Customer Service and ASUS

One of the key items in my line of business is trying to explain to people that the purpose of their work is not to satisfy standards and models but to focus on customer service and quality. Quality is the only thing you have to sell – all your products and services can be found somewhere else, and can be found cheaper, but your quality is your trademark and is specific to you. This is even more important when working with products like “CMMI for Services”.

It is therefore particularly frustrating when I come across service and quality as bad as that offered by the computer manufacturer Asus.

I was looking for a tablet PC which would allow me to do my work and have graphic (drawing) capabilities to allow me to illustrate and highlight items. I needed something that would run Microsoft Office and would allow me to connect a keyboard, mouse, overhead projector, etc. After some research, I decided that the “Asus Eee Slate EP121″ (http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_Pad/Eee_Slate_EP121/). The slate I received had the stylus stuck in its holder and could not be removed, however this was exchanged under warranty (by Amazon), the second one I received had a backlight that did not work, so the screen remained dark – this was replaced under warranty (by Amazon). The third one worked correctly.

As I travel a lot for work, I decided it was safer to purchase a spare charger and a spare stylus, however I could not find anyone selling these separately. It seemed that they did not sell spares and the charger was not replaceable by another as the combination of the size of the pin and the voltage where not compatible with other chargers commonly sold.

Then, beginning of April, the charger stopped working. I had not moved the laptop, and was working on it so did not realise that it was not charging until it booted down because the battery was empty – even though it was plugged in. I contacted Asus and they said they would replace the charger and arrange for collection, they also gave me the information for a reseller in Sweden who sold spare parts. So I finally managed to order a spare charger and stylus, while my existing charger was picked up to be replaced as promised.

That was beginning of April. I have not been able to use my Asus computer since then. I have received no information from either the Swedish retailer (www.asusparts.eu) or the Asus repair centre.

When I contacted the Swedish retailer, I was told they would ship the same week (two weeks ago). When I contacted them again, I was told that they hoped to ship end of May – nearly two months after they took my money.

When I contacted Asus customer support, I was told that they had determined that the charger had suffered “customer induced damage” and I would be contacted to ask if I agreed to pay for the repair. Two weeks later, when I asked what was happening and when I would hear something, I was told that they had determined that the charger had suffered “customer induced damage” and I would be contacted to ask if I agreed to pay for the repair!

I will never purchase an Asus product again and strongly recommend others to avoid their products as well.

Should Formal Appraisals be Considered Harmful?

1 Context

A while back I made a proposal to a Chinese consultancy customer, a long-standing customer, through which we could combine training in CMMI and quality / process improvement, team training, readiness review and on-site appraisals through a programme that would minimize travel costs. The answer was something I knew, which he repeated again: the Chinese market is not really interested in quality or improvement; they are interested in having maturity levels cheaply.

This was, more or less, the last straw in leading me to believe that maybe we needed to talk about the value of formal appraisals.

A debate was organized on the motion “This house believes that formal appraisals are a waste of resources and harmful to the organization”.

I presented why this was the case, Kieran Doyle argued why he disagreed. We had a vote before and after the debate. Before the debate, the votes were shared evenly between those that disagreed with the motion (i.e. who believed appraisals to be useful) and those who did not know or care (and who were obviously coming to be informed).

The debate was useful; we covered a lot of topics. At the end, we had half the participants agreeing with the motion (appraisals are harmful); the other half was shared evenly between those who disagreed or did not know either way. Even though, I was defending the motion and therefore can be considered as having won the debate, I admit that this was not the result which I wanted.

2 Arguments put forth

2.1 Accepting the minimum

The focus of a majority of appraisals is “certification”, i.e. getting an approval, a rubber stamp, a maturity level that will be used for marketing purposes – this is demonstrated through the fact that a vast majority of reported appraisals are using the “Staged” representation (focused on maturity level) rather than the “Continuous” representation (focused on continuous improvement).

The training for team members has for a long time included the statement that you need to consider what is “reasonable” without considering the “goodness” of the artefacts identified. While this statement has now been removed from the main body of the slide, the recommendation remains in the notes. This means that there is a difference between the fact that participants have received training (reasonable) and have actually learnt what they should be doing, why and how (good).

Another example of this attitude is the large number of organizations which present a “MS Project” file (Gantt chart) to demonstrate that they have created a Work Breakdown Structure. They do not understand the purpose of the WBS, they have not taken the time to create a WBS that will allow them to enter valid data into the MS Project file, however, they have broken the project down into some form of hierarchical breakdown of activities which facilitates estimating, etc.

In conclusion, many organizations focus on the short-term satisfaction of the appraisal rather than the long-term benefit to the customers.

2.2 Coverage and Scope

The appraisal methodology has been trying to improve the manner in which coverage can become more representative of the work being performed. However, it is not possible today to deal with the management of a company that hides teams or projects in order to avoid not getting the result they want.

Frequently, achieving a maturity level or certification is critical for marketing reasons and therefore the people in charge are willing to do whatever can be done in order to ensure success. However, they are usually not willing to make the investment or take the time required to actually improve the work practices and focus on delivering higher quality or better efficiency (lower costs, reduced time to market): it is so much easier and faster to tamper with the evidence. It is very hard for an external appraiser to understand the difference which may exist between the department they are being shown and the full extent of the organization which will be advertising their “success”.

2.3 Team members

The team members should be trained to understand what is reasonable and that the letter of the law is not necessarily sufficient to achieve the results or the spirit of the model. The team includes a mix of internal and external members who are seeking to identify what is in place and where the strengths and weaknesses are.

