[Ailist] Six Sigma, Lean and Appreciative Quality

[Lionel Boxer]

I agree Ann, yours is a healthy and well-balanced approach to dealing with the situations that need attention.  Some people not share that ability to cope with reality.

Lionel Boxer CD PhD MBA BTech(IndEng) - 0411267256
Supervisor/Lecturer - lionel.boxer at rmit.edu.au
Graduate School of Business
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>>> "Ann Brown" <arbrowninc at telus.net> 29/10/07 3:31 AM >>>
Great comments from Lionel (hi Lionel), David et al.

>From a first thought that AI and Six Sigma were incompatible I have come
to see it differently.  Six Sigma, Lean and other quality approaches
claim philosophies within their approaches, but essentially they are
methodologies or tools to achieve an outcome. Quality systems are about
obsessive searching, measurement and elimination of something. Generally
they engage the actual work participants in this process. 

Two thoughts:
1) some problems/waste needs to be eliminated so that we can achieve our
desired state
2) same tools can be repurposed to seek root causes of success instead
of failure. 

AI is concerned with co-creating an outcome - describing it and engaging
and energizing people to work towards it. In practice we use all kinds
of approaches, methods and tools - why not co-opt the quality tools
which have proved successful in finding negative cause, to find the
"root causes" of positive core? "Fish bone" diagrams can explore causes
of the preferred state instead of the problem, lean value streams
already look for value in the process - focus first on growing them as
well as eliminating others. Getting ISO style organizations to report
conformances instead of non-conformances maybe more of a challenge but
some have done it -appreciative auditing even. Comments Jon if you are
reading this - that's your area!

Change the question and link the measurement systems of the organization
to the preferred state and the positive core. The skills and rigor of
quality approaches may be the very thing that will sustain the outcomes
of the inquiry and.

Some of the most fun consulting I do is around process improvement from
an AI perspective. Here's the three step format ...
(a) get all the players in the room
(b) ask "tell me about a time when it worked" 
(c) get out of the way 

Shift happens. Try it - let me know!
Ann
Ann Brown, MA
 LearningAdvance
(A Division of A&R Brown BG Inc.)
Connecting the organization: people, process and information
Tel: 604 921 1135  Cell: 604 817 5372,  Vancouver, BC Canada
www.learningadvance.blogspot.com 
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There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, Yes, I've
got dreams, of course I've got dreams.
Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in
it, and yep, they're still there. - Erma Louise Bombeck



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