Sustainability in Leadership

There’s a lot of talk about sustainability of the planet, our energy sources, our households, our offices, and our products, but what about the sustainability of our leaders? What about the sustainability of your leadership?

What is your environmental impact on others?

Our words and actions are powerful in how others respond to us and how they perform their work. As a leader you are responsible for motivating your teams and moving your business in a positive direction.

The cost of uninspiring leaders is hard to measure as external factors are easy to point to as possible root causes to long launch cycles, lack-luster ideas, high PPM, low moral, and head butting between groups. As humans we’re wired to want to do good work and to be successful. Our personal pride runs deeper than any corporate directive. Consider how productive one might be however if your leadership combined with the corporate directive aligned with the personal motives of your team.

Just for kicks, let’s compare our needs and goals relative to plants:

P L A N T S			P E O P L E
Grow and get bigger			We want to grow, improve, succeed
Need sunlight			Want to prosper,
			Be seen as successful,
			Want to shine
Need water			Need encouragement
			Need feedback
			Garner respect
			Need to be empowered
Need support			Work better in teams
			Need a leader’s protection
Need fertilizer			Need training
			Want to learn new skills
			Sometimes need guidance

Like plants our needs are simple and just like plants we can still find a way to exist without enough water, sunlight, and support; the result is similar: smaller yield, less stunning product, lower functioning, and more issues.

How are you nurturing the environment around you?

We give water to our teams by providing encouragement and feedback in a way to help them do better in the future. We support by matching our employee’s skills to the task and partner complimenting skill sets. Through empowering others and setting them up to succeed, we also enable personal responsibility and ownership to succeed.

We support our teams by running interference between them and upper management, justifying work loads, timing needs, and effort to protect them from unneeded stress. I once took the heat for a two day delay in a program because an experienced and highly respected designer made a simple mistake causing a week’s worth of effort to be trashed and all designs to require rework. We were lucky in that the mistake was caught by the team. The designer knew the stakes were high and volunteered to work overtime squeezing seven days lost into two. Did my upper leadership need to know the name of this individual and their oversight or could the team (namely me) take the hit?

By protecting this individual, his reputation was not tarnished, his personal stress level did not rise from leadership pressure, and the team felt empowered by catching and readily fixing the issue. At the end all that was remembered was how well our team performed because our product launched successfully first pass.

What is your leadership story?

How did you nurture your team today?

Originally posted by me on http://linked2leadership.com/2009/05/10/sustainability-in-leadership/ May 10th, 2009.

North Pacific gyre

I've always been fascinated with how the ocean works, how waters flow, significant tides occur, and the big heat transfer system it exibits.

It's no surprise looking at this current map that there would be water not moving very far in the Pacific ocean. This is the North Pacific gyre. You may have seen pictures of what gets captured here many years ago. I thought it'd be worth a review today. Charles Moore talks at TED about our waste.

If you'd like some ideas on how to reduce your intake of packaging and thus your consequent release of garbage, you'll enjoy following Dave's blog, 365 Days of Trash.

Image from duenos.net

Your green office footprint

I’ve talked a little already about under- standing energy usage in the house- hold and how lowering such translates directly to my pocket book as well as a good feeling that the local power plant is burning less coal because of moi.

What about my office?

What about your office?

Replacing appliances, equipment, changing insulation, and adding south facing windows are all pretty expensive investments to make to your home or office. In any quest to be ‘less bad’ in regard to sustainability, starting simple is the key.

In an economy where everyone is perhaps a little more desperate for customers, if you could also market yourself as more ‘green’ and thereby more professionally ‘cost conscious’ wouldn’t you be more competitive?

It’s hip. It’s responsible. It’s about cutting overhead.

Wouldn’t cutting your electric bills make your margins just a tweensy bit bigger? For me when it comes to greening your home or office, there are four areas to target: energy use, waste reduction, air quality and water use.