Through discussions and seeking consensus, the team works on identifying what is best and what could or should be done for the long-term improvement. However a significant amount of trust must be placed on the internal team members who will assist in identifying the artefacts and ensuring the right people are interviewed.

Some managers understand this and offer the team members a bonus based on the “success” of the appraisal, ensuring that there is a financial reason for them to push the discussions, interviews and evidence in the right direction. As they are given time before the on-site appraisal to identify all the documentation necessary, they are also given the time to create the missing artefacts and post-date them wherever necessary. They can also take time to teach the interviewees what the correct answers should be.

When we get to 2.00 am, how long will the lead appraiser be happy to continue arguing that something is not sufficient when the whole team appears convinced that it is?

2.4 Formality

The formality of an appraisal ensures that the results are (apparently) of a similar level, whoever performs the appraisal. By having a clear communication of the purpose of the business, the teams and lead appraisers should be able to clearly identify what should or could be done in order to guarantee reasonable results.

However, once again, those results are valid only in the case when the lead appraiser and the organization being appraised are honest in their objectives and not trying to falsify the results for marketing purposes. The formality itself presents a down-side in the fact that the people being appraised can have a very good and precise understanding of what is required and can therefore bend the rules more easily.

2.5 Cost

Finally, the cost of the appraisal is such that it is in itself encouraging people to game the results in order to avoid having the additional cost of a second appraisal. In addition to the cost of a certified lead appraiser, training, travel and lodging, organizations need to factor in the cost of the disruption to their staff, the time for project managers and key staff to participate in interviews and various presentations. Finally, the appraisal team needs to ensure that the necessary artefacts are found and classified. This large expense is frequently forgotten in the bids made by consultants.

There are some 359 practices to be considered for a maturity level 3 appraisal. If you consider that you will need to identify, locate, review, verify and validate for three projects (base units, teams) and assume that this takes an average of one hour per practice, you are talking about 269 eight-hour work days – 13.5 man months just for the documentation! Of course you want to game the results as much as possible so as not to have to do that again!

2.6 Consultants

One approach to reducing the effort and increase the likelihood of success is to hire a firm of consultants to come and “do CMMI to you”.

Some consultants work on ensuring the long-term benefit to their customer’s business. They help identify the weaknesses, the risks to the organization, the causes and consequences of the practices in place and train them to understand what they are supposed to be doing and why so as to provide long-term improvement. They may or not participate in the appraisal team and are usually fair in helping identify both the strengths and the risks within the organization.

However, there are many consultancy groups out there who are willing to create all your processes for their customers, delivering a ready-made set of practices, including coaching of the members of staff in how to answer the questions. I remember one appraisal where the local members of staff did not know where any of the documents or standards were to be found or how they were used. However we had on the team the consultant who had been assisting them and he knew perfectly well where to find things and how to answer all the questions. It very rapidly became apparent that the local consultant had put in place a fictional set of processes and templates, then called in a lead appraiser, certain that I would not realise that the locals had no understanding.

Finally, there are a significant number of consultancy organizations who will assist in the definition and implementation of standard processes and templates, and will then use their own lead appraiser to review the result. In this case, they do not even need to train the staff, because everything is an internal job (even if the appraiser officially works for a different company).

Of course, all appraisers have signed a code of conduct which prohibits this kind of behavioud, but currently there is no body with the authority and the resources to audit everything.

3 Conclusion

The extensive cost of a formal appraisal could be invested in real improvements, producing results that are focused on satisfying customers and staff directly. While the formal appraisal has many rules built into it aiming at reducing cheating, there is no way that this is (or can be) effectively policed.

The Necessity of Quality

Context

We are living in a world economy and need to start understanding the need to work accordingly. The Western world continues to despair as the economy moves to countries like Brazil, India and China, but remain focused in working the way things were a century ago.

Recently the government in the UK has stated that we need to place more emphasis on teaching young people how to write computer code. This is absurd as the cost of living, and the corresponding wages will never allow this generation to produce computer code efficiently or economically. At the same time, most of the Western governments are attempting to relaunch the global economy by encouraging people to take out the loans that created the problems in the first place. This was compounded when the British Prime Minister refused to back the European attempt at resolving the debt issue because it could hurt the bankers who were largely responsible for the crisis.

It is time to wake up and acknowledge that the world has seriously changed. If India and China can produce cheap labour, good for them, let’s use their cheap labour. This does not mean that we are surrendering our jobs, but that we need to reconsider the unique differentiating factors.

Currently the work being done in the countries classified as “emerging economies” is cheap; it is not original, it is not creative, it is not of high-quality. The German economy is leading Europe, largely because they have been continuously and consistently producing original designs and high-quality products, wherever the manufacturing was performed – products from companies like BMW, Siemens and Bosch are recognized as value for money.

In a global economy, we need to think in global terms. We need to start focusing on delivering high quality designs and products, and we need to do this systematically, predictably and consistently. Then, we can use the economical labour force that is available to make the products to exacting standards. This requires a number of changes in attitude at every level.

Education

The education system needs to change to fit the new world. We can find the data, the dates, the facts, the information very easily in this world, so we need to start focusing on teaching children to think and to understand rather than to recite by rote pointless bits of information.

My first point is that children should learn about foreign cultures very early. The best way to understand foreigners is to be able to understand their language as the language forms the way of thinking. So, I believe that in this century, we need to accept the fact that every child should learn to speak three languages before the age of ten. This is a time when they can learn languages fairly easily and efficiently. Also, I do not believe that they should focus on learning the “easy” languages spoken by our closest neighbours, but should focus on learning languages like Chinese and Arabic, which will open their minds to some fundamental differences in though processes and cultures.

Next, they should learn to work out the things that will really benefit them in their lives. I believe that we should be teaