Last day at Sun

Today is my last day at Sun, after working for 11+ years. And it's time for change. Good bye and Good luck!

Qingjiang

Posted at 04:10PM Jan 22, 2009 by byuan in General  |  Comments[2]

What's facilitation and a facilitator?

What's facilitation? By definition, it's the act of making easy or easier.

It's a skill, knowledge and mindset for:

• Guiding groups towards their objectives.


• Assiting people in building understanding and agreement.


• Bringing out the best in all group members.
  

A facilitator is a person who makes it easier for people to understand each other, build agreement and take concerted action.

Essential facilitation Competencies:

1. Guide the Process

• Build effective desired outcome statements for meetings or parts of meetings.


• Design an agenda that can guide a group towards its desired outcomes.


• Draw out participation, energy and creativity.


• Behave neutrally and contribute to content only when appropriate.


•  Facilitate discussions in a way that encourages an open exchange of ideas, generates useful information and keeps a group focused and on track.

2. Broker Communication

• Listen in a way that validates the speaker and confirms your reception of the speaker's words.


• Uncover the reasoning or feelings that lie beneath a speaker's assertions or concerns.


• Assess the meaning of body language and other non-verbal communication.


• Assist others in understanding a speaker's meaning, reasoning, feeling or intentions.


• Record speaker's ideas legibly on the group memory.

3. Build Agreement

• Build an atmosphere of openness, informality and collaboration.


• Identify and highlight areas of agreement.


• Navigate the group through a variety of strategic moments.


• Help the group build the appropriate sequence of agreements (e.g., agreement on the problem before agreement on the solution).


• Apply several tools for reaching consensus.

4. Resolve Conflict

• Protect individuals and their ideas from attack


• Handle difficult or argumentative behavior with directness and respect.


• Enroll disputing parties in a process for reconciling differences.


• Distinguish between issues, interests and positions.


• Tailor confidence-building measures and negotiate small agreements.

5. Transfer Capability

• Enroll the group in taking responsibility for the success of the meeting.


• Explain The Interaction Method in a way that builds confidence in collaborative approaches to decision making.


• use process commercials as a way of building awareness, understanding and skill.


• Model behaviors that inspire emulation.


• Provide positive and constructive feedback in a way that stimulates self-awareness, experimentation and risk taking.


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Posted at 02:11PM Jan 14, 2009 by byuan in Leadership  |  Comments[0]

Dimensions of Quality

We can group various definitions of quality under these key dimensions. David Garvin, in his text, Managing Quality, identified eight separate dimensions of product quality:

1. Performance

2. Features

3. Reliability: probability that a product or service surviving for a given time period

4. Conformance: design and operating excellence

5. Durability: amount of time or use before product quality deteriorates

6. Serviceability: speed, courtesy, competence

7. Aesthetics: subjective assessment of the product

8. Perceived Quality: brand name, image, indirect measures

The dimensions of service quality are:

1. Time: time the customer waits for the service

2. Timeliness: will the service meet time commitments

3. Completeness: were all commitments met?

4. Courtesy: was the user treated with respect?

5. Consistency: are services delivered in the same manner regardless of environmental conditions?

6. Accessibility and Convenience: was the service easy to obtain?

7. Responsiveness: were unexpected problems handled appropriately

8. Accuracy: was the service performed correctly?

Posted at 02:06PM Jan 05, 2009 by byuan in General  |  Comments[1]

History of Quality

The modern history of quality can be divided into seven distinct stages—those
being craftsman, industrial revolution, scientific management, human
relations, quality revolution, service revolution, and six-sigma
quality. Each stage is described in minor detail:

• One person makes one product from start to finish


• No two products are exactly alike


• Apprentices are trained, become focused experts

• Craft production using simple and flexible tooling


• Workforce subjected to numerous environmental changes (work structure, lifestyle, etc.)

• Based upon observation, measurement, analysis, improvement, and incentives


• Management is responsible for planning, selecting workers, and determining the best way to perform a job

• Murray
  (1938) focuses on need of achievement (accomplishment), need for
  affiliation (acceptance by others), need for power (persuasion), need
  for autonomy (freedom of choice)


• McGregor
  (1960) focuses on Theory X (employees are lazy, passive, irresponsible,
  uncreative, and motivated only by money) and Theory Y (employees view
  work as an extension of play, exercise self control in pursuit of
  objectives, responsibility is a learned trait, and capacity to solve
  problems is widely distributed in the population)


• Herzberg
  (1966) focuses on satisfaction and dissatisfaction are independent
  dimensions (e.g. better pay does not create satisfaction; receiving
  less pay than one feels they deserve will cause dissatisfaction


• Maslow
  (1968) focuses on physiological / survival need (food, water, sleep),
  safety need (job security), belonging need (acceptance by others),
  esteem need (recognition), self actualization need (personal
  fulfillment)

• Deming, Juran, Crosby, Ishikawa, Kano, Feigenbaum, Taguchi, Shingo, et al combined to form total quality philosophy—Employees
  experience guided job rotation, slower promotions, focused performance
  evaluations, emphasis on group and team environment, and trend towards
  consultative decision making - Quality focus is on participation and
  teamwork, continuous improvement, and customer satisfaction

• Growth
  of service industries and need for increased efficiencies, reduced
  costs, a higher expectation of quality, etc. drive the need to apply
  operational practices in the service sector

• Six sigma concepts are used to access process capability, process stability, process variation, and defect risks


• Six sigma concepts are utilized in both product and service applications

Posted at 10:17AM Jan 05, 2009 by byuan in General  |  Comments[3]