Energy use

My office is easy because there are so few of us (and by few, I mean two). To save energy we keep the printer/copier off until we need it and strive to only print in the afternoon. We also turn off the coffee maker to stop the power company from sipping energy while we’re sipping the fruits of our brewing genius. Did you know that across the US, the cost of powering appliances when they are turned off adds up to over $1 billion a year? I’m talking about the digital clocks and internal low power sipping activity going on with these appliances of course.

We’ve installed CFLs of course but find much better peace with natural light. By the way, CFLs that emit harsh blue lighting should be banned in my opinion. Not only are they hard on the eyes but they give CFLs a bad name. There are plenty of warm and low Wattage CFLs on the market that incorporating these into your office may not even be noticed –except by you and your lower energy bills. I evaluated my home lighting usage and I think you’ll be surprised how much I save by converting to (warm light) CFLs; see spreadsheets here.

Waste reduction

The biggest waste from my office is paper. Whether its scratch paper I’m ideating on or misprints. Whether it’s for me or a customer, I double side print when ever possible. It saves paper and frankly I think the customer notices I’m saving paper and ultimately costs to him.

Nothing beats a face to face meeting. Nothing. I do however have clients that are far away and while we meet when necessary I try to keep my availability open through IM, Skype, and video conferencing even if it’s just to catch up and even if this colleague is located ten miles away.

Air Quality

I’m perhaps lucky in that my office has windows that open and wood floors that are both easily cleaned and not emitting toxic carpet fumes. Choosing the right cleansers makes a difference in that off gassing not only smells bad but well, is just that: off gassing – chemicals wafting through the air. To read more from experts try both these Canadian and US government reports.

Water Use

An office certainly has a leg up over a manufacturing facility and understanding your processes will go a long way in reducing potable water use and potentially implementing reuse of process water back into your operation or part of your heating & cooling system. Read more about what others are doing here.

I’d like to learn what you do to save on energy as well as how you look at the whole energy use verses CO2 picture.

I’m keenly interested to learn about changes you’ve made in both your office and manufacturing facilities to conserve and how these changes have affected your colleagues (if at all).

Managing time verses productivity

I like to talk about time manage- ment because it's a phrase that I grew up with in my corporate career. But let's be straight:

Just as 2+ 1 does not equal 4,

Managing Time does not equal Productivity.

I'm not saying you won't get a lot of things done by understanding all the things you want to do, all the things you're getting paid to do, then breaking down those projects into actionable tasks. you could be super busy doing all those tasks and more having lots of 'checks' in your planner.

By working and even finishing tasks that don't get you closer to reaching your goals - work or personal, you'll find yourself perhaps more stressed and feeling like you don't have enough time in the day because what you are working on isn't in harmony with what you ultimately want to do. Perhaps what you choose to do everyday (even following your to-do list) isn't getting you any closer to the end of your project.

Huh?

If you're not working on the right stuff (- on what's important to you -) deep down you know it. Deep down you know what you should be working on. This knowledge you carry deep down inside of you is screaming for attention and this is causing you stress.

Important tasks support both your values and your goals. These goals could be work related and assigned. These goals could be personal ventures. The same rules apply.

UNDERSTAND.
Understand the big picture of what you're trying to achieve. From this you can define the path to get there: what needs to happen, who you will work with, how to do it, and what you don't know.

Understand what it is you really want to achieve. We have a lot of ideas in business and it is all our job to ensure that what we do supports the corporate vision. Has your project deviated? Perhaps it's time to stop - or redine the corporate direction. Is the corporation you?

FOCUS.
Focus on showing up for yourself. If you've gone to the trouble of understanding how your direction supports the project that supports the vision of the company and you know how to get there, what are you doing continuing research for that old project this morning - or worse, checking your email and twitter accounts 25 times a day? (go ahead, track how many times per day you look - it may surprise you)

The constant review of your plan and important tasks you've assigned yourself each day will remind you how you can be best productive. You will work on your important stuff.

You can always procrastinate tomorrow.

KEEP MOVING.
Rarely do I start a project where I know everything about what I need to do and the technology required.

What do you do when you don't know?

