Conference "The Transformation of Management by W. Edwards Deming" Date: March 1, 2011 Time: 18h - 20h Location: Col • legi d'Enginyers Industrials "- Via Laietana, 39 - 08003 Barcelona For more information and registration : http://www.sigeiconsulting.com/index.php?pag=noticias&b=eventos Continuous Improvement against the old paradigms
Summary of the conference
In this lecture, using old paradigms and beliefs taken as correct today, reflecting on the guide to follow in management decisions as well as new roles and responsibilities of management to ensure competitiveness, keeping their long-term organization and satisfaction of customers and partners.
ideas will be considered and early W. Edwards Deming, more valid than ever, the man who drove the industrial revolution in Japan, boosted the quality in the 80's and anticipated the crisis based on current management style and economic mainstream.
As he anticipated, his ideas would require decades to be understood and applied. We are increasingly believe that the time has come.
1 .- The situation today
The management profession is one of the most difficult and time of greater responsibility, because its decisions affect the whole society.
Today the manager is faced with challenges and in a situation, the result of an environment, beliefs and paradigms, which influence the effectiveness of their decisions. To improve the chances of success, not just individual effort and give it the best of yourself, you need the "knowledge" adequate.
The recent crisis is a clear indication that something is not done correctly, for reasons apart from financial and industry, is the set of decisions made in offices of senior management which seem to lack of an adequate scientific basis. High responsibility lies they require robust tools.
Today it is generally assumed that the way they are managed business organizations require a new approach. In a study by IBM "Capitalizing on Complexity" in 2010, which interviewed 1,541 senior executives, concludes that as the complexity of the different forms of interaction within and outside organizations increases, managers must acquire new skills and knowledge.
W. Edwards Deming, the most influential thinker that has existed on Management, and translating these and other findings in his book "Out of the Crisis" in 1982. Furthermore, errors and problems of Management remain the same as listed in his work. Timeliness and relevance are made demonstrated both for his success as being the only thinker on Management, I record, which anticipated the current crisis based on "... the failure of senior management in its mission to manage."
remember some of the errors mentioned chronic W. Edwards Deming: emphasis on short-term gains, cost reduction policies, see the company only through the economic data, non respect for employees and especially the lack of consistency in improvement.
The purpose of any organization is getting results, they represent its purpose and the common purpose of its members. In a business organization that purpose is, among other benefits, but also its continuity.
2 .- Some paradigms and false beliefs
A common mistake is to assume that an organization can be managed based on economic performance alone. No, it is not. On the contrary it is the false conclusion of a simplistic economic vision and paradoxically involved serious adverse economic consequences. The results, in this case the benefits, costs and revenues can not be the sole basis in which management is founded as they are the consequence of a particular way of doing, not the cause. Trying to manage based on results, erroneously belief amounts to modifying the compass that points north, to change the patient's thermometer, or as Deming said, to "... drive looking in the rearview mirror."
As Deming said, " We want good results, but managing for results is not the way to get " .
When using cost reduction as a way to balance the drop in income and thus compensate for loss of profits, you are just thinking in formulating accounting (profit = revenue-costs), but is imposing the result against its causes, distorting reality. We are pushing the finger pointing to the problem, not this.
we get good results over a period of time, reducing costs even necessary, but later, will reduce quality, increase the costs of inefficiency and consequently will reduce earnings. But the manager who only uses glasses accounting numbers, seeing the harmful effects of the cut or even attributed their decision, thus solving the next drop in revenue and repeat such an offense costs increased to reduce costs deepening cycle in the problem. At the final closing. Lack a better analysis tool.
3 .- The systems approach
Peter Senge, Director of the Center for Organizational Learning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) explains in his 8 patterns of organizational behavior, why which the understanding of organizations is so counterintuitive, " Cause and effect are not easily related in either space or time " .
Gracias al estudio sistémico de las organizaciones sabemos que la interrelación entre sus componentes hace que las pequeñas “soluciones” de hoy tengan grandes efectos mañana. Peter Senge indica: “ Las cosas siempre mejoran antes de empeorar ” o “ Los problemas de hoy son las soluciones yesterday. "
W. Edwards Deming, aware of this reality, he anticipated it would take decades to accept and implement the counter-intuitive solutions he proposed for the transformation and adaptation to the New Economy.
understanding needed to use a "system" of organizational behavior that allows us to understand the cause-effect relationships but are set aside at the time. When analyzing organizations as systems is considered all its members and departments, but not as isolated parts, but in their interrelationships and their relationships cause and effect.
Most of the improvement opportunities included in the system and it is the responsibility of Management.
developments must promote the common purpose of the organization and not a department, unit or individual, if it runs counter to this purpose. The process improvement is not enough, must be set.
This should rise to the system "society" as a whole. Governance should also fall in this understanding of reality: the changing policies, the grants without the knowledge and impulsive reactions produce side effects in the whole society.
therefore necessary to establish a culture of collaboration, not competition, both within the organization and between organizations with common interests.
4 .- Interpreting the measurements: systemic errors and special
appreciate
often no measurable improvement opportunities. A common mistake is obsessed only measurable things, then giving them an importance they do not, Russell L. Ackoff stated clearly what is happening inside organizations: " Managers who do not know how to measure what they want, just wanting what they can measure " . Deming, surprisingly for a statistician, went further saying that most of the improvement opportunities are immeasurable and unknown things.
measurable in things is important to know how to interpret the statistical significance of the figures obtained. To W. Edwards Deming measurements are only useful if the information provided helps us to improve the overall system , this is to distinguish between causes and systemic causes of error to make operational decisions.
things are not measurable in no sense to know that there are also natural causes or systemic. This requires an internalization than methodological understanding of statistics.
The statistician Walter A. Shewhart, W. teacher and mentor Edwards Deming, developed simple methods through charts (SPC) to distinguish between "natural" causes or "random" (systemic) and causes "special" or "assignable". It was probably the biggest discovery for decision making of the twentieth century, the perplexity caused by AT & T went on to note that the more they struggled to produce identical ingredients, plus increased variation between them.
Deming and Shewhart explained that while "natural" causes are the system, and thus management can only act on them, the "specific" come from casual and temporary causes, including specific changes to the conditions operation, change of supplier, material, etc. The systemic causes of error over 90% and operating, less than 10%.
5 .- The PDSA method
W. Edwards Deming taught us that reality is too complex to try to improve decisions that contain all the possible variables to consider, so to succeed in minimizing the risk decisions, used the scientific method PDSA : Planning, Design To study and decide. can sense the manager making the decision [X] will result in improvement [Y]. The truth is that rarely is that simple. The systemic effect of natural variations and produce a multitude of interactions and variability, thereby testing the alternative is to generate knowledge.
6 .- Dimensions to consider - Sopko is essential that proposals and experiments arising consider four key dimensions to be used as a dynamic and interchangeable lenses to appreciate and understand by an organization. These lenses form what he called as Deming System of Profound Knowledge. I. Systems thinking: See the organization as a system with a common purpose and cause and effect relationships between its parts.
II. Variability: information as a way to differentiate between systemic causes and specific causes.
III. Creating Knowledge: Knowledge is acquired internally with the PDSA cycle.
IV. Psychology and behavior: To understand people and their potential reactions to the changes.
Note: This article and all its contents are © Copyrighted by Deming and Jordi Cabré Collaboration. All rights reserved. Anyone is free to reproduce at no charge provided the following statement appears: "Reprinted with permission from Deming Collaboration and Jordi Cabré, The Transformation of Management according to W. Edwards Deming, 2011. "
