As everyone else, the Information Technology (IT) world too thinks of idealness, something that is perfect or closest to perfection, as something that exists only as a concept. Idealness in IT is highly desirable but isn't it possible for us to achieve? World, life, power, knowledge and everything in life are essential and are capable of perfection.
It does not matter what we do and how many things we are involved in, what matters is how PERFECT we are in even one of them. Perfection in any one of the skills or capacities we possess will help us cross the border. We can see ourselves in the next zone if we take one thing at a time and perfect it. It enables one to see the result, gives self-confidence, gives birth to optimism and eventually to a different individual.
Every time I performed an activity, I conceived that it requires energy, interest, skill, attention, concentration, experience and perfection. When all of these aggregate, the result is always good. Even small perfection can bring great results. Flawlessness in any work is a common expectation across any duty performed in this world. I believe that perfecting a work down to the minutest details attracts positive life response. When the goal is high accomplishment, the very best method is to make every small act as perfect as possible. It is a method that brings a much greater result, much sooner.
Perfection comes with practice. For example, punctuality is perfection in time, which is practiced and measured over a period. The majority of perfection is attained in the first 70-80% of completing the task. The remaining 20-30% percent is achieved through what one thinks as improvement. But certainly it is the latter that makes a great difference.
Perfection can be achieved in three steps. The first step is to start with the right plans. Just as we build a building or make a car, we need to have a good set of plans. They must be accurate, easy for the workforce to understand and easy to repeat. Repeatability and reproducibility is another aspect of perfection in IT. The third step in perfection is to correct the previous mistakes and prevent defects from occurring again. Mistakes are common but repeated mistakes are a sin. No present work will move even an inch if past lapses are left uncorrected. This is similar to Deming / Shewhart Cycle or PDCA (Plan, Do it, Check and Act) cycle.
It may sound fancy, but it is very true that Six Sigma is nothing more than a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. It is a disciplined, data-driven approach to eliminate defects and rework in any process. The aim is to reduce defects, or errors, to no more than six standard deviations from the mean. To put numbers to it, in order to achieve Six Sigma-level quality, a process will have no more than 3.4 defects per million. Like wise, other quality processes such as Quality Circles, TQM and Kaizen work towards perfection by concentrating on Team based process improvements. Process Capability and Design of Experiments (DOE) have come to the fore in Six Sigma. Combining Control charts, Value Analysis and ISO/QS9000 techniques with Six Sigma can be a more powerful process perfection methodology.
Idealness can be attained with well defined quality processes. To me, Quality, especially in reference to IT, is to express the real ideas of the business in the act or work. It is only when something is rubbish, of poor quality and not worth its value, stakeholders take notice, start to complain, and all attention is drawn towards the mediocrity of the service or product. Often my requirements for quality fall on deaf ears; projects get revised and rewritten many times before they meet my exacting standards. People have even blamed me for having high expectations and termed as not a team man. Such people never had the visibility of the burned hours of top management time in the review and revision process – time that could have been used to lead the company.
The biggest key to succeed upon idealness is having the support of upper management. If they don't think it is necessary to perfect processes to achieve idealness, the initiative will fail. Next is to engage the right people in the process. If we don't have buy-in from the people who actually touch the process, it will be harder to get them to accept the changes proposed. It is also important to practice with smaller achievable projects to build the momentum. It's much easier to perfect a small job and get some quick success than to try to fix a huge process all at once. Together, we got to keep up the enthusiasm and optimism for idealness to be successful in the long run.
It does not matter what we do and how many things we are involved in, what matters is how PERFECT we are in even one of them. Perfection in any one of the skills or capacities we possess will help us cross the border. We can see ourselves in the next zone if we take one thing at a time and perfect it. It enables one to see the result, gives self-confidence, gives birth to optimism and eventually to a different individual.
Every time I performed an activity, I conceived that it requires energy, interest, skill, attention, concentration, experience and perfection. When all of these aggregate, the result is always good. Even small perfection can bring great results. Flawlessness in any work is a common expectation across any duty performed in this world. I believe that perfecting a work down to the minutest details attracts positive life response. When the goal is high accomplishment, the very best method is to make every small act as perfect as possible. It is a method that brings a much greater result, much sooner.
Perfection comes with practice. For example, punctuality is perfection in time, which is practiced and measured over a period. The majority of perfection is attained in the first 70-80% of completing the task. The remaining 20-30% percent is achieved through what one thinks as improvement. But certainly it is the latter that makes a great difference.
Perfection can be achieved in three steps. The first step is to start with the right plans. Just as we build a building or make a car, we need to have a good set of plans. They must be accurate, easy for the workforce to understand and easy to repeat. Repeatability and reproducibility is another aspect of perfection in IT. The third step in perfection is to correct the previous mistakes and prevent defects from occurring again. Mistakes are common but repeated mistakes are a sin. No present work will move even an inch if past lapses are left uncorrected. This is similar to Deming / Shewhart Cycle or PDCA (Plan, Do it, Check and Act) cycle.
It may sound fancy, but it is very true that Six Sigma is nothing more than a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. It is a disciplined, data-driven approach to eliminate defects and rework in any process. The aim is to reduce defects, or errors, to no more than six standard deviations from the mean. To put numbers to it, in order to achieve Six Sigma-level quality, a process will have no more than 3.4 defects per million. Like wise, other quality processes such as Quality Circles, TQM and Kaizen work towards perfection by concentrating on Team based process improvements. Process Capability and Design of Experiments (DOE) have come to the fore in Six Sigma. Combining Control charts, Value Analysis and ISO/QS9000 techniques with Six Sigma can be a more powerful process perfection methodology.
Idealness can be attained with well defined quality processes. To me, Quality, especially in reference to IT, is to express the real ideas of the business in the act or work. It is only when something is rubbish, of poor quality and not worth its value, stakeholders take notice, start to complain, and all attention is drawn towards the mediocrity of the service or product. Often my requirements for quality fall on deaf ears; projects get revised and rewritten many times before they meet my exacting standards. People have even blamed me for having high expectations and termed as not a team man. Such people never had the visibility of the burned hours of top management time in the review and revision process – time that could have been used to lead the company.
The biggest key to succeed upon idealness is having the support of upper management. If they don't think it is necessary to perfect processes to achieve idealness, the initiative will fail. Next is to engage the right people in the process. If we don't have buy-in from the people who actually touch the process, it will be harder to get them to accept the changes proposed. It is also important to practice with smaller achievable projects to build the momentum. It's much easier to perfect a small job and get some quick success than to try to fix a huge process all at once. Together, we got to keep up the enthusiasm and optimism for idealness to be successful in the long run.
it was worth the wait! :)
ReplyDeleteJune was holimonth. :)
ReplyDeleteIn corporate world, "he is trying to be perfect" could well be an accepted derrogatory remark but as an organization by adopting six zigma and other concepts of the like, essentially it is the same thing the organization is trying (trying to be perfect). May be without the fanciful and jazzy acronyms, IT world could become a lot straighter and less of hypocrisy.
ReplyDelete