BUSINESS BESTSELLERS

(Some entries from the business bestseller list from Amazon.com)

Books

Amsden, Davida, Howard Butler, and Robert Amsden. SPC Simplified for Services. White Plains, NY: Quality Resources, 1991.

Belasco, James A. and Ralph C. Stayer. Flight of the Buffalo. New York, NY: Warner Books, 1993.

Berger, Carlton R. Quality Improvement Through Leadership and Empowerment: A Business Survival Handbook. Pennsylvania MILRITE Council, 1991.

Burr, John T. SPC Tools for Everyone. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1993.

Collins, James C. and Jerry I. Porras. Built to Last. New York, NY: HarperBusiness, 1997.

Creech, Bill. The Five Pillars of TQM. New York, NY: Truman Talley Books/Dutton, 1994.

Crosby, Philip B. Quality is Free. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1979.

Deming, W. Edwards. Out of the Crisis. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Center for Advanced Engineering Study, 1986.

Ernst & Young Quality Improvement Consulting Group, Ernest C. Huge (ed). Total Quality: An Executive's Guide for the 1990s. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1990.

Feigenbaum, Armand V. Total Quality Control (3rd edition, rev). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991.

Ford, Henry. My Life and Work. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1922.

GOAL/QPC Research Committee 1990 Research Report. Total Quality Management Master Plan: An Implementation Strategy. Methuen, MA: GOAL/QPC, 1990.

Hosotani, Katsuya. Japanese Quality Concepts: An Overview. White Plains, NY: Quality Resources, 1992.

Ishikawa, Kaoru. Guide to Quality Concepts. White Plains, NY: Quality Resources, 1991.

Joiner, Brian L. Fourth Generation Management. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1994.

Juran, Joseph M. (ed.) and Frank M. Gyrna (assoc. ed.). Juran's Quality Control Handbook, 4th edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1988.

Kepner, Charles H. and Benjamin B. Tregoe. The New Rational Manager. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Research Press, 1997.

Lawton, Robin L. Creating a Customer-Centered Culture: Leadership in Quality, Innovation, and Speed. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Press, 1993.

Miller, George L. and LaRue L. Krumm. The Whats, Whys, and Hows of Quality Improvement. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1992.

Mizuno, Shigeru. Company-Wide Total Quality Control. Tokyo, Japan: Asian Productivity Organization, 1988.

Moran, John W., Richard P. Talbot, and Russell M. Benson. A Guide to Graphical Problem-Solving Processes. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1990.

Pascale, Richard T. and Anthony G. Athos. The Art of Japanese Management. New York, NY: Warner Books, 1981.

Sashkin, Marshall and Kenneth J. Kiser. Putting Total Quality Management to Work. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1993.

Shewhart, Walter A. Economic Control of Manufactured Product. New York, NY: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1931. Republished as a 50th Anniversary Commemorative Reissue. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1980.

Tague, Nancy R. The Quality Toolbox. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1995.

Taylor, Frederick W. Scientific Management. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1947.

Wheatley, Margaret. Leadership and the New Science. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 1993.

Wheeler, Donald J. and David S. Chambers. Understanding Statistical Process Control. Knoxville, TN: SPC Press, 1992.

Articles

Caldwell, Chip. "Mentoring: The Evolving Role of Senior Leaders in a TQM Environment," in Quality Management in Health Care. Winter 1993, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 13-21.

Plsek, Paul E. "Tutorial: Quality Improvement Project Models," in Quality Management in Health Care. Winter 1993, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 69-81.

HEALTHCARE

Books

Al-Assaf, A.F., MD and June A. Schmele, RN, PhD (eds.). The Textbook of Total Quality in Healthcare. DLucie Press, 1993. elray Beach, FL: St.

Berwick, Donald M., A. Blanton Godfrey, Jane Roessner. Curing Health Care: New Strategies for Quality Improvement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990.

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Exploring Quality Improvement Principles: A Hospital Leader's Guide. Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 1993.

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Implementing Quality Improvement: A Hospital Leader's Guide. Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 1993.

Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. Using Quality Improvement Tools in a Health Care Setting. Oakbrook Terrace, IL: Joint Commission of Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, 1992.

Koop, C. Everett, MD. Koop: The Memoirs of America's Family Doctor. New York, NY: Random House, 1991.

Leebov, Wendy. The Quality Quest: A Briefing for Health Care Professionals. Chicago, IL: American Hospital Publishing, Inc., 1991.

Marszalek-Gaucher, Ellen and Richard J. Coffey. Transforming Healthcare Organizations: How to Achieve and Sustain Organizational Excellence. San Francisco, California, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1990.

Weed, Lawrence W. Knowledge Coupling: New Premises and New Tools for Medical Care and Education. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag, 1991.

Articles

Berwick, Donald M., MD. "The Clinical Process and the Quality Process," in Quality Management in Health Care. Fall 1992, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 1-8.

Berwick, Donald M., MD. "Continuous Improvement as an Ideal in Health Care," in The New England Journal of Medicine. January 5, 1989, Vol. 320, No. 1, pp. 53-56.

Berwick, Donald M., MD. "The Double Edge of Knowledge," in Journal of American Medical Association. August 14, 1991, Vol. 266, No. 6, pp. 841-842.

Berwick, Donald M., MD. "Seeking Systemness," in Healthcare Forum Journal. March/April 1992, Vol. 35, No. 2, pp. 22-28.

Berwick, Donald M., MD and Howard H. Hiatt, MD. "Who Pays?" in The New England Journal of Medicine. August 24, 1989, Vol. 321, No. 8, pp. 541-542.

Merry, Martin D., MD. "Physician Leadership for the 21st Century,"in Quality Management in Health Care. Spring 1993, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 31-41.

Miles, Paul V., MD. "Physicians and Quality Improvement,"a paper delivered at the GOAL/QPC 9th Annual Conference. Boston, MA, November 1992 .

EDUCATION

Books

Cotter, Maurey and Daniel Seymour. Kidgets: And Other Insightful Stories About Quality in Education. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Press, 1993.

Lewis, James, Jr. Re-Creating Our Schools for the 21st Century: Managing America's Schools with Distinction. Westbury, NY: J.L. Wilkerson Publishing Company, Ltd., 1987.

Rinehart, Gray. Quality Education. Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1993.

Schmoker, Michael J. and Richard B. Wilson. Total Quality Education. Bloomington, IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation, 1993.

Seymour, Daniel T. On Q: Causing Quality in Higher Education. New York, NY: American Council on Education and Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992.

Articles

Salmon, Verel R. "Quality in American Schools," in Quality Progress. October 1993 (26:10), 73-75.

Schargel, Franklin P. "Total Quality in Education," in Quality Progress. October 1993 (26:10), 67-70.

GOVERNMENT

National Performance Review. From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less. Vice President Al Gore. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1993, (S/N 040-000-00592-7).

BENCHMARKING, REENGINEERING, AND QFD

GOAL/QPC Research Committee 1991 Research Report. Benchmarking. Methuen, MA: GOAL/QPC, 1991.

Hammer, Michael and James Champy. Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.: 1993.

Johansson, Henry J., Patrick McHugh, A. John Pendlebury, and William A. Wheeler III. Business Process Reengineering: BreakPoint Strategies for Market Dominance. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 1993.

Marsh, S., J.W. Moran, S. Nakui, and G. Hoffherr. Facilitating and Training in Quality Function Deployment. Methuen, MA: GOAL/QPC, 1991.

Peace, Glen Stuart. Taguchi Methods : A Hands on Approach to Quality Engineering. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1993.

MEETINGS AND TEAMS

Books

Lippincott, Sharon. Meetings: Do's, Don'ts and Donuts. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Lighthouse Point Press, 1993.

Scholtes, Peter R. The Team Handbook. Madison, Wisconsin: Joiner Associates, Inc., 1988.

Articles

Maxwell, Christopher I., James T. Ziengenfuss, Jr., and Rupert F. Chisholm. "Beyond Quality Improvement Teams: Sociotechnical Systems Theory and Self-directed Work Teams," in Quality Management in Health Care. Winter 1993, Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 59-67

EFFECTIVE THINKING

Books

Bazerman, Max H. and Margaret A. Neale. Negotiating Rationally. New York, NY: The Free Press, Macmillan, Inc., 1992.

Barker, Joel A. Paradigms: The Business of Discovering the Future. New York, NY: Harper Business of HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.

Covey, Stephen R. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1989.

Fisher, Roger and William Ury. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.

Nadler, Gerald and Shozo Hibino. Breakthrough Thinking. Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing, 1990.

Senge, Peter. The Fifth Discipline. New York, NY: Currency Doubleday, 1990.

Senge, Peter et al. The Fifth Discipline FieldBook. New York, NY: Doubleday, 1994.

Articles

Senge, Peter. "The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations," in Sloan Management Review. Fall 1990, Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 7-23.

Senge, Peter. "Transforming the Practice of Management," presented at Systems Thinking in Action Conference. November 14, 1991.

PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY

Books

McGregor, Douglas. The Human Side of Enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1960.

Pirsig, Robert M. Lila. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1991.

Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1974.

Schumacher, E.F. Small is Beautiful. New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1973.

Stivers, Eugene and Susan Wheelan (eds.). The Lewin Legacy: Field Theory in Current Practice. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 1986.

Thomas, Lewis. The Fragile Species. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1992.

Articles

Isbell, Ted, "Beyond Quality You Can See and Feel," in Industrial Engineering. June 1993: Vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 61-62.

Reviews

Negotiating Rationally

This book provides a very useful and thorough investigation of methods for rational negotiation. It includes specific tasks, especially related to discovering the bargaining zone for your negotiations. In brief, the bargaining zone refers to the range of options that fall between your best and worst outcomes and those of the other party. The book is easy to understand and enjoyable to read.
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Curing Health Care

This book serves as both an introduction to CQI in healthcare and a summary of the National Demonstration Project that piloted CQI in several hospitals. It provides an insightful explanation of why CQI is needed in healthcare as well as why it is appropriate. The reports from the National Demonstration Project present many good ideas for the application of CQI in healthcare organizations along with some of the things to avoid. The book is written by medical professionals who have a particular interest in the quality of their field as well as a unique understanding of the issues involved.
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The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

For many, this book has defined self-improvement for the '90's. Stephen Covey demonstrates an understanding of how people work, think, and act. He captures ideas about motivation, communication, and effectiveness with skill and clarity. Of particular relevance to CQI are Covey's activity quadrants. Put briefly, Quadrant I activities are both important and urgent -- like responding to a deadline or a crisis. Quadrant II activities are important, but not urgent. They will have a great effect on the organization in the long run, but don't have to be done tomorrow. Quadrant III activities are urgent, but not really important -- the small, demanding things that eat up time. Quadrant IV activities are neither important nor urgent. CQI teams should focus on Quadrant II activities -- problems that are important, but not urgent. Teams are not meant to handle crisis situations. They are meant to improve how the organization performs its work in the long run. This book also contains many other thoughts and insights that are very worthwhile, supplemented by experiences from Covey's life. In general, it can help anyone who feels ineffective and out of control.
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Out of the Crisis

This is Dr. W. Edwards Deming's classic book of total quality management, the encapsulation of all Deming's ideas. Perhaps the most significant portion of the book is Deming's 14 points which have revolutionized modern business. Although this book is very popular, it is not easy to read. The information is certainly of value, but it is presented as if it were a jumble of notes and short statements. It lacks continuity and doesn't flow smoothly .
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Total Quality: An Executive's Guide for the '90's

This book is a very thorough investigation of CQI theory and practices. It is obvious even from the title that it is geared toward top managers, and is written with their interests in mind. While the book does not break new ground, it is a complete guide to what CQI is all about.

