Obstacles to Getting the Job Done

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Demings Obstacles Roadblocks to Normal
Systems Life Cycle Operations

• Marjorie Aprile
• Todd Rees
• Ray Rabiola
• Brian Groce
• Bill Hedrick

By Group 4
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OBSTACLES
To Getting the Job Done
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Questions to be Answered
Do these obstacles represent roadblocks to normal
systems life cycle operations? Do they have an
impact on System Design Life Cycle (SDLC)?
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What are the Obstacles?

• Hope for Instant Pudding
• The Supposition that Solving Problems,
  Automation, Gadgets, and New Machinery will
  Transform Industry.
• Search for Examples
• Examples without Theory Teach us Nothing
• Plant Tours Teach Nothing without Theory
• It is a Hazard to Copy

Marjorie Aprile
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What are the Obstacles? Cont.

• Obsolescence in Schools
• Poor Teaching of Statistical Methods in Industry
• Use of Military Standard 105D and Other Tables of
  Acceptance

Marjorie Aprile
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Hope for Instant Pudding
Marjorie Aprile
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Quality is an Outcomenot a method!
Total Quality Management (TQM) implies that
quality is a method. Dr. Deming shows us that
Marjorie Aprile
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Hope for Instant Pudding

• For instant pudding, dump contents of package
  into bowl, add milk, beat with a beater, and in a
  minute, you have pudding. They put something in
  there to thicken the mixture without heat.

• To make traditional pudding, the process is more
  exacting and time consuming. You measure flour,
  sugar, use carefully controlled heat and constant
  stirring, to get the pudding to thicken.

Marjorie Aprile
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Hope for Instant Pudding

• Have you ever tasted instant pudding and then the
  real thing made by someone who knows what they
  are doing?
• Words like smooth, creamy, velvety texture, come
  to mind.
• There is no way, the instant variety can be
  mistaken for the real thing.

Marjorie Aprile
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The Pudding in business is Quality

• and there is no instant way to achieve Quality!

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Some Examples of How to Implement Instant Pudding

• Creating a Quality Control Manager position
  within the company
• Hiring an expensive, outside Quality Control
  Consultant
• Using Shrink-wrapped, Off-the-Shelf Software
  Packages about which nothing is known.
• Like their culinary counterparts, these
  approaches only give the impression of quality in
  our business.

Marjorie Aprile
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Hope for Instant Pudding

• Need to cut costs? Lets replace the service
  reps with an automated phone answering machine.
  The customers will never know the difference.
• We can cut your labor costs by fifty percent and
  boost your bottom line in the process. Its easy,
  just fire half the employees. The remaining
  workers can pick up the slack.

Marjorie Aprile
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Is there any way that we can achieve our goal of
having Quality in our systems?
Hope for Instant Pudding

• To build Quality into our products and business,
  we can use the Systems Development Life Cycle
  Principles to design an effective information
  system.

Marjorie Aprile
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Process is the Keyword

• The Systems Development Life Cycle is a process
  by which systems analysts, software engineers,
  programmers, and end users build information
  systems and computer applications. The idea is to
  create something of value for an organization,
  and to achieve this end Deming style, we must see
  the Organization as a system. A system is set of
  interdependent and interconnected components and
  everyone must be involved in its creation,
  ongoing operation, and maintenance.

Marjorie Aprile
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Basic Principles of the Systems Development Life
Cycle

• User involvement in design The guys in the
  trenches know whats going on, get them involved
  in the design.
• Problem solving approach Identify the problem,
  understand the environment, its causes and
  effects.
• Establish phases and activities Systems
  planning, analysis, design, implementation, and
  support.

Marjorie Aprile
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Principles of Systems Development Life Cycle
(cont.)

• Establish standards for consistent development
  and documentation Activities, responsibilities,
  guidelines, and Quality checks.
• Good Systems are costly and as such should be
  considered as capital investments.

Marjorie Aprile
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Principles of Systems Development Life Cycle
(cont.)

• Cancel or revise scope as needed If a project
  no longer makes sense, cancel it.
• Divide and Conquer Divide the problem up into
  smaller, easier to manage pieces.
• Design for Growth and Change Never forget to
  plan for the future. It will be here sooner than
  you think!

Marjorie Aprile
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No Instant Pudding Here!

