PM   Reply Greetings again, Lots to talk about here. There have been some interesting things done with UK Local government. I am aware of the work that Arthur Battram and others did with local councils a few years ago. Arthur's book "Navigating Complexity" mentions a bit of it. There are also excellent UK teachers and practitioners in other fields. Eve Mittleton-Kelly is at the London School of Economics. Ralph Stacey, together with his colleagues Patricia Shaw and Doug Griffin, run the Complexity and Management graduate program at the University of Hertfordshire. Ralph is widely considered among the foremost thinkers about complexity and organization change in the world. The series of books that these three have produced for Routledge are very highly recommended (I am especially keen on Patricia's two books, though others from the current series 2006-2007 are very good as well). Thanks so much for sharing this information. In another post, I want to mention recent developments in ASQ that directly impact on the mission and work of this discussion board. May each day be filled with Discovery, Wonder, and Joy! Bruce

Mark Woodford Re: Complexity and Quality: Body of Knowledge Initiative Posted: Apr 22, 2009 8:47 AM   Reply It seems that this thread hasn't been active in a while, but its important to what we do, and the academic information referenced here is great so I thought I'd post. Our company, Networked Robotics, designs network hardware and software for quality purposes in biotech, medical, and food industries. It's main purpose is to attack complexity, by communicationg with diverse machines in a standard way. In this way key quality data is obtained and distributed. This is done through our network hardware, the primary purpose of which is data access and integration. The hardware talks to diverse instruments and sensors in a standard way now, and, most importantly, our hardware also "learns" to talk to new instruments and sensors through net-downloadable firmware. So that as new device types are released - our hardware in the field can talk to it. In our case these instruments are -80C freezers, Co2 incubators, cryofreezers, and our own sensors. We say that we address complexity in 3 ways: 1) Logical Complexity - the languages that machines and sensors speak 2) Physical Complexity - the differet kinds of connectors and interfaces needed to talk to diverse machines 3) Human Complexity - by releasing our software in multiple world languages www.networkedrobotics.com