Wednesday, January 27, 2016

So How Far Then ?



Often in our wonder world of technology advances our ego gets the better of us and we forget that maybe just maybe some ancestor (pun) may have been more on the ball. This was brought home vividly on a trip I took with a friend who was enamored with his new electric car (brand name eliminated, for politeness called EV) and his two wiz kids. At this stage, the siblings had become totally oblivious and obviously bored with the constant barrage of snippets about the benefits their dad’s multi thousand dollar toy could bring them that had all but overwhelmed their smart phones.

“Today’s trip,” dad grandly announced, “is to the Cussler Museum to look at the wonders of antique cars (heavy emphasis by dad on antique, and lots of pointing at the gleaming new EV).” Kids roll their eyes but go along anyway, as a stop at Colorado Mills mall is promised to stock up on goodies. I go along because the family interactions are always fun and the museum is one of my favorite places to extol visions of what quality and the pursuit of excellence really means—tech-heads take note— like this glorious boattail with 160 wild horses in a V 12 that could fly at speeds that today will get you jail time in the US (yes, thats me you hear crying). 


1932 Auburn Boattail Speedster
Image of 1932 Auburn Boattail Speedster property of Cussler Museum • Copyright © Cussler Museum 2009 ( Please visit — it’s an AWESOME place )


As the family split up, each to their own visible favorite, which to any auto aficionado is total sensory overload, and even the kids both fem and male busily looking up the history of each on the smart devices, clicking unique selfies and dad looking fondly out the window at his new EV, a voice springs up asking for family group meeting with this message. “Hey guys, look at this old EV.” Now dad should have realised the trap, as the youngster who was broadcasting the request (voice and text with video running) is the family's tech guru supreme and has a merciless sense of humor.

What junior had discovered was this beauty.
1931 Detroit Electric Model 97 property of Cussler Museum • Copyright © Cussler Museum 2009

Dad falls deeper into the trap saying “How cute” and other obligatory comments. Family is now surrounding him like hungry wolves as they sense a trap, having seen this many times before. Smart devices are out checking stats, history, the whole gamut and junior opens the trap wider, asking Dad-who-knows-everything “So how far did it go on a charge then, dad?” Dad looks at the whole family and instead of running for the door opens his wisdom (or non-) explaining grandly to the whole family, “probably 20 miles, and they weren't really real cars (like his new multi thousand $ EV), really just early car design toys.”


The trap is now sprung and dad is firmly skewered, as junior, texting and videoing the whole interchange says “well according to this,” (sister’s iPhone screen right in dad’s face as he continues filming)  “an older one (16 years older, 1915) did 211 miles on a single charge.” “No, son” replies dad, “that’s probably a typo and not possible.”  Do not I repeat DO NOT try evasion with your kids when stuck in this position, as they can pull data and info from anywhere in the world, from experts, museums, car clubs, etc. whose knowledge of EVs could fill the library of congress and more. All the family now have thousands of facts on early Detroit EVs, and the conclusion is: dad’s WRONG (and now red faced)! Over 200 miles on a single charge with the primitive batteries on these early 1900s Detroit EVs was about right.

So in around 100 years, our grand technology has advanced 50 + miles — and weaseling about speed, reliability, tech improvements, yada, yada, will not impress your voracious young audience.
 

Poor, poor dad. All the way home conversations are spreading (verbally and on line). Historical performance of EVs is now the number one family topic. The number 54 (not 42) magically appears in multiple chats about everything and, finally, as we pull into the driveway of home, junior sotto voice (just inside dad’s hearing range) sends out this depth charge: “Hey, here’s some guy called Nick Tesla who got 450 miles on a single charge out of a version of the old Detroit electric. That's totally amazing!”  Family now disembarks from the namesake EV and wanders off to points unknown in the house, grinning like Cheshire cats. Voice comes from the kitchen, from dutiful wife: “Hey, Pete, why is Joe just leaning propped up against the EV and looking sad?” Don't know, Maggs, I think he just had some bad news.” I thanked the family for the fun afternoon and headed home in my 1992 4 cylinder gasoline Volvo 240 station wagon, who sounded like she was smiling too.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

"Floods are an act of God, but flood losses are largely an act of man."

"Floods are an act of God, but flood losses are largely an act of man." Those prophetic words were spoken by Gilbert Fowler White (1911-2006), who is known as the father of good floodplain management. White’s words should be a wakeup call for everyone involved in floodplain issues on the Front Range, and especially in Boulder, where Gilbert lived for many years .
If you look one of the flood impact maps that he created, you will see a perfect correlation to the horrendous disaster that has impacted Boulder and the current flood damage. Unless something drastic changes, the situation will just keep repeating itself. “Canute engineering” is what I call attempts to stop forces way beyond our understanding. As King Cnut of the Danes demonstrated in the 11th century, for man to attempt to command the tide is an exercise in futility and doomed to utter failure. The images of the recent flood damage in the Front Range aptly illustrate this—or, to totally misquote Ozymandias, Shelley’s king of kings: “Look on Flood Control works, ye Planners, and despair!” Looking at the monument created in Gilbert's honor just northwest of the downtown Boulder Public Library building, you really understand what that means.