Total Quality Control

This comprehensive guide to total quality management is easy to use, full of good information, and not difficult to understand. It is written well, and despite its thoroughness, is manageable. An outstanding resource that rivals Juran's Quality Control Handbook.
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Built to Last

"This high-energy, deeply researched book makes 'vision' an operational component in a manager's tool kit. After six years of delving into the 'secrets' of 18 visionary companies (average lifespan of 90 years), Collins and Porras deliver a staccato array of lessons that can be applied at almost any level."
Industry Week
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Getting to Yes

This is a great little book that will teach and inspire you to negotiate wisely from now on. As the first book to encourage rational negotiation rather than more traditional methods of fighting for what you want, it is something of a landmark. Ury and Fisher show tremendous insight with their ideas on separating people from the problem, focusing on interests rather than positions, creating options and opportunities for mutual gain, and insisting on objective standards. Their methods are as applicable to a single friendship as they are to international summit meetings.
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Reengineering the Corporation

According to the authors of this book, business process reengineering (BPR) calls for "the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed." It might be described as radical process improvement, scrapping the current process and starting from scratch instead of trying to revamp an ailing or outdated process. Unlike traditional CQI that looks to incrementally improve almost any process, reengineering focuses on core business processes that reach from supplier to customer and determine the organization's capabilities. Core business processes are those activities that are critical to matching or beating the competition. The ultimate goal of BPR is to redefine the industry by achieving new standards in quality, service, cost, or flexibility. This book is very enjoyable and full of good ideas about business process reengineering. Hammer and Champy, champions of BPR, have packed the book with case studies that bring their ideas to life. It is easy to read and well worth the time. You'll finish it wanting to reengineer human society as well as your own business.
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Japanese Quality Concepts: An Overview

Hosotani's book is a remarkable survey of all major components of CQI, or what he refers to as TQC. While he does not present new ideas, the author effectively explains everything from participative management to variation control to quality function deployment. This book does not have the detail of Juran's Quality Control Handbook, but is somewhat easier to cope with. In general, the book reads well though there are spots where the translation from Japanese is too evident. It is particularly recommended as a textbook for companies to use in educating employees. This book is particularly commendable for its emphasis on implementation, including suggestions, as well as explanation.
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Implementing Quality Improvement: A Hospital Leader's Guide

This book builds on the concepts that were explored in Exploring Quality Improvement Principles: A Hospital Leader's Guide. It covers a lot of the major decisions surrounding the implementation of CQI. While it is not prescriptive, it tends to indicate the "right" way to do things, when, in actuality, those things may be all wrong in different circumstances. For example, you get the feeling that you must have a Quality Council and Steering Committee, when in reality you may not want to use either because it may simply create more bureaucracy. The book is enjoyable reading and easy to follow with many examples and case studies.

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Using Quality Improvement Tools in a Health Care Setting

A succinct introduction to the basic tools of CQI including the flowchart, brainstorm, affinity diagram, cause-and-effect diagram, decision matrices, multi-voting, check sheets, control charts, Pareto charts, histograms, scatter diagrams, and so on. Also introduces the background of CQI, the Joint Commission's approach to CQI, and several problem-solving models. Packs a lot of information into a relatively small space -- is a good grounding in the essentials without a lot of fuss.

Juran's Quality Control Handbook

You can't get much more thorough than this. This book is a great reference work, covering every imaginable quality-related topic in detail, and drawing much from Dr. Juran's long and distinguished career in quality management. If you want to buy one book for all your CQI reference needs, this is the best choice. Chapters are written by a variety of authors, so readability varies, but in all, it is more accessible than its girth suggests.
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Koop

Dr. Koop turns his keen attention to the health care system -- or lack thereof -- towards the end of his autobiography. He describes the existing mess very cogently, and makes some suggestions for change. The real value in "Koop" is for people who work in and around health care who would like to learn his prescriptions: getting rid of the "30% of what is done diagnostically and therapeutically" that is unnecessary, linking insurance rates to behavior, reforming tort law to allow a more sensible malpractice insurance structure, and developing ways to measure treatments and outcomes.
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The Quality Quest

This booklet is a quick and useful introduction to the basic theory of CQI and its use in healthcare, but does not contain a lot of detail. The section that discusses what one person can do to improve quality is unique and interesting. Dr. Leebov offers a number of useful suggestions including showing respect to colleagues, seizing opportunities, confronting poor quality when you see it, and pursuing continuous self-improvement.

Meetings Do's, Don'ts, and Donuts

This book is easy to read and full of great ideas to improve meetings of any sort. The content covers everything from initial planning to interpersonal relationships. Although the main thrust of the book addresses meetings in general, quality improvement meetings and their particular quirks are discussed. This book would be a useful tool for anyone who wants to improve their meeting skills.

