According to Romney advisor Beth Meyers who worked also on his 2003 Massachusetts governor transition team, Mr. Romney has his own brand of "problem solving" that might interest others in the quality field.
In an August 16, 2012 article in the New York Times, "Campaigning Aside, Team Plans a Romney Presidency" by Ashley Parker, Ms. Meyers is quoted:
“With Mitt, his approach to problem solving is first to identify the problem, make sure you’re solving for the problem actually there; second, look at best practices; third, apply best practices to the problem at hand; and fourth, execute on it.”
While Mr. Romney's four steps resemble Dr. Shewhart's and later Dr. W. E. Deming's "Plan-Do-Check-Act" approach to problem solving, it deserves some examination -- especially if he wins the election and employs this technique in government.
Let's compare the two approaches.
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| QFD is a PDCA approach. |
- PLAN. Define the problem. This means to identify an undesirable state (problem) or a desired state (opportunity). How important is this problem relative to other problems. This requires deep analysis including:
- Prioritization of problems and opportunities so that people, time, and money can be focused where they will do the most good. And by what criteria will "good" be defined? Is the problem due to common causes of variation or special causes?
- Set a measurable target or outcome (how much must the problem be mitigated to be acceptable or how much opportunity must be realized).
- What is the current state of the problem or opportunity.
- What is preventing the current state from achieving the target. That is, what is the root cause(s) of the problem or missed opportunity. If there are many root causes, which has the greatest impact or correlation.
- In order to address the root causes with the greatest impact, define what a good solution must do or be, independent of a solution.
- Use creativity and innovation to propose solutions that will do or be what is defined in 5.
- Define a way to test the solutions for efficacy.
- Select the best solutions relative to efficacy, time, cost, and other considerations.
- DO. Test the best solutions to see how well they work in real application. Measure both the inputs of the solution as well as the outputs of the solution to determine if the results achieve statistical stability and not just luck.
- CHECK (also referred to as Study). Check the results of the solutions against the targets set in the Plan phase. Are they acceptable and sustainable? If not, search for new solutions or as a last resort, lower the targets (and be able to justify why, and when they will be raised again).
- ACT. Roll out the solution and standardize the improvements by issuing/training new operating procedures in order to prevent recurrence. Measure inputs periodically to assure that the procedures and systems are being followed. Measure outputs periodically to assure the improved process remains stable and predictable. Determine when the process will be reviewed for further improvement, or begin work on the next priority problem.
There are many variations on the above, including DMAIC, but this will work for our discussion.
ROMNEY
- "Identify identify the problem, make sure you’re solving for the problem actually there." This sounds like good advice to make sure the problem is actually real. But, where is the analysis of the cause of the problem, the current state, the desired state?
- "Look at best practices." It is interesting that Deming did not care for benchmarking best practices, ridiculing the process as “the last stage of civilization.” His argument was that if your company is the same as others, why would your customers buy from you and not the others. Unique conditions require unique solutions. Where in this approach is creativity and innovation? (See our previous post "Benchmarking – the fatal flaw in modern quality thinking")
- "Apply best practices to the problem at hand." Where is the testing to see if the solutions are delivering the desired results? Where is the refinement?
- "Execute on it." This sounds like a repeat of "Apply best practices" so it is not clear if this adds anything to the process. Where is follow up to see if the solution continues to work?
Remember, that QFD is also a PDCA approach. Plan includes all the modern Blitz QFD® tools up to and including parts of the Maximum Value table.
House of Quality matrix actually starts at the end of the Plan stage -- which is why it should be preceded with Blitz QFD® anyway. Do is the design, development and prototyping. Check is the testing, and market validation phase. Act is the roll out, commercialization, product maintenance, and product retirement phase.