Every civil engineer in Colorado should be ordering a copy of Living With Nature's Extremes: The Life of Gilbert Fowler White by Robert E Hinshaw and the City of Boulder should get his notes out from the Library where they are gathering dust and make them mandatory reading for every City of Boulder employee. Any engineer should know (but we often forget) that to survive a natural disaster you have to work with the forces of nature and not try to stand in opposition to them. The Quaker Meeting House that White attended on Upland Ave, Boulder. sailed through the flood without a scratch while all around it neighbors were flooded. Rather than attempting to stop flood waters with barriers, the building and grounds are designed to gently and smoothly redirect water flowing onto the property into the nearby drainage structures while slowing it down and absorbing as much as possible into the landscaping, and guess who we can thank for that.
( : ( : pete
Pete is a Civil Engineer from Africa  ( where they have catastrophic floods every year ) who runs global pursuit of excellence programs in a wide variety of industries

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The Pursuit of Excellence / Quality + Quakerism










In Shakespeare's famous Merchant of Venice these beautiful lines flow (pun).
               The quality of mercy is not strained.
               It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
.

Lately those lines have been resonating around in my head from two primary directions: my practice of Quakerism (How 2), and my practice in Quality Assurance (How 2-2). Simply, if I do not feel the direction with all my soul and heart, how can I explain it to someone else? Shakespeare did it in two lines, so why do we create thousands of pages and hours of confusion trying to do the same thing—silence works really well. Can one indeed sort through complexity to select quality in the practice of both one’s faith and one’s work, or should one just let it flow?

I received some insight into this dilemma from attending a leadership workshop offered by the Boulder Quaker Meeting. Not being exempt from human Sturm und Drang, the Meeting was having leadership issues with a few of the many volunteer committees that run the place. We were really fortunate to get an awesome presentation from Arthur M. Larrabee, the General Secretary of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and a frequent presenter on leadership skills and Quaker process for Quaker meetings and committees across the U.S. Larrabee is a lawyer who founded the Larrabee, Cunningham and McGowan law firm, though he no longer practices. I’ve attended many leadership workshops, but since this was not about work, and I’m a newly convinced (i.e., inexperienced) Quaker, I came to this one with a completely open mindset. As a result, I left the workshop looking at some of my old beliefs from a new perspective.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked about both Quality and Quakerism is “Yes, but what does it / do you / do they do?” And many times, from the perspective of a Quaker as well as from that of a long time practitioner and fervent believer in Best Practices/Quality Assurance, that can become a tricky question to answer. I struggle to describe both the Quality of Quality and the Quality of Quakerism—and as they become increasingly entangled in my life, I see so much common ground.

The books, manuals, directories, and “how to”s of Quality Assurance and quality control could bury Europe in a ten-foot layer of paper. The texts are often contradictory and confusing, and each is usually introduced with an exhortation to “believe me not them, because they are wrong / evil / nasty / [other really negative term].” The author writes as a master speaking down to an acolyte, assuring you that you need years of continual training by wise men (which coincidentally usually involves paying big bucks to the teachers) to get you where the master—not you—knows you need to go.

Quakers have been writing books, Testimonies, Faith and Practice, and journals for far longer than Quality experts, and often (though not always) in a far less strident tone. But these texts, too, can be contradictory and confusing. There are Quakers who advocate Programmed Worship, and those who advocate Waiting Worship; there are (that I know of) Conservative, Liberal, Evangelical, Universalist, Gurneyite, and Non-theist Quakers—and each author writes in the sure and declared conviction that her or his stance is right and the others’ misguided.

I see many parallels between the pursuit of Quality and being a Quaker. Both Quality Assurance and Quakerism are centered around people and processes, and both promote the documentation and sharing of best practices. In both cases, successful practice means embodying a simple set of principles in the daily exercise of one’s work or life. In both, there is a high premium given to walking the walk, not just talking the talk. Where both most often fail is where there is a wide disparity and contradiction among what is said, what is written, and what is really practiced.

When I do a Quality Assurance due diligence analysis, I tend to find that the Quality program can be classified as taking one of two very different approaches. The most common—and generally the least successful—is what I’ll call a compliance approach that looks from the outside in. The other—and usually more successful—is a holistic approach that depends on everyone involved in the process internalizing a set of core beliefs and manifests on the outside as replicable behaviors.

The compliance approach begins with someone in the top echelons of management listing loads of legal reasons why this or that needs to be done. The dictate is often accompanied by weighty documentation suitably veiled in acronyms from mighty organizations such as ISO, DIN, Six Sigma, and so on. Compliance is documented by reams of checklists and forms to be completed by the people who do the work but have never seen the form before, and signed off by a lengthy chain of command, most of whom have not looked at the work. Compliance is enforced by QA police, called “auditors,” who look at the checklists and forms and determine that the work was or was not done correctly on the basis of what has been noted on the checklists and forms.