Transforming Healthcare Organizations

This guide to quality improvement in healthcare is helpful because its authors have been instrumental in real-life CQI in hospitals. They bring the knowledge and perspective of experience to their writing. The book contains real insight into the changes that need to occur in healthcare organizations in order to sustain quality improvement activities.
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Company-Wide Total Quality Control

The author of this book is one of Japan's pioneers in quality management, and this is a distillation of his many years of experience in both academic and consultative settings. It is not frothy reading, but it is a good reference work, well-indexed, with a good table of contents and perhaps 60 figures and illustrations. It is well-rounded, intended more for managers than statisticians, and includes material on QFD, quality education, and, of particular interest, a fact-based description of "Problems in Implementing TQC and How to Solve Them".
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Breakthrough Thinking

Nadler and Hibino provide a thorough look at their theory of "Breakthrough Thinking." They give clear instructions for when and how to use their methods. Breakthrough Thinking is based on seven principles for problem-solving. Most of these principles are in tune with methods practiced by other problem-solvers and improvement gurus, but a few espouse unique ideas. For example, the uniqueness principle states that no two problems are situations are alike and therefore the solution for one will not fit the other. Solutions must be developed from scratch. While this idea certainly has value, it contradicts the idea that there is no need to reinvent the wheel and leaves one puzzling over the best approach. A few of the other principles, particularly the limited information principle, create similar contradictions.
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Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

A groundbreaking work of modern philosophy and fiction. The book truthfully claims to be an "...extraordinary story of a man's quest for truth. It will change the way you feel and think about your life." The reason we include it is because of Pirsig's valuable discussion of Quality as the union of art and science, emerging from the relationship between man and his environment.
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The Team Handbook

Peter Scholtes is well-known for this excellent book on teams and teamwork. He has very good insights and advice. His suggestions for handling communication -- from introductions to problems -- are particularly helpful. The book is especially useful because it is specifically geared toward teams involved in quality improvement, and covers the basics of CQI as well as team instructions. This would be a great book for team facilitators to have on hand.
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Economic Control of Manufactured Product

Walter Shewhart is the father of statistical process control. His book is not intended for the casual reader, but it should be required reading for quality engineers. It is actually quite well written, and heavily illustrated with charts and tables. In brief, SPC measures variation in production processes. Variation is simply how far something deviates from its expected value. In SPC, variation can be attributed to either "common" causes or "assignable" causes. Assignable causes of variation are outside the normal process and have a significant effect on the outcome. Instrument malfunction is an example of an assignable cause of variation. Removing these causes is fundamental to process improvement because it brings the process into statistical control. Common causes are inherent in a process and are only a viable source of improvement once the process is in control. Removing common causes of variation usually requires changing the structure of the process itself.
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The Lewin Legacy

This book contains most of the papers presented at the first International Kurt Lewin Conference held at Temple University in 1984. The content, all related to applications of the social psychological theories of Kurt Lewin, is interesting and informative. One of the most striking features of the content is that it shows that Kurt Lewin's theory of action research is very closely in tune with CQI problem-solving methods (see especially the sections entitled Organizational and human resources development and Community psychology and community action). For a good synopsis of Lewin's theory of force fields, see the article entitled Utilizing Lewinian principles for an institutional planning process within a medical school.
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The Fragile Species

Lewis Thomas has made considerable contributions to scientific literature, bringing his insight and inquiry to many both inside and outside his field. Like his other works, this book is filled with thought-provoking observations and questions through which Dr. Thomas provides a convincing and entertaining look at humanity and its science. Of particular relevance is Dr. Thomas's investigation of the obligations science, and healthcare in particular, has to society and the future.

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The Clinical Process and the Quality Process

This is a very good article regarding physician involvement in hospital CQI. Berwick offers good advice about how to approach the problem of physician involvement, suggesting that quality advocates appeal to physicians' interest in the scientific method. Physicians may be more willing to become involved when they see that CQI is based on facts, scientific investigations, and experimentation. The article also presents a good discussion of the application of CQI to clinical processes, both for its own sake and as a further appeal to physicians' interests.

Continuous Improvement as an Ideal in Health Care

This is an excellent article. As usual, Don Berwick is clear, easy to understand without being simplistic, and inspiring. This article really makes you believe in CQI for healthcare, both the necessity for it and its potential success.

The Double Edge of Knowledge

This is an interesting look at the paradox of knowledge: awareness of errors encourages physician improvement but discourages patients from using lower ranking providers. Nevertheless, Berwick believes dedicated providers must honestly pursue data about their practice despite the risks and urges support of improvement opportunities.

Seeking Systemness

Berwick calls for the reorganization of our communities -- businesses, schools, healthcare organizations, assistance agencies, etc. -- into a mutually supportive network that will truly help everyone maintain a life of dignity and usefulness. The emphasis here is on integrated systems rather than discrete points of contact and often conflicting actions, both within healthcare and between healthcare organizations and others. As usual, Berwick is inspiring and enjoyable to read.

Who Pays?

A remarkable look at the inconsistencies of America's health care system in caring for newborns. One of his most interesting points is that not only do the poor carry a disproportionate lack-of-care burden now, but also that, in the long run, we will all pay for the lack of care for those who cannot afford our expensive system.

Mentoring: The Evolving Role of Senior Leaders in a TQM Environment

This is a great article on leadership in CQI and its new role. The value of mentoring as an approach to leadership is very valuable to an effective CQI culture, and Mr. Caldwell does an excellent job of getting this across. His recounting of experiences as a hospital CEO lend credence and reality to the concept.

Beyond Quality You Can See and Feel

This well-written little article captures a unique and creative way of looking at the nature of quality. It is definitely worth reading and will only take a few minutes.

Physician Leadership for the 21st Century

This is a very good article for physicians that outlines their changing roles and responsibilities and the change in attitudes that must accompany them. Dr. Merry encourages both physicians and hospital executives to reconsider their definition of physician leaders, giving it new life and meaning.

Physicians and Quality Improvement

Dr. Miles presents an overview of how physicians use quality improvement to improve health care at Magic Valley Regional Medical Center in Twin Falls,Idaho. Magic Valley has embraced a systems approach, patient focus, study of variation, and better science through guidelines, outcomes, collaborative learning, etc. The results are impressive.