Building momentum for yourself is equally important as building and maintaining momentum for a team. Momentum inspires, energizes, and creates believers. Sometimes it's necessary to make a decision when all the information isn't present. To quote an old manager, you "reserve the right to get smarter." There will always be things you don't know. Building time into your schedule and planning to learn may help remove your personal "this road ends" signs.

Show up for yourself. Cherish your day. Do More.

Extra: I like the way Dr. Manlowe talks about TIME in her recent article. She also echoes the assignment by the book, The Artist's Way by recommending writing every morning to both clear your head and align your vision with your day's agenda. I do this as both a writer and an engineer. It works.

Image credit, Jeff Morrison. Symbol # indicating 'does not equal' used as blogspot.com does not recognize input of actual symbol 9April2009

the problem with problem solving

Problems are an everyday occurrence in business; some more easily fixed than others. To be sure, the problems fixed the easiest are the ones that we know the most about; we know what the issues are, we actually know what happened, and we know why we didn’t notice.

The problem with problem solving is that ironically the quickest problems solved are often not the real problems at all but a symptom of the root cause. This isn’t to say that fixing all that is broken is a bad thing; it merely suggests that you will continue to suffer with the problems generated by the true root cause.

Problem solving can be broken down simply enough:

Find out what’s wrong,

fix it,

then check to make sure it’s really fixed.

Ford’s 8D process takes it a bit further breaking down these steps into recognizable actionable tasks. Where the 8D fails, is in helping us to understand that all steps are not created equal. Defining a problem is pretty complex if you’re not sure what it is. A failure on your production floor could be happening on several lines, with different machines, on an irregular basis, etc. Similarly, determining the root cause and analyzing risk for possible solutions is more like a six step process. Frankly a 19D would be a little cumbersome if not intimidating.

Let’s focus on root cause analysis here. There is one basic question one should ask when figuring out the root cause; that question is:

Why?

It’s best phrased like this: Why did it happen? And: Why didn’t we notice? We ask these two questions because with every one root cause, two things happen: 1) it happens, and 2) it escaped our attention getting to the customer. To be effective answering each scenario, it’s important to address each “why” separately.

The tricky part is in truly answering (the why) and considering most of the causes. Keeping it simple is a no brainer, but how often do you really keep it simple?

Ask your self and your team, “Why?” Then directly answer that new question.

You will get many answers to your “why” questions. Each answer represents a new trail to investigate.

Asking and answering questions takes very little time. Ignoring a line of thought or a trail you think you know all too well might make the difference in figuring out the root cause verses fixing a few things that you know are already wrong (but not really the main contributor to your problem).

Extra: As you know I’m all about training. I enjoy the camaraderie and energy of a large classroom and to see the differences in team dynamics during the application sessions. Small team training where you can take their top priority relevant issue of the day and lead them through this exercise drives home the effectiveness of root cause permanent correction action; ie: problem solving.

What will you do today?

"Wait a minute and I'll get back to you after I check my to-do list..

If only it were that easy or if only someone would create our daily action lists for us breaking down our deliverables into actionable tasks aligning them with not only the best time to tackle them but what's more important. We get paid big bucks to deliver what we’re assigned. We usually know what to do and how to go about. Sometimes we get distracted by all there is to do.

One might consider their to-do list to be all the things that they have to get done.

Every thing.

Personally, I think that’s a really big list. I’m all for listing everything you’d like to accomplish, but to be effective, I suggest doing a little more personal strategic thinking to understand which tasks are dependent upon others and what items are more important than others.

You might have twelve weeks to complete a project with many of your daily tasks tied to each other. You certainly wouldn’t list all of these in your Monday planner; you’d space them out allowing time for meetings, suppliers to get back with you, and for your own personal brainiac time.

You likely have two to five projects and they are all at different stages. You likely have other tasks due unrelated to these projects.

What do you work on?

I remember being given a very tricky choice by my first employer when I was eighteen. They asked if I wanted to be paid hourly or on a weekly salary. My first thought was to jump at the hourly rate thinking that would pay out better in the long run. The guy countered that I was probably so efficient that I wouldn’t need more than forty hours. Since then it has gotten me thinking that if I could be so efficient to be able to leave the office for the week when my work was done, wouldn’t that counter those other weeks when heavy workloads required longer work hours?

