[...]
> I am a manager at a hospital with a stalled, supposed, CQI\TQM program. The
> problem, as I see it, the Senior Management has let it drop and done just
> what Deming warned not to do: "delegate the task to someone other than the
> CEO". For that we are paying the price. The "bottom-up" approach is slow and
> tedious and quite frustrating. I have distributed over 15 copies of The Fifth
> Discipline to my superiors and fellow managers. I don't think one has made it
> past chapter 3! What is a person to do? The answers lie within the pages of
> the above mentioned books among others by the more credible and practicle
> writers of our time (Agryis, Mintzberg, Juran, Kanter, Block, Schein, etc.).
> Where is it working? The 4-H story sounds fascinating. Where do you go when
> you are the only one out of fourty who sees the merit of L-O, etc.? HELP ME
> I'M TRAPPED IN THE HELL OF THEORY X!
>
> CAC6@aol.com
You can't make people see the value of TQM/L-O or whatever, even though
it seems obvious to many of us on this list. Some people have to
experience sufficient pain with their current practices to be able to see
that there is a reason to do something differently. Some people need to
see a monetary payback to doing these things.
Here's free advice (what it's worth, eh?): Gather some metrics about the
way things are now, and what it costs to do them that way. Choose a pilot
program/event/whatever and do it your way. Gather those metrics and
contrast them. If the improvement-way is not better than the old way of
doing things, relook at what you did. If the improvement-way is better,
then translate better into $ saved.
It is important for the staff and management to work at things in a
similar fashion. Not to get "group-think", but to have a common purpose,
common vision, common language, and take advantage of the synergies which
come along.
I attempted to work at a number of companies where my philosophy of work
and how to accomplish it did not complement senior management's ideas. I
was not successful in accomplishing what I wanted to do, nor was senior
management successful at changing me! If I was to do it over again, I
would look for concrete things that management understood and could
appreciate. I don't buy vaporware in software, they don't buy vaporware
in ideas. And that's what some of this looks like, until they can really
understand it.
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The Rothman Consulting Group jr@world.std.com
Specializing in solving Software Engineering Management problems