Tutorial: Quality Improvement Project Models

This article provides a comparative analysis of several popular improvement project models including the Juran Institute's model, Florida Power & Light's 7-step model, Paul Plsek's own model and FOCUS-PDCA®. Mr. Plsek also presents a good discussion of the concepts that these models attempt to capture.

The Art of Japanese Management

Pascale and Athos explore the essentials of Japanese management, focusing on Matsushita as an example and contrasting it to the management of several U.S. companies. Their analysis of American and Japanese business management is structured around the seven S's: style, skills, staff, strategy, structure, systems, and superordinate goals. Of these, they postulate that the Japanese do a better job of including the three soft S's (style, skills, and staff) along with the others. Pascale and Athos stress the importance of organizational values, particularly finding a balance between the science of production and the art of dealing with the people involved, in creating a great corporation.
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Lila

Lila is just what you would expect after Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, yet it still manages to surprise and intrigue the reader. In Lila, Pirsig continues to explore Quality, but this time his framework is much more refined. Drawing on his interest in an anthropology of the Native Americans, he is in the process of developing a Metaphysics of Quality to replace Aristotle's incomplete subject-object metaphysics that has misguided Western culture for so long. And he does a good job of it. Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality is based on values rather than objectivity because objectivity presents a false and impossible view. Values or morals are much more meaningful that any ruse of objectivity and are the building blocks of life on all levels: inorganic, biological, social, and intellectual. From this basic structure, Pirsig sheds new light on quite a few issues and questions that were difficult to explain under Aristotle's subject-object world. Pirsig's final conclusion is that Good, as a noun, is what the Metaphysics of Quality is all about.
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The Textbook of Total Quality in Healthcare

This book, designed originally as a textbook for healthcare workers, compiles chapters written by many of the leading experts in healthcare quality. Many timely issues are covered including the history of quality in healthcare, the principles and techniques of CQI, and the integration of CQI into existing healthcare structures. While not the easiest reading material, it is thorough and scholastically respectable. The first two chapters that detail the history of quality in healthcare are particularly notable for their unique depth of coverage.

Paradigms

Joel Barker is well-known for his study of paradigms. This book, published in hard cover as Future Edge, is easy to read, entertaining, and informative. Barker does a good job of explaining the concept of paradigms and its relation to the business world. The main thrust of the book is that breaking through current paradigms to create outstanding and unheard of ways of doing business can put us well ahead of the competition. Joel Barker calls the total quality revolution the most important paradigm shift of the twentieth century. His analysis of this single subject alone makes this book worthwhile, but there is a lot more besides. In particular, I keep coming back to his observations about ways to tell when a paradigm is getting old, and how to recognize and prospect for new ones. The concept of paradigms plays a central role in much of the business management literature today. Working with paradigms is key to business process reengineering, breakthrough thinking, and systems thinking. Even personal growth literature refers to our paradigms. In light of this, Barker's book is timely reading, though its ideas will always be relevant.
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Quality is Free

Quality Is Free is a clear and thorough presentation of Philip Crosby's approach to quality improvement, which is based on the goal of "zero defects." It also covers his quality management maturity grid, 14-step program for company-wide improvement, and his "Make Certain" program. A straightforward discussion of the author's ideas is supplemented by many short case studies as well as an in-depth look at how one company might apply Crosby's zero defects approach. It is largely focused on quality improvement as a management tool. Crosby's idea of zero defects has been criticized by many in the quality improvement field for being too narrow, but Crosby puts forth a reasonable and interesting defense stressing the importance of having a distinct and measurable goal. Crosby expresses the opinion that zero defects is at the heart of quality. Other definitions of quality get stuck trying to define goodness, elegance, taste, and other design issues that are difficult if not impossible to measure. According to Crosby, quality work is achieved by conforming to job specifications. If the specifications are incorrect, out of date, or inappropriate they should be changed, but this is not an issue of quality.
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BusinessProcess Reengineering: BreakPoint Strategies for Market Dominance

This book presents a thorough look at business process reengineering, drawing on the considerable experience of its authors. Of particular interest is their theory of BreakPoints, points at which the success of your business can be significantly shifted through the application of reengineering methods. While the authors claim that it is not a how-to, the book provides a good outline of the steps involved in BPR, in fair detail, from first to last. The reader can gain real insight into what BPR involves and if it is right for them.
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Putting Total Quality Management to Work

A short book packed full of good information for TQM beginners. If you read one book about total quality management, this should be it. Sashkin and Kiser cover the essentials, from Shewhart and Deming on through corporate culture and the 7 new QC tools. The historical background of TQM in Chapters 1 and 2 was particularly interesting. Although it touches on all the major points, this book does not provide a lot of depth. For example, they skim lightly over SPC and other technical issues, but spend a significant amount of time discussing a TQM culture. For most of us, that's okay, but QA specialists and industrial engineers will need something more.
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Small is Beautiful

While E.F. Schumacher never wrote specifically about TQM, many of his ideas are related to the principles of quality improvement and appropriateness of work. Small is Beautiful focuses on the need for work and businesses to be manageable, in proportion to the size of a human being instead of monstrously huge and beyond anyone's control. Business must be conducted as if people mattered. Not only does this apply to question of corporate culture, but also the environment, international politics, and a society built solely on consumerism. Schumacher's ideas have inspired many to improve their relations with their work and with society. His insight into the foibles of classical economics and Western society is remarkable and thought-provoking.
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The Fifth Discipline

Peter Senge's The Fifth Discipline is primarily about systems thinking. Although the book does briefly mention the other four disciplines-- personal mastery, mental models, shared vision, team learning -- systems thinking is in the spotlight. These five disciplines, with systems thinking as the cornerstone, are used to create the learning organization. While the whole book is interesting, the "systems archetypes," or generic systems that define the operations of many situations, are perhaps the most intriguing ideas in the book. These archetypes help us to see the underlying factors at work in a system and can help to define ways of dealing productively within the system.
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Scientific Management

