Improvements don’t often happen by chance and there’s a common saying along the lines of “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.” If you want to change the way things are turning out you’ve usually got to change what you’re doing.
Too often a project starts at step 4, or even 5 – and stops there. And we wonder why things don’t get better. Success depends on the why and who as well as the what and when.
I’m not a fan of slavishly following a formulaic approach, come what may; we need to use the lessons learned by ourselves and others to do better next time. Juran observed, practised and learned to arrive at this process and, when applied intelligently, and with an understanding of the system and processes that will be encountered on the project, they almost invariably lead to a better result.
(Posted as a blog 21st June 2013)