The holistic approach begins with the belief that Quality originates from teams of people who share a commitment to the spirit of Quality. It manifests as teams of people working harmoniously together to constantly improve both the quality of the product and the quality of life of the organization, since the two are interdependent. A core belief is that if you see something that is not functioning correctly and affects the spirit of the company, you have a mandate to do something about it. In my view, George Fox and W. Edwards Deming were writing about the same concepts, the former as applied to one’s spiritual life and the latter as applied to one’s working life.

When I was starting my career in Africa, much of the focus of our professional work was looking for better ways to do things with the very scarce resources we had. We came across the works of Deming and there we found our Quality Bible. Deming’s famous 14 points (not quite Shakespeare’s two lines, but getting there) were our guiding commandments, and what we understood from his life and work was that it’s all about people. When I give talks about Deming and all the Quality Assurance systems that came after and built upon his writings, I always say “If you remember nothing else, remember Deming’s points 8 and 12: Drive out fear, and Remove barriers to pride of workmanship.”

So, to paraphrase the Bard, “Quality is not strained. It droppeth as a gentle rain, vanquishing fear and awaking pride of endeavor.” OK, I am not Willie but I’m working on it.

Often in both the QA business and the administration of a Quaker meeting, due diligence for problem-solving leads to focusing on “whodunit” and how do we extract retribution. Our Quaker Meeting had invited Arthur Larrabee to present his workshop because we had a long list of concerns for discussion, including some pretty pointed ones like “what to do about a rogue leader (in Quaker parlance, a rogue clerk)?” Everyone expected the great Arthur to declare judgment, give us his verdict and provide us with a procedure to deal with the problem, but that is not what happened. Instead, Arthur began by asking “What is the function of the clerk?”

In his humble opinion, the answer is fairly simple, but he led us to build the logic ourselves: it’s to protect, nurture, grow the spirit of the meeting (or committee). Light bulbs went off in my head (which they frequently do but luckily my dear wife does the priority arbitrage). It’s a really stunning declaration because it swings the mind automatically from focus on problems and blame to focus on solutions—and that, my dear friends, should also be the focus of Quality Assurance.

The clerk of a Quaker committee or Meeting is also the facilitator of a process of decision-making that sometimes calls for the participants to contemplate in silence what each speaker has said before the next person speaks. The intrusion (yes) of silence is also far more productive than the intrusion of verbal noise, and leads to much better spirit as well. A Quaker Meeting has its Faith and Practice, its Testimonies, its minutes that record the advice of “weighty members,” and its wise elders, but as Arthur led us to discover, right decisions come not from reading those “manuals,” but from hearing and heeding the spirit of the meeting.

A company that believes compliance is the sole way to go will soon be lost, while one that begins with the spirit of Quality and then builds the system to demonstrate compliance will always survive, often in spectacular ways. A long time ago, in my first year in the U.S. (1980), I went on a customer call to two airlines that had dynamically different operations: Braniff and Southwest Airlines. The first was large, pompous, and arrogant, with layers and layers of management. The other was so small the arrogant one predicted quite confidently they would be driven out of business inside six months. We spent nine months at Braniff just setting up the service call, and even with the support of their risk team and their financial backers could not get sense into their heads about the pursuit of Quality.

On our last day there, as we were leaving we asked the receptionist if there were any other airlines in the vicinity and as luck would have it she was about to jump ship and go work for Southwest and directed us across the Love Field tarmac to them. What the heck, we thought, we have nothing to lose, let’s cold call. I’ll never forget the sight of the third person we met: after swiftly being taken to the head of aircraft maintenance we were walked straight into the CEO’s office. It happened to be around Easter, and CEO Herb Kelleher had just gotten back to his office after going round to wish all the passengers and staff a Happy Easter—dressed in a pink rabbit suit and smoking a cigarette.

The discussion that followed, and continued for hours, was all about the spirit of the company and what we could do to help. Arthur Larrabee and George Fox could have attended that meeting and been perfectly at home. Secretaries, flight attendants, and ground crew at Southwest had (and still have) more power to make things right in their company than executive directors in the boardroom of Braniff. Look at the results today: Braniff is long gone, and in 2011 Southwest carried the most domestic passengers of any U.S. airline and marked its 39th year of continued profitability. It is still beloved by shareholders and employees and customers.

Simply, the spirit of Quality of the company is built right in and practiced every day; there may be a manual now, but all the employees have it written on their hearts as they do it every day. If you think that sounds like what Quakers should do, I think you would be right. You can read the Bible, all of the Journal and letters of George Fox, and all of the writings of every Quaker since, but if you do not walk the walk, believe till it hurts, and live your Testimonies every hour of every day, it’s not worth a hill of beans.

So, my dear friends, I will close with my previous line slightly modified: “Faith of Friends’ Quality is not strained. It droppeth as a gentle rain, vanquishing fear and awaking pride of endeavor, delivering light to mankind in this world and beyond the cosmos.”

In the Light
(: (; pete

This article is dedicated to Lisa, a friend, a Friend, and a member of the next generation of Quality Assurance practitioners.