When you go on vacation and leave say.. on a Thursday, isn’t it true that you get done that short week what might have taken you five days if you hadn’t planned the time off?

With some companies shortening work weeks to save on salary payouts and energy costs, do you think the work volume has changed? If anything some of those same companies have experienced layoffs and those left behind in the office have a heavier workload.

You will get done what you have to do in the time you are allowed.

You will get done what you have to do in the time you are allowed. So, my question to you is:

What would you do with more time?

My message to you is this: Consider what is imperative to get done this week to move your projects forward and do those tasks early – like by Wednesday afternoon. Use the rest of the week to be creative, start another project, or simply have more personal time.

big ball of blue

I'm making an exception to my Tuesday posting schedule in honor of the 40th anniversary of Earth day.


T o d a y


The Sierra Club has come up with seven clever things you could do to celebrate -- and you don't even have to do all of them. Just pick even one and you'll be giving something back to the lovely ball of blue that gives us all a place to hang our hats.

two more references: http://www.earthday40.org/ and http://www.earthday.net/edngreenapple

I'd love to hear what you do to celebrate.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist

If statistics show that 88% of people leave a job because of how they feel they are being treated, would building an organization with people who had excellent soft side skills help raise employment retention rates and keep everyone staying put longer?

Long ago I found myself interviewing with a small private company anticipating the landing of my first job out of college with a highly respected firm. During the final interview, I got an early and abrupt taste of their culture when I got slapped in the face.

And by slapped, I'm talking about hearing the following:

• "We start at 7am here

• We work most Saturdays, minimum two per month

• There is no swearing. Ever

• We pray at every company meeting

• You'll be expected to put in on average 60 hours per week

• And OH, don't worry about looking up for your next job, your manager will constantly be on the look out for you to grow within the company"

At that time, I had already worked four years in industry at four different companies and never had I heard or experienced such things. Not being a morning person, my mind was still stuck on the 7am part; I just kep smiling and nodding my head robotically.

Knowing I still had much to learn and wanting to work at this firm, I took the job; slap and all.

I won't deny the mornings were tough but soon I began to welcome the 7am starts because of the smiling faces of all the staff that would greet me during our morning stretch routines. Gratitude exuded from all in that we were showing up for each other.

Saturdays were a whole other ball game. It was difficult at first, but it changed for me also. Reluctantly I dragged myself in weekend after weekend to donuts, more smiling faces, and sometimes an on-site cooked breakfast by other colleagues and managers. Rather than the cold slap in the face feeling I had in the interview process, I was experiencing welcome, appreciated, and a part of something bigger. These mornings became great catch-up times where the week days were fast paced and business-only venues. The Saturday mornings were a chance to reset and decompress as well as spend more time on the production floor learning about the lives of team-mates.

Some perspective

This company is a leader in its industry with a reputation of a high standard of quality. Although also a leader in developing and delivering high tech products, problems arose there just as they do in any other company. There was one difference here though: problems were looked at as opportunites for success rather than opportunities for blame. When a problem arose, it was a time to demonstrate strength in character, not a hot-head full of steam. When "issues" happened, rarely were voices raised. Product issues were simply product issues because it was never interpreted as anyone's fault. It was always seen as a process oversight or a machine failure, not as personal failure by someone or a team, nor an opportunity to degrade people.

So what made the difference?

Respect for each other's abilities, values, and contribution made the difference between finger pointing and getting our work done. The attitude cultivated by leadership to respect and be present for one another enabled focus on solving the issues at hand.

Some how there always existed the skill set to solve any problem. Ironically there was always a solution to any problem. Pretty good, huh?

Consensus doesn't necessarily mean a solution that "kinda fits." It is something that is borne of constructive open dialog between trusting colleagues.

Were we just a bunch of rocket scientists who could fix anything? Likely and most definitely not. It is likely that the company heavily hired engineers that had the people skills first, technical ability second.

