Quality Blog

Blog Moved

2008-08-30T10:07:00.001-07:00

I've moved my blog to my company domain - http://chris.ceptara.com. Please visit me there.

thanks very much
Chris

Performance Management using SharePoint (2003)

2008-02-29T11:13:00.001-08:00

For those of you that have had the chance to see what’s new in SharePoint 2007, you will notice the addition of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). This is a wonderful addition and will add the ability for business users to drive metrics at a new level. But what about all of those SP2003 installs? Sans the upgrade, is there anything one can do to add scorecards?

The answer is yes, if you’re comfortable working in FrontPage and SharePoint…

Step 1) Establish a list with your metrics, here’s what I’ve used. Set up a list with these columns:

Title: The short name for the metric

Date: The date the metric is taken

Actual: to hold the actual metric result

Target: to hold the target for the metric

Warning: if you want to have three statuses (Red, Yellow, Green) versus two

Status_Math: so you know if higher is good or lower is good

Status: Calculated column that compares Actual to Target and renders a status – see the formula below

Symbol: A calculated text field that will hold a URL to your symbol picture, e.g. a green, yellow or red dot.

You can also add other types of columns, e.g. Category (Financial, Customer, Operations, L&G), Scorecard (so that you can generate multiple scorecards), etc.

Status Formula:

=IF(OR([Actual]="",[Target]=""),"",IF([Status_Math]>0,IF([Actual]>=[Target],"Green",IF(AND([Actual]>=[Warning],[Actual]<[Target]),"Yellow","Red")),if([actual]<=[target],"Green",if(and([actual]>[Target],[Actual]<=[Warning]),"Yellow","Red"))))

Symbol Formula:

=IF(Status="Green","http://SPDomain/sites/mysite/Images/green.gif",IF(Status="Red"," http://SPDomain/sites/mysite/Images/red.gif",IF(Status="Yellow"," http://SPDomain/sites/mysite/Images/yellow.gif"," http://SPDomain/sites/mysite/Images/dash.jpg")))

Step 2) Add your data to the List. For example, if you measuring “IT Service Availability (% uptime)”:

Title, Date, Actual, Target, Warning, Status_Math
IT Service Availability (% uptime), 2/15/2008, 99.93, 99.9, 99.85, 1
IT Service Availability (% uptime), 2/22/2008, 99.82, 99.9, 99.85, 1

Step 3) Set up a page to view the metrics – you can do this thru ‘Create – Web Page – Basic Page”. This will set up a page the matches the style of your current SharePoint site.

Step 4) Browse to your new page and then open it in FrontPage 2003. This is important because FrontPage has a feature to change the format of a column, i.e. ‘Format Item as…”.

Step 5) Create a table on your basic page and insert a data view (Insert – Database – Data View), select the list you used to store your metric data, and select ‘Show Data’, this will allow you to pick the columns you want in your data view. You can select multiple columns by ‘Ctrl-Clicking’. Once you’ve selected your columns, click on ‘Insert Data View’. This will create a data view in one of your table cells. Right-mouse click on the ‘Symbol’ column, and select ‘Format Item As…’, select picture. This should reformat the ‘Symbol’ column from text URLs to pictures that correspond to the images you have stored in your image library.

You can set up Filtering (e.g. filter on a specific date to get only the KPIs for that date), Sorting, Grouping, and change the Style of the table.

You will get something like this:

This is something that can be done fairly quickly and can scale to a medium level. If you want to introduce more complex tracking, e.g. automatic metric capture from a SQL database, or perform math on multiple rows in your data table, this method starts to fall over.

Upcoming Talk on Purchasing & Quality Practices

2008-02-15T10:29:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to remind everyone that I have a talk coming up next week, February 19th, at the AmCon conference in Bellevue Washington - it's FREE, so don't pass up this opportunity to learn more about "Six Sigma in Purchasing" - more here including the presentation material. The talk focuses on presenting a number of Supplier Management practices and describing the quality tools that can be used to execute supplier management better.

When we talk about supplier performance management, a concept called SVA will be introduced - the slides in the presentation are taken from this model. Feel free to download the model to get familiar with the math and the details of the topics. In addition to the SVA model, there also is a model available (Supplier Performance Model) focused on showing how to gather, analyze, and present quantitative and qualitative data in support of managing supplier performance.

I will be demonstrating how to use perceptual maps, correlation matrices, qualitative and quantitative measures, and many more tools, so please feel free to join us.

Critical Success Factors for an Enduring Quality Program

2007-12-06T18:46:00.001-08:00

During a recent NWQF (Northwest Quality Forum) meeting, the team members discussed how to market quality. There were some very interesting discussions. The list below attempts to capture some of the key ideas. In no particular order -

Build Excellence through Small Wins – Nothing begets success like success. Start small and build up credibility through focusing on small projects, don't try to be the million dollar hero straight out of the gate. If you fail, that can blow the whole program.

Show Progress through Measurement – Metrics and data are always a quality person's friend. Business people are much more likely to be influenced by positive progress through logical and consistent measurement than they will through anecdotes and stories. A strong scorecard at the beginning, even if it's only a few metrics, will be well worth it as progress is made.

Know your Audience and message appropriately – If you're talking to the executives focus on the numbers, if you're talking to the masses focus on personal development. At the end of the day, understanding the audience and focusing on what's in it for them will make your messages much more effective.

Transfer the Knowledge – Quality practices and techniques are very useful, but they don't do the organization any good if you keep them to yourself. Focus on transferring what you know and how you do things to the community. Many people will take the learning and apply it to their sphere of influence. In this way the organization's quality capabilities grow at a compounded rate. Transferring knowledge could take the form of training, leave-behind material (such as cards, small booklets, software tools, etc.), mentorship, leadership programs, performance management practices, such as MBOs (Management Business Objectives or personal goals / objectives), newsletters, blogs, or any channel that works for your organization.

Reward Progress – Amplify the good stuff that is happening and more good stuff happens. One example described included giving away a nice shirt to people that had completed a Green Belt project. Tying rewards to actual improvement progress goes much further than simply handing out cool trinkets with nice logos.

It takes a Leader – It is easier to have a successful program deployment if there is an executive involved, usually a Vice President or higher. They can help to push the messages, encourage folks to get on board, and use policies for getting actions accomplished. The danger is when a program becomes identified with that leader and the leader leaves, often the program can die or evolve into something else leaving people wondering what happened. So make sure to focus on many of the other critical success factors, which will help to ensure the program has a longer shelf life than that of the executive.

Define your Mission & Sell your Vision – By creating a compelling vision and a specific mission, people are more likely to identify with what is you're trying to accomplish. This picture becomes the driver and governor of all the decisions about the program going forward. Careful consideration, leadership buy-in and community involvement are important ingredients in defining the quality vision and mission.

Communicate at all Levels – Messages and channels should be defined to reach all levels of the organization. Leadership buy-in without community support or visa versa does not guarantee success. Achieving support for the vision and the mission at all levels contribute greatly to the long-term viability of the quality program. Some example mechanisms that can be used to reinforce the message and communicate the results include avenues such as, email, websites, RSS feeds, presentations, etc. Messages can be tailored for each audience, e.g. executive attention is short, so use short and to the point messages, email aliases and discussion forums are good for fleshing out topics or ideas in the community, websites are good for collecting all the information and communication about your program and become a reference site, RSS feeds are good in supporting a mobile audience. There are many opportunities for communicating, once size fits all will not work.

Market Results – As the program matures, the activities and their results should be publically communicated. Newsletters, presentations, blog entries, and celebrations are excellent communication avenues. Be sure to include results that achieve the goals (Wins) AND activities that did not (Lessons). Often, we learn more from our failures than our successes. Thomas Edison is said to have 'failed' to make a light bulb 2000 times, and when asked, he said he discovered 2000 ways on how not to make a light bulb.

Lead by Example – An experience communicated in the forum meeting included one company's CEO pursuing and receiving his Six Sigma certification. What better way of communicating commitment than following your own advice. Anyone at any level can exhibit dedication and it carries much more weight if communication and coaching comes from a platform of experience.

Focus on Momentum Creation – John P. Kotter was mentioned as an author of consequence when it comes to managing and/or driving change. One of his concepts refers to the harnessing the power of positive deviance, which is described as "intentionally departing from expected norms in honorable ways (Sonenshein & Spreitzer, 2004). Find the people that believe in your vision and are already acting in a way consistent with what the program is attempting to achieve. Work with them, establish a common vocabulary, and establish shared goals and they will become the best champions. Of course, this is but one way of creating momentum and the mechanism that works best for one organization may or may not work for yours. It's important to find that key or hook that best resonates with your organization, then exploit it as much as you can.

Create Communities – Once you've defined your audience, search for ways of creating communities around those audiences. For example, within a company, email aliases are a good mechanism for establishing a community. For example you may create a discussion alias that anyone can subscribe to, and then you can use that alias for communicating frequent news items or blog entries. You may create a quality leadership alias and use that for driving direction and receiving feedback on the program. Wikis or discussion forums are good tools as well for creating collaborative communities. Also periodic meetings, lunch and learn, live forums and symposiums are useful mechanisms for interacting with communities.

Include the Money People – If you're communicating savings for your improvement initiatives, be sure that it's believable. Bringing in the accounting or finance teams will help to make sure the numbers are real and pass the sniff test with the executives.

Create a Brand – Create an identity for your program. It could be a logo, a word or phrase, a mascot or any combination of mechanisms. This will help to create a short hand way of communicating about your program. It will help people identify with it, and as your success builds it will give people something to join and/or brag about. Use your identity on your marcom (marketing communication material) so that it's always out front and part of your message.

Six Sigma in Purchasing

2007-11-27T16:50:00.000-08:00

I will be delivering a talk at the next AmCon show in Bellevue Washington on February 19 or 20, 2008. I've given this talk a number of times, so please stop by and say hello if you've found the topics interesting and/or useful.

Briefly, the talk is centered on how to use a few six sigma tools in managing your supply chain. For example, we use a perceptual map in assessing what class a supplier might fall into in the qualification process, or how to use the Voice of the Customer in describing your Critical to Quality metrics in supplier performance monitoring.

If you're interested in attending, please go here to register. I look forward to seeing you there.

Creating an Effective Agenda

2007-10-01T09:31:00.001-07:00

Recently I attended a training session on "Running Effective Meetings". It was a nice refresher course and summarized a number of practices quite well. Below I've included some notes on creating an agenda that was included in the course.

Running Effective Meetings
Recipe for Creating an Agenda

Overall Goal: The overall finish line; where the team is heading; the final result
Meeting Objectives: What the meeting will accomplish, directly related to achieving the overall goal. Assure each objective is SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely)
Non-Objectives: What will not be accomplished in the meeting; identify areas that could pull the meeting off-track and articulate that they will NOT be covered in the meeting. Depending on the area, it may make sense to schedule or allow an alternate time to address the issues.
Critical Information: The information needed in the meeting to achieve the meeting objectives. Could be published in advance with a note to ‘review prior to attending’ to expedite the time together.
Topics: The discussion activities that help to achieve the meeting objectives.
Key Players: The people who must attend for the meeting to be successful. Consider skills, resources, authority, and buy-in. If the meeting is one of many, it may be beneficial to assure everyone understands their role. RACI* is a good tool to use to help people understand their participation activities, time commitments, and team expectations.

*- RACI: (R) – Responsible; (A) – Accountable, (C) – Consulted and (I) – Informed. A short whitepaper can be found here.

The company that put on the training session is called NetSpeed - you can find them here.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

2007-06-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

Just finished "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick M. Lencioni [Book Link]. It's written in the same style as "The Goal" (Goldratt, Cox) [Book Link], i.e. a method taught in the form of a story.

Everyone will recognize the characters, either in themselves or in people they know. The gist of the story is focused on the behaviors that inhibit great teamwork and collaboration. They are; absense of trust, fear of conflict, lack of committment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results. The topics are consistent with Covey's Seven Habits [Book Link]; Think Win/Win (Build Trust), Seek first to understand, then to be understood (Healthy Debate), Begin with the end in mind (Create committment and accountability) and First things first (Results focus).

I enjoyed this book immensely. Lencioni describes the team issues in an engaging manner and offers advice and a number of methods and tools to overcome the dysfunctions. I recommend this book to anyone who is accountable for leading a team or would like to make their team more effective.

Engineering Quality Cycle

2007-05-31T14:59:00.000-07:00

Many folks have heard me talk about the DFQ/QA/QC/CE model. The intent of this entry is to give it a name, and explain the basic steps.

This model became evident to me when I was working on Microsoft's Basics program. The purpose of this program was to bundle all the topics/features that weren't functionally oriented but just as important to the customer. They were accounted for by each development team and driven from a number of centers of excellence in varying ways. This included areas such as; Reliability, Performance, Application Compatibility, Feedback, Manageability, Serviceability, etc. My role was to consolidate and drive a 'common' way this was implemented and tracked across all of the Windows engineering teams.

We'll call this model the Engineering Quality Cycle and it will include four dimensions; DFQ - Design for Quality, QA - Quality Assurance, QC - Quality Control, and CE - Customer Experience.

DFQ: Design for Quality is focused on declaring up front what is expected in designing a product / service for a specific area.

QA: Quality Assurance is responsible for designing & executing tests, tools, procedures, sign-offs, etc. that reinforce what is declared in the DFQ guidelines.

QC: Quality Control is focused on putting in control points that can effectively stop the release of the product / service until an expectation is satisfied.

CE: Customer Experience represents the metrics that are measured to validate that the DFQ guidelines are driving the right outcomes.

Examples using a software company paradigm - - -

DFQ: Using the Manageability area as an illustration; a DFQ guideline might include instructions on how to develop applications so that they can easily be configured from a common console or upgraded using a common upgrade platform.

QA: Continuing the example, QA might include test cases to assure ability to console manipulate all of the configurable features of an application.

QC: This might be a sign-off at a gate review by the product managers accepting the QA results in assuring a manageable product.

