Way of the Quality Warrior

Mar 08 2024 20 ep. 26 mins 3
Way of the Quality Warrior Podcast artwork

Quality, when talking about products or services, is about goodness. How well are expectations satisfied? But when talking about Quality as a function, as a means to achieve goodness in products and services, it's about perceiving things as they are and how they should be and closing that gap. Philosophies, tools, and practices of quality to become more capable at creating quality is what this podcast is about.

  Business  Education
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Two Obstacles to Continuous Improvement

Mar 08 2024 31 mins  
Continuous improvement is predicated on problem solving, you're closing a gap between the current state and an ideal state. However, problem solving, thus continuous improvement, is often not that successful, especially if you are attempting to reach the ideal state. I believe that there are two fundamental reasons that I share in this episode of Way of the Quality Warrior podcast:

Poor Quality Crashes Companies

Nov 05 2023 32 mins  
Your company is called the Tesla or Apple of your market. You've gotten more investment capital than any other company in your market. The product you sell has a long waiting list of customers. You must be making money hand over fist, right? Actually, you are declared bankrupt. One important element of your company going bankrupt is poor quality in the product and services your com

Where are the X-ray Glasses?

Oct 11 2023 24 mins  
In the previous episode, I proposed that seeing the world through the lens of process is a superpower. However, you have to develop the superpower—it's not like Spiderman getting bitten by a radioactive spider. In this episode, we'll talk in more detail about process and how to develop the skills in analyzing processes in order to see through the lens of process. I refer to a You

Everything is a process

Aug 30 2023 26 mins  
Attending a high school honor society induction ceremony for my niece, I was witness to how a group of students organized and executed a process. Something they had experienced themselves and which they took ownership for the next generation of students. There was nothing remarkable about the ceremony, but I think it gives us a window into process. Dr. W. Edwards Deming said "If yo

The Fundamental Defects In Quality Methods Training

Jul 27 2023 24 mins  
What if the most common training practices in your field actually undermine the topic you're teaching? In Quality, we have exactly that situation in training the tools and methods of Quality. In this episode of the Way of the Quality Warrior podcast, we consider 4 common problems in the deployment of Quality tools and methods: the sink or swim school, overselling benefits and under

Parallels of Addiction Treatment and Continuous Improvement

Jun 28 2023 28 mins  
The work of a Quality Warrior is much more than the Quality and Continuous Improvement tools like Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, Design of Experiments, process behavior charting, and problem solving, to list a few. The Stages of Change model developed by James Prochaska, John Norcross, and Carlo DiClemente for the treatment of addictions provides a very useful guide for those

Waste Is Not The Enemy

May 17 2023 22 mins  
In the Quality and Continuous Improvement world, it's common to focus on waste reduction as the enemy to success. However, I don't think that waste is the enemy of the Quality Warrior. Not that waste is good, but the obviousness of waste as a bad thing actually blinds those of us teaching and coaching continuous improvement to the genius of the Toyota Production System. Looking at

Quality Is Expectation

Apr 04 2023 22 mins  
Quality as a feature or characteristic is fulfilling expectations. In this episode of Way of the Quality Warrior podcast, I share some of the lessons I learned about creating quality in providing services as a product design engineer at the beginning of my career. There is no magic, but there is a need for perceptiveness.

Counting In Action

Mar 17 2023 26 mins  
In the previous episode, "Managers Can Count Better Than They Can Think," that premise was presented. This episode adds some examples to develop that idea. In a world where too many problems are described and explained more by opinion and emotion rather than by meaningful data and information, this episode provides a couple of examples of how to leverage managers need for numbers.

Managers can count better than they can think

Feb 27 2023 34 mins  
There's a premise that I think can help Quality Warriors become more influential in their organization: Managers can count better than they can think. Is this an attack on managers? No, it is not. It is a call for understanding and a challenge. People who are not managers often don't understand what challenges managers are facing. Their expectations of the managers can be unrealist