Did it make a difference?

I'll ask my question again: If 88% of people leave a job because of how they feel they are being treated, would building an organization with people who had excellent soft skills help raise employment retention rates and keep everyone staying put longer?

What would you do?

What works best in your organization and why?

This article was originally posted by me on L2L Blogazine, April 8th 2009 * Image credit to Jim Wilson for The New York Times, Gerlach, Nevada, October 14, 2006, www.nyt.com

r e s p e c t

Many relationships are defined by how one feels around another person. So the question is then what are you doing to build, grow, and nurture relationships with others?

Are you listening to people?
Are you abusing their time?
Do you value others?
Do you honor their values?

Leadership Question: Is how you relate with others affecting how you lead?

I remember well the first team I lead. This was to be my first project as a Program Manager and already some really heavy hitters were being added to my team. These guys were highly respected and top innovators in my company.

I asked myself This: “How was I supposed to get their attention? Why would they follow me?” What if I fail?

Adding further to my woe, the project was assigned a tight schedule. ..kinda fun!!!

In thinking about how I would tackle these tough questions that would inevitably put a stamp on me as a leader, I decided to implement a simple two-step plan.

The plan looked like this:

1) I used a team approach to discover what we didn’t know in the first week and then created an outline of how we would develop the components of the product that we were creating. I added the step of finding out what we didn’t know and pulling in market data at the same time.

2) I proposed meeting twice a week and provided a schedule on what we would be doing. Each meeting being a working session using brainstorm, benchmarking, and usability methods to design our product. The first meeting would be the tell-all to see if the team gave me any merit. I had given them an assignment for the meeting. This was to benchmark a specific hinge in the consumer marketplace and bring examples to the group.

I used a collaborative approach to make instill an inclusive feeling for each team member and hoped that would get the desired results.

And guess what? They did it!

Each participant on the team had gone exploring that week and brought one or two examples of how to complete the project at hand. Ultimately the project was a success. We had a lot of fun and everyone got along well. We even “cracked” a tough-cookie and converted that nay-sayer into a believer. And oh, we actually hit our deliverables and our project timeline!

As a leader, what did I do right to make this such a success? I can tell you with one word: respect.

Respect is a powerful tool enabling you to listen and consider ideas from others. It allows you to empathize with and value the time of others. I spent a lot of time with each team member listening to their ideas. As a team, we had specific deliverables each week and all were accountable in the same way. The idea is to make sure that each step is interesting and fun. Ask for their input and give them a venue to shine. The goal is to create and maintain an environment where everyone on the team could grow, prosper, contribute, and sparkle.

When a team member will bring something of value to a meeting they are consequently given lots of attention and kudos all around. The next meeting inevitably more team members will contribute over and above what they had before. Terry Bacon says it best in

What People Want:

“The most important job you have (as a leader) is to recognize the contributions of your good to great performers. It motivates them, encourages others, establishes your standards, and communicates that you care..”

What would you do for someone that values both your time and ideas?

Would you want to contribute more to them? Would you offer more effort to them because of their role, or because WHO they are as a person?

Originally posted by me, 1April2009 here: http://linked2leadership.com/2009/04/01/r-e-s-p-e-c-t/

When do you work?

Don't worry, I'm not trying to make you feel guilty if you happen to be reading this at work, but if you said 8 - 5 or some derivative thereof, think again.

I'd like to know when you do your best work.

I'm not talking about when you go to work. We all go to work. We go typically at a time predetermined by either our boss or society. We show up when it's expected. Because we're not drones however, turning our brains on or off is not necessarily something someone else can control. Frankly I'm not sure we can either. Sure I can influence my brain to start working whether it's with coffee, bribe of an impending vacation, threat of missing a deadline and the anger of a client, or with a shiny new computer, but let's face it, our mind works when it wants to.

I started thinking today about how I wanted to write about time management and how to be more effective at work but as I started writing and rewriting several times, I realized that describing making the most of our time in a short post was fruitless. For today, I just want to focus on when to show up.