Many things have been written and said about Frederick Taylor's remarkably influential theory of scientific management, most of them critical. A fair bit of this criticism is unjustified when viewed in the light of his original work. This volume combines two of Taylor's treatises and the transcript of his discussion of scientific management before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Taylor has been criticized for removing management from the process of production entirely. Taylor states that workers did not have the knowledge needed to manage their own work. Instead, industrial planners should analyze work scientifically, with time and motion studies, and designing tasks based on the results. Motivation for the worker is derived solely from his paycheck which, according to Taylor, is all that workers cared about. Today, several of Taylor's ideas seem bigoted and judgmental, but many capture the essence of total quality management: measurement and analysis of work processes, matching jobs to worker abilities, cooperation between workers and managers, defining clear goals for all workers, extensive job training, and the value of worker suggestions. In his words, scientific management constituted "a complete revolution in the mental attitude and the habits of all those engaged in...management [as well as] the workmen." This philosophical revolution that Taylor insisted was necessary seems to have been left out when American industries adopted scientific management -- until now.
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Knowledge Coupling: New Premises and New Tools for Medical Care and Education The premise of this book is that individual physicians cannot hope to learn, remember, and process the huge (and growing) volume of information and literature available for accurate diagnosis and treatment. Specialization has been an attempt to deal with the weight of information, but this leaves gaping holes in the treatment of the patient as a system of interdependent physiological and psychological parts. Lawrence Weed believes that computers, with the ability to "couple knowledge," should be used to store and process medical information. Not only would the patient receive more direct attention from the physician, but also they would be guaranteed a more thorough investigation of the possibilities arising from their symptoms as figured by the computer rather than the human brain. Knowledge coupling refers to the basic idea of pairing observations derived from the discussion with and examination of the patient with relevant information from the vast store of medical literature. Part of Weed's vision is Problem Oriented Medical Record, created with the help of the knowledge coupler. The medical record should be viewed as a vital store of information that contains extensive patient data and a record of all observations, possible problems, solutions, actions, etc. Weed envisions a copy of this record in the hands of the patient when they leave the office or hospital. Ideally, the patient should understand everything in the record and have been a part of all decisions made along the way.
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Leadership and the New Science

Margaret Wheatley makes a significant contribution to management theories with this book. Currently, our businesses and other human organizations are built on models provided by Newtonian mechanical physics. In the last century, however, science has moved well beyond these models, but our organizations do not yet reflect the ideas of "new science." Wheatley provides a groundbreaking look at the findings of new science -- quantum physics, chaos theory, fractals and self-organizing systems -- and how they relate to concepts of leadership, management, organizational structure, and so on. The section on self-organizing systems is, at this time, the most applicable to any organization, but you will get the most from Wheatley's ideas if you read the whole book from the beginning. Wheatley writes in a very poetic style that is marvelous to read. She expresses complex ideas in a way that anyone can understand. There are relatively few practical suggestions in the book, and Wheatley seems to recognize that no one quite knows how to use these ideas yet. Still, she encourages letting the ideas sort themselves out, creating their own uses when the time comes. If you want to see just over the horizon of management, this is the book.
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My Life and Work

This is a fascinating book by Henry Ford himself that, according to Thomas Stuelpnagel, was only recently rediscovered by Ford executives at the instigation of the Japanese. Among various anecdotes from his life, Ford clearly expresses his theories of management, engineering, marketing, quality, and so on. Although some of what he writes is dated, many of his thoughts are still valid and remarkably in tune with modern TQM/CQI practices. Of particular interest are his ideas on the importance of the customer and providing them with both a quality product and quality service, the need for continuous improvement, employee relations, and the value of work and business. Since the book is a bit of a memoir, these ideas are scattered throughout, but are worth the reading involved.
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The Human Side of Enterprise

This book is well-known for McGregor's presentation of Theory X and Theory Y, two different sets of assumptions about workers that would lead to different management systems. Theory X assumes the attitudes that are prevalent in scientific management: people are naturally lazy, resistant to organization, and must be persuaded to follow directions; most laborers lack ambition, interest in their work, and the education needed to make reasonable decisions for themselves; money is the only motivator -- they don't care what they do as long as they get paid. Theory Y, on the other hand, accepts workers as creative people who want to participate in all aspects of their work. People are not lazy; they want to do their job and do it well. Once their basic needs are satisfied, work must appeal to the higher needs of self-esteem and self-actualization. Management should be designed to address these needs and make it possible for workers to develop themselves and their work. McGregor's work is interesting and sets the stage for the last three decades of discussion about management practices and techniques.
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The Leader's New Work: Building Learning Organizations Written by Peter Senge, this article is essentially a summary of his book, The Fifth Discipline. He presents the basics of systems thinking as well as his ideas about the "learning organization" in clear terms. The article addresses new roles for leaders, new skills like systems thinking, and new tools. As usual for Senge, the article is easy to read, enjoyable, and full of interesting and useful ideas. If you have not read The Fifth Discipline, this article is a thorough but manageable investigation of Senge's ideas. If you have read the book or other articles by Senge on this topic, this article will sound familiar, but makes a nice refresher.

Transforming the Practice of Management This presentation by Peter Senge focuses on the issues involved in managing a "learning organization," an organization based on knowledge rather than abundant natural resources. According to Senge, management of a learning organization requires building shared vision, encouraging thinking and acting at all levels, thinking in terms of systems, creating mutual mental models, and a new concept of leadership. Many suggestions and insights are offered that make these requirements of the learning organization more accessible. Systems thinking is the most unique of Senge's ideas. As our world becomes more complex, we must to learn to think in terms of systems in order to fully understand the consequences of our actions. Senge uses systems archetypes to apply systems thinking to real situations, several of which are discussed here. As always, Senge writes with clarity and simplicity. Much of what is said here is similar to his book, The Fifth Discipline, as well as other articles about learning organizations, but this presentation offers a nice balance of his thoughts.

