Rodent Regatta

Lately, I’ve been doing some work with a group that is focused on the Baldrige criteria and the Baldrige National Quality Program. People getting their first glimpse of any type of methodical improvement process get excited. It’s fun to watch.

A couple of people in this group of twenty-five or so have been involved with the Baldrige methodology for several years. They are zealots.

Philip Crosby often said, “If quality is nothing more than common sense, why isn’t quality more common?” One variation was, “Common sense isn’t so common any more.” Frank Patrick captures the essence of this in a nice table.

Where am I going with this?

Service is lousy in the USA today. This follows many years of applying technology, building call centers, improving the precision of manufacturing, chasing all manner of management fads, etc.

Yet, far too many products and services still fail to meet even minimal requirements for customers. Worse, we see that the “returns process” for defective products is often the last place that ever gets any “quality” attention. If you were frustrated with the product, just try to deal with the group responsible for taking it back or fixing it!

Asked the question, “which methodology would you use to bring about dramatic transformation in an organization,” Frank Patrick would answer TOC. I might answer Deming, but I’d hedge my answer if I could. Some of my recent contacts would shout Baldrige. Others might call out Six Sigma, BPR, Juran, Crosby, balanced scorecards, and many others.

Others would launch into a discussion of specific tools that might be a part of several of these methodologies. Do you have a favorite? Have you seen or participated in the results of one or more of these efforts? Would you select a different technique for a small, entrepreneurial organization as contrasted with a large, bureaucratic organization?