I'd like you to think for a moment about a time when you recognized your brain fully engaged and you were really groovin' on an idea and the creative juices in your head.

Got one?

ok, now think of another one. Just one more.

There's a lot of this whole work better, smarter, faster dynamic, but for today, I'd like you to consider what time of the day do you recall experiencing real brain power? Of those two moments you just recalled, what time of the day did they occur? What did the room look like during those power sessions? Maybe you weren't even stationary; perhaps you were in a plane, train, or automobile?

The point is that there are certain times of the day and there are specific surroundings that enable your brain to get into overdrive. What happens in overdrive?

W O R K

Good work Break.throughs Solutions Ideation Gro.wth Passion Momentum E*n*e*r*g*y

Below I provide you with a snapshot of my week to give you an idea of how I work within my zone. I've discovered that while I'm not a morning person, once I've got up and went, it's the most productive part of my day while the afternoon is more focused on the sunshine and what's next. You'll see that for the most part I try and schedule my brainiac time in both the mid-morning hours and later evening hours.

When are you the most productive?

Call it a time journal, call it a pain, but record your activities and how you feel brain-power wise throughout the day for a few weeks and see if you can define your personal brainiac time.

(click image to enlarge full screen)

trash talk

How much trash do we generate?

I discovered a man took on the task of measuring how much he threw away to better make better purchase and life decisions that would allow him to waste less. He saved every piece of garbage for a year. In his basement. Everything. He did have rules of course; view them and meet the guy here.

I started to follow his daily journal last summer and it got me thinking about garbage. Where does it go? When have we thrown away too much?

Do you remember the last time you drove past a landfill? I could do without the wafting smells that greet my nose long before the site is in view. Do you know where your trash goes?

Let’s take a look shall we?

I did some searches online for landfills and used the aerial feature on Mapquest to get a bird’s eye view of their locations and operations. In Chesapeak, Virginia, I found this:

A relatively compact operation, though very close to a neighborhood with one of those ‘water view’ ponds that I’m sure no parent let’s their kids swim in. It’s also located next to a pretty major river. In western Washington I found the following. I don’t know if it’s only used for the coastal towns or if Seattle sends trucks their way.

To pick on the state of Michigan, I found that it receives trash from neighboring states as well as Canada. A plan to phase out the import of Canadian garbage was created in 2006 when in 2005 it was brought to the greater public attention that Canadians dumped 19% of Michigan’s total trash volume, or 11.9 million cubic yards annually. We can’t really isolate Canada though because many states outsource their garbage dumping. That a state can outsource the land-filling of their trash is amazing to me though in a way is the same decision you and I make every time we take our bag of garbage to the curb each week.

Back to Dave and processing my garbage more effectively. In the last 8 years I have saved at least one bag per week from going to the landfill by recycling paper, glass, plastics, and metals. This year inspired by 365daysoftrash.blogspot.com, I started composting. This has reduced my weekly curbside deposits in half.

The compost becomes rich soil that is returned to your garden and lawns, right? Now not all our household garbage is good for soil, but just for kicks, let’s consider how much volume we’re really talking about if the Canadian trash coming to Michigan was mulch.

Using a material calculator I found on-line, 11.9 million cubic yards IF it were mulch metered out two inches thick, would cover 1,927,800,000 square feet of land (based on usage of one cubic yard covering 162 ft^2 per upstatemulch.com). If you wondered how many subdivisions that might service, I guesstimate 481,950,000 typical high-end neighborhood houses .

Per the national census data, there are only slightly more than sixteen million households in the Great Lake states combined. Sure they could export to California, but that would only add twelve million more households and surely all of those don’t have the mulch requirements previously stated. Certainly California has enough mulch of it's own.

The importing and exporting of trash is not likely to go away as the economics of such business is just too good though I’m happy to contribute less to this cause.

material recycle and reuse

I think a lot about maximizing material use, recycling, and reuse. Call me my grandmother's child, but as a product of the depression, she knew how to reuse! Cleaned plastic jelly single use packets held beads recovered from old dresses and hand bags. Material once tattered as a skirt became fodder for a new purse or scarf. It was always fun in our household.