Beyond Quality Improvement Teams

This article reviews sociotechnical systems theory in an effort to encourage its application to healthcare in the form of self-directed work teams. The authors provide several examples of successful self-directed work teams in a variety of healthcare settings. At the same time, the authors suggest that further research and more experimental teams are needed before we will know how well self-directed teams work in healthcare.

Quality Improvement Through Leadership and Empowerment

This booklet was produced by the Pennsylvania MILRITE Council to increase awareness of quality improvement among Pennsylvania businesses. It is a thorough look at the theories and practices involved in CQI. The booklet covers topics that include benchmarking, an implementation plan, the costs of quality, and surveying customers. The section on determining the costs of quality is particularly interesting because it offers a straightforward and easy-to-apply approach to an issue that many find vague. In general, this book is an excellent introduction to CQI that does not demand a big time commitment. This booklet can only be purchased from the Manufacturing Services Extension Center (MSEC) at 301 Broadway, Bethlehem, PA 18015.

The Whats, Whys, and Hows of Quality Improvement This book provides an excellent introduction to CQI, where it came from, and its many components. The authors have geared toward those who have no background in the subject but will need to apply it. They expressly point out that the book is not directed toward executives and managers, even though they could benefit from reading it. The section that deals with the history of CQI is particularly good and remarkably thorough, with credit given to many others besides Deming and Shewhart. In general, the book presents all the vital information in a very readable fashion.
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Exploring Quality Improvement Principles: A Hospital Leader's Guide This book does an admirable job of exploring several of the vital concepts of CQI, including leadership, culture, empowerment, customer focus, and understanding processes. It is particularly valuable because it was written for healthcare organizations and includes many pertinent examples. It is enjoyable reading and is a good place to start a CQI education.

Creating a Customer-Centered Culture

Since its inception in the US, quality improvement has emphasized processes. As a result, many CQI initiatives are producer-centered because this is where the processes in question are found. Robin Lawton argues that this is misleading -- we need to focus on customers first and foremost. In this book, Lawton presents a thorough and convincing investigation of his ideas about improvement through customer-centeredness. For example, he improves on the well-known division of customers into internal and external by reclassifying them into fixers, brokers, and end-users. The idea behind this is that it is more important to understand the role played by the customer rather than where they are located. Many of Lawton's ideas are in harmony with those presented as business process reengineering, and Lawton's support of these ideas is more substantive than much of that given by reengineering aficionados. Also, his emphasis on the customer is not unlike quality function deployment, in which new products are carefully and intentionally designed with customer desires in mind. Like both reengineering and QFD, Lawton's approach is not radically removed from more traditional quality improvement principles. He starts with many of the same ideas, but emphasizes different pieces -- time, value-added activities, and the customer rather than process stability and variation. This book is well-balanced and sound. Lawton provides many useful tools for creating a customer-centered culture that are supplemented by examples. Overall, it is enjoyable and informative reading.
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Kidgets

Kidgets makes use of one of the oldest forms of instruction -- storytelling -- to make its point about the need for CQI in education. This collection of charming, simple stories outlines the essential principles of CQI through example, relating the concepts directly to the realm of education. The issue of quality is brought to life. As the subtitle says, this book is remarkably "insightful." The authors have captured the union of new ideas and age-old truths that can be found in CQI, and have used it to tackle a divisive issue among educators. Kidgets can serve as a good introduction to CQI for educators. Not only does it cover the basic principles, it includes discussion questions following each story that encourage the listeners to explore the issue in their own terms. If you're wondering how to get people talking about the possibilities of CQI, this book is a great place to start.
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Total Quality Education

Total Quality Education profiles six primary or secondary schools that are using CQI methods, either purposely or coincidentally, to improve the quality of the education they provide. The authors provide a brief generalized look at Deming and what his theories of quality improvement can mean to education, but the purpose is not a thorough look at all the issues surrounding quality in education. The real value of this book lies in the close-up investigations of schools that are working very hard to improve the total educational experience.Although the six schools profiled in the book have embraced different models of education, there are many common themes: student involvement in setting educational goals and objectives; time for teachers to hold team meetings and participate in cooperative efforts; administrators who provide support for teachers rather than control; community involvement; belief that students can succeed given enough time; and the constant measurement of processes and programs. These are just a few of the many valuable and sometimes unique ideas that are presented.

On Q: Causing Quality in Higher Education This book presents a thorough investigation of the need for and application of strategic quality management in higher education. The author writes with both the authority of experience in higher education and a sincere belief in the value of quality improvement. The idea of quality improvement is not an easy one for many educators, but Seymour does not flinch from taking this to task. He makes it clear that, despite the challenge to many long-held-dear opinions, improvement in the management of higher education, both inside and outside the classroom, is key to sustaining our colleges and universities. Seymour includes a solid base of theory highlighted by useful examples and anecdotes. He includes a good introduction to CQI principles and tools as well as detailed discussion of education-specific issues such as his chapter on "Choosing to be Distinctive." The final chapter of the book, "Telling the Quality Story," is an interesting and unique look at the communication efforts of colleges and universities. If you want to read a single book on quality in education, this is a great choice.
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Re-Creating Our Schools for the 21st Century

Although this book is not specifically about CQI in education, the author does investigate many of the principles that make up a culture of quality and how they can be applied to education. Lewis posits that only by changing the way we manage education can our schools succeed in the coming century. Some of the "gear-shifting" Lewis discusses includes: self-management, driving our fear, empowerment, intrapreneurialship, stewardship, consensus decision-making, and union-management cooperation. Each of these ideas and a good number of others is discussed both generally and with specific reference to education. Perhaps the most outstanding feature of the discussion is the number of real suggestions for implementing these ideas that Lewis provides. The emphasis throughout the book is on action rather than theory, an approach that may prove very useful since this is a topic that many find hard to pin down. Lewis does not discuss the tools of CQI, measurement of processes, or the use of data in any form. This is a book about the culture of education and its management, and will prove more valuable to the reader if recognized as such from the outset.
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Quality Management Master Plan: An Implementation PlanThis report provides a good, fairly thorough look at GOAL/QPC's overall approach to implementing and maintaining TQM. If you are a fan of GOAL/QPC's approach, this is a very useful guide to the steps they recommend. Even if you don't follow this particular method, the report contains many ideas that are universal to TQM and can be applied anywhere.

Benchmarking

Like the other GOAL/QPC reports, this one is a good summary of what's happening in the field, but doesn't break new ground. If you are not interested in reading a lengthy book on benchmarking, this report is a good substitute. It includes the basics of benchmarking along with a case study to illustrate the process, though no doubt there are fine points that are not covered. Typical of GOAL/QPC, this report presents a very systematic, step-by-step approach to benchmarking that users can either follow verbatim or mold to suit their own purposes.

Facilitating and Training in Quality Function Deployment This book is designed for use by people who are teaching others about QFD. It assumes that the user of the book has a basic working knowledge of QFDand want help in training others. It includes advice on introducing QFD into your organization, case studies to draw on, and teaching guides and tools. This book is also a useful aid to anyone who has been introduced to QFD and wants to learn more or cement what they already know.
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From Red Tape to Results: Creating a Government that Works Better and Costs Less

This report is a fairly lengthy but friendly document covering the research and recommendations of the National Performance Review, chartered to review the federal government. It is a good resource for anyone in government, whether federal, state, or local, and any concerned citizen. The report covers removing red tape, focusing on customers, empowering employees, and cutting government back to basics. The anecdotes of poor quality are sometimes hair-raising but always instructive and help make the report very accessible. Although many of the recommendations are specifically about problems at the federal level, they embody good ideas that could apply anywhere when viewed in a larger sense.

The Five Pillars of TQM

A thorough explanation of the practices that underlie high performance, from a man who has been there and done that, not least with the Tactical Air Command in the events that led to Desert Storm.
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The Fifth Discipline FieldBook

In this book, Peter Senge and his colleagues continue to ground out the theories advanced in The Fifth Discipline. The FieldBook is designed to help systems thinking become a part of life and work.
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Flight of the Buffalo

This book is stuffed full of practical management wisdom, and it is easy to read. I had to take it in stages, and make lots of notes, to avoid getting overwhelmed by the sheer number of suggestions. The overall thesis is that leaders cannot act like head buffaloes, which make all the decisions for the herd. Rather, they need to learn to empower employees, to remove obstacles to great performance - to act, they say, as a lead goose.

Taguchi Methods^®: A Hands on Approach to Quality Engineering

Glen Peace takes a thorough, understandable approach to presenting Genichi Taguchi's thought and its application. The book makes excellent use of graphics to illustrate experimental design stages, and integrates Taguchi methods neatly into a general process improvement algorithm.

A Guide to Graphical Problem-Solving Processes The Pareto effect holds for the quality improvement toolbox. This little book, like Goal/QPC's Memory Jogger, gives you 80% of what you will ever need to solve quality problems, and will consume far less than 20% of your shelf space. Creative, analytical, group process and statistical tools are all here, reasonably well organized, and easily accessible to people without degrees in statistics.
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SPC Simplified for Services

This guide to statistical process control is simple enough for Everyman, as its title suggests, but it does get into important areas that shorter books skim over, e.g. sampling plans and process capability studies. There are examples, sample problems with answers, and plenty of charts.
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SPC Tools for Everyone

I do not know what it is about this book -- the tone, the layout, or what -- but this is actually very pleasant to read and use. It is suitable for any newcomer to the field, yet will be adequate for all but the most advanced SPC practitioners. It includes nice illustrations, well-written examples, process improvement algorithms, a wide range of tools, and even a few subjects which most introductory books do not attempt.
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Quality in American Schools

This is a very encouraging article that discusses 24 quality directives for schools in light of the improvement activities of the Millcreek School District in Erie, Pennsylvania. The 24 points may be beyond the reach of some schools at the present time, but certainly paint a hopeful picture for the future. Any educator wondering how to relate quality improvement to education should read this for inspiration.
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Total Quality in Education

While this article may make educators uncomfortable, it does provide a good example of what TQM in education can accomplish. The author reports on the changes made at George Westinghouse Vocational/Technical High School in New York City. Westinghouse High School has been using TQM techniques since 1988 with real successes including lower drop-out rates, parent involvement, relations with the business community, and better student performance and participation. Westinghouse has developed innovative solutions that would be helpful to any school getting involved with TQM, but they all require work and dedication.

Quality Education

Gray Rinehart has produced a very worthwhile, in-depth look at the problems in the U.S. education system and how those problems can be addressed using Deming's philosophy of quality and continuous improvement. He offers perhaps the best history and explanation of the quality movement around. The book is worth reading for this alone. As it progresses, the book becomes more focused on curriculum and standards (mostly for junior/senior high school) than how to make quality improvement actually work in the classroom, but his ideas are nonetheless valuable. Now if only there was a viable way to make them happen. Sure, doing away with grades and leaving decisions solely up to the instructor's judgment sounds good, but it's easier (and fairer) said than done.
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