CE: This could include feedback metrics that gather the usage of the manageability console assuring the customers find the manageability feature useful.

Follow on posts will include additional examples...

Kaizen at PMI - Puget Sound | End Notes

2007-05-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

The talk on Friday went well - everyone seemed engaged. There were a number of questions:

1) How do you make these type of efforts sustainable?

Ans: We all have suffered from the 'flavor of the month' program and are quite aware of the pitfalls that lie ahead of us in championing these types efforts. Some of the ways that were talked about include:

a) Organizational adherence to a strategy process, which then drives common goals across the enterprise. This reinforces the balanced scorecards and the techniques that we use to measure, evaluate, identify improvements, and implement change. This requires a mature leadership team that takes the time to develop and communicate an overall business strategy, built into the fabric of goal deployment that each employee then understands their contribution. I've seen this work well in some companies (big [AT&T] and small [Xantrex]), however, the discipline to stick to it is often lacking.

b)Assigning resources such as Green Belts and Black Belts as champions go along way to institutionalizing a continuous improvement culture. When you want something done, having the ability to point to someone whose job it is to do it is always beneficial. In some organizations, six sigma efforts have gone a long way [e.g. Expedia, Amazon, WaMu], by having people annointed with the title or moniker Green or Black Belt. In other companies, even when there were people assigned to a Six Sigma group, the culture fought it as cumbersome and too restricting.

c) Develop internal material or seek out suppliers that teach people TQM / Six Sigma / Lean / whatever label you want / techniques to help them do their jobs better and solve real and important problems. In this way, folks can 'own' their development and be exposed to tools and skills that they can take away to any job they go to. It doesn't require a lot of company investment, therefore, its fairly easy to sell and everyone has an equal opportunity to take advantage of it. At the same time the company is growing a continuous improvement focused culture. And if the program is positioned right, it doesn't have the 'flavor of the month' feel. The downside - it takes a long time to see on an enterprise scale real change in the culture.

These three mechanisms are not mutually exclusive or all inclusive and everyone is encouraged to find the best way that works for them and their company.

2) Where can I find resources for some of the tools that were mentioned in the talk?

Ans: I had referenced a number of materials during my talk - you can find a listing of the texts on my site.

I don't remember many of the questions - next time I need to have a better way of keeping track. However, if there are folks from the class that read this blog, perhaps they can post their questions along with their thoughts.

Kaizen at PMI - Puget Sound Chapter

2007-05-16T07:32:00.000-07:00

On Friday, I will be delivering a talk on Kaizen Blitz for a Software Company in Bellevue, WA for the local Project Management Institute (PMI) chapter. You can find a copy of the presentation material here.

The presentation is a case study of how a typical manufacturing quality tool (Kaizen) has been applied to work in a software development company (Infospace).

Abstract:
Infospace is a leading mobile media and web technology company. They develop online and mobile software solutions that are deployed to large data centers where they operate the applications for Fortune 100 companies such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Cablevision, and Alltel. Infospace’s customers demand highly reliable services which in turn puts a significant demand on their processes. We will explore how the Kaizen method has helped Infospace improve their release processes to reduce release roll backs and priority one incidents that occur when deployments don’t release with quality.

Performance Management "Buy-In"

2007-05-15T06:59:00.000-07:00

Q: How do you get an organization to "buy-in" to Performance Management and make it part of their day-to-day operations?

Advice: There is not one 'way' to do this, however, here's a number actions that you can take to drive managing by metrics into an organization:

1) Sell at least one person – you need at least one executive that thinks measurement is important
2) Show success thru example – once you have one person interested, put together a scorecard for them and then help them drive management by metrics
3) Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize – talk about the work, show the results, brag about organizational alignment
4) Expand – when at least one organization has shown success, other executives follow
5) Build it in – incorporate into other processes, e.g. strategy planning, people performance appraisal, value adding processes (i.e. those processes that add direct value to what the end customer receives)

It doesn’t have to be in this order - but seems to flow nicely this way.

Microsoft Business Intelligence Conference, Seattle WA

2007-05-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to attend the MS BI conference in Seattle, May 9 - 11, 2007. The conference focused on the IT professional, not so much on the Business user.

I got excited about how Performance Management fits into the overall BI strategy. In order to give it shape, I've defined Performance Management as:

Performance Management is the translation, instrumentation, monitoring and management of the business strategy.

- Translation: Strategies to Goals to Measures
- Instrumentation: Implementing Measures from enterprise data
- Monitoring: Establishing abilities to report and view the Measures
- Management: Acting on the Measures to realign the business in achieving the strategy

If you come from a IT / Software company, this make perfect sense, considering this is exactly the same practice we follow in instrumenting and managing software as a service.