I became a fan of Trader Joe's last year living in places where I could easily shop there and I purchased their reusable shopping bags. These bags have finally caught on in Michigan where every store now sells their own version, granted none as nice as TJ's.


I do a lot of sewing projects and consequently, I have fabric remnants from those projects in addition to taking spare fabric when offered. I decided that more people should enjoy their shopping experience with a beautiful custom, possibly shabby-chic bag made from my recycled fabrics.

when bad things happen to good people

When I posted last week about risk assessment, it reminded me how often in spite of our good intentions, bad things still happen; companies that don't plan ahead not withstanding.

Permanent corrective action is the goal of problem solving however, it’s not always found on the path of least resistance. Too often a cause is diagnosed early and the ‘problem solving’ ends only for the issue to rear its ugly head down the road in the SAME product or in a similar product line. Thorough understanding and definition of the problem, the *multiple* causes, and exploration of solutions is critical in the development of long term corrective actions that will provide your customers with the highest quality products & services.

Whether or not an ‘8D’ is required by the customer, this tool provides the basics of issue identification, isolation, short and long term solutions, as well tying actions to existing company procedures.

It's a great tool to lead you through the basics of problem solving: define the problem, find out what you don't know, determine the root cause, analyze risk on actions to prevent the root cause, then after implementing, fix areas with risk for similar failure. Focus on the complexity of issue identification and resolution are the basics of the 8D method. Ideally you will pull in other tools such as the Ishikawa Diagram, 5-Why, and Kempner Tregoe tools simultaneously to enable your colleagues to identify multiple root causes and thus close the loop on all issues in question.

Risk assessment and prevention

Murphy’s Law applies to most unless you plan to prevent failure by considering solutions before you encounter it. Making snaps more flexible, creating a one way only assembly aid before the molding tool is built, or implementing a poke yoke to ensure screw torque are all examples of preventative actions spawned by the thoughtful organized disciplined brainstorming of product risk assessment and prevention. In some industries, this is also known as advanced product quality planning, or: APQP.

Do you experience the same issues every time you launch a new product? Are 8D's and fire fighting a part of your daily work?

The use of such tools as a process flow, failure mode and effects analysis, a control Ppan, and useful operator instructions will statistically ensure a provision of the highest quality for product s and services. Think of it as problem solving before the problems arise. Think of it as saving money by avoiding the high cost of customer issues, tool changes, and revalidation costs t o name a few.

Implementing a quality system that works

ISO is a three letter word. Most think of thick quality manuals and multiple forms one has to fill out to change their desk location. I’ve found it doesn’t really have to be this way. Did you know there are really only six required procedures for ISO9001?

IT MUST BE USEFUL
Seriously, only Document Control, Record Control, Control of Nonconforming Product, Corrective Action, Preventive Action, and Internal Audits are necessary to be controlled documented procedures. An unread manual is useless. A useless manual is likely one that’s hard to read. Simply document briefly with easy to read language these six procedures along with a few more of my favorites relative to communication, training, product history files, sanitation (clean room), and product introduction to manufacturing, to create an effective Quality Management System.

In addition to this concise language you’ll be using, also clearly identify all documentation and make it easy to find.

Sure there are lots of topics in 9001 and 13485 that a company should take heed and follow the advice to have procedures – but the point is, it doesn’t have to be controlled except for those ‘golden 6’ and the few others you deem critical. Less control means less paperwork which means happier colleagues which equals more use of the system thereby encouraging compliance and few to no quality issues.

If the system you currently use is hard to use and infrequently used, it’s not providing value to your company and may eventually (if not right this moment) cause you to be non-compliant with quality issues on your hands. So, forget the lawyer speak and get to the point to keep procedures brief, simple, easy to follow, and with some flexibility for the user to be creative in product development, leadership, and in solving day to day problems.

I once witnessed one company who eliminated text in their procedure writing by using a flow chart. Everyone likes pictures, right? ISO was created to help not hinder a company from operating with excellence and consistency.