• If you look at this list, you will see that it is
  complete, and everyone in the organization is
  involved in the process.
• It is well thought out before hand, with as
  little as possible left to chance.
• Quality is designed into and planned as a part of
  the over all system.

Marjorie Aprile
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Quick Fixes
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Quick Fixes

• The Quick Fix approach jumps through the phases
  of the SDLC without identifying the problem.
• They act as a patch to the system that really
  does the system no good in the long run.

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Quick Fixes

• The Quick Fix approach may cause more problems
  than it solves.
• You cannot know what problems could arise in
  other parts of the system when you change
  another.

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Quick Fixes

• To remove these obstacles we must
• understand the variation to the system.
• By looking at the variation we can identify the
• special causes which we can act upon.

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Quick Fixes

• Once the special causes of variation are
  identified we can use the SDLC to plan, analyze,
  design, implement and support what we need to
  do to fix the problem.
• This will direct us to a fix for our problem that
  we can measure and adjust as needed to work on
  the source of variation instead of trying to
  patch the system with a Quick Fix and probably
  introduce more variation and problems to the
  system.

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Obsolescence in Schools
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Obsolescence in Schools

• Understanding a problem is the key to
  implementing a fix to that problem.
  Unfortunately schools cannot prepare an
  individual for each type of problem that will
  arise in any given situation.
• Deming introduced his comprehensive management
  theory The System Of Profound Knowledge which
  can be used to help managers. This system
  provides critical information regarding
  improving the quality and dependability of
  manufactured goods as well as things in your
  everyday life.

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Obsolescence in Schools

• The System Of Profound Knowledge is not a
  course offered in most schools therefore most
  students do not graduate with a great
  understanding of the theory.
• Many business schools teach students that
  management is a profession and that they are
  ready to step into a management position as soon
  as they graduate.
• Most students lack the experience necessary to
  simply walk into a management position in a
  company and perform well.

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Obsolescence in Schools

• Understanding The System Of Profound Knowledge
  is a good way to begin to address the problems
  that occur in day to day activities within a
  business.
• Fordham Universitys Deming Scholars MBA Program
  teaches the five cycles of learning that build
  upon the System Of Profound Knowledge.

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Obsolescence in Schools
5 Cycles

• Introduce the System Of Profound Knowledge.
• Deepen understanding of the system.
• Develop understanding of measurement.
• Develop strategies for leadership of
  transformation through understanding of
  organization learning and optimization of a
  system.
• Deepen understanding of cultural formation and
  change and optimization of the enterprise.

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Obsolescence in Schools
Internships throughout each cycle are also
recommended so students can gain experience as
well as an education.
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The Search For Examples
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The Search For Examples

• You cannot copy what other systems are doing and
  expect the same results when applied to your
  system.
• What works for one does not always work for
  another.

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The Search For Examples

• It is difficult if not impossible to have a
  COMPLETE understanding of what others are doing.
• Very often it is taken out of context and applied
  in the wrong manner.
• You must understand the scope and context of the
  other system compared to what you want for your
  own.

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The Search For Examples

• When you have a COMPLETE understanding of what
  you are attempting to adopt you must modify it
  for you own applications as there are always
  differences.
• Therefore you must also have a COMPLETE
  understanding of your own needs and processes.
• Blindly making changes to a system is just asking
  for trouble.

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Tables of Acceptance
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Tables of Acceptance

• This obstacle can cause many problems in the
  SDLC and have adverse affects on each level of
  the cycle.
• Planning and Analysis stages If you allow for
  errors to occur here you will never be able to
  develop a usable system for your clients.

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Tables of Acceptance

• Design and Implementation phase You might be
  able to come up with a workable system but you
  will probably have to make many corrections to
  the code before the system is acceptable to the
  client.
• Support phase If you allow errors to occur
  here you will have kept addressing the same
  problems until the errors are corrected. This
  will generally cause problems between you and
  your client.

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Tables of Acceptance

• Meetings with your clients during each phase of
  the development process can ensure that no
  defects exist.
• If defects are found they should be corrected
  immediately to avoid compounding the effects of
  any defects.

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Tables of Acceptance

• Using Tables of Acceptance in the SDLC will end
  up costing your and your client more time, money,
  and pain.
• Tables of Acceptance may have their place
  somewhere but there are no useful applications
  for it in the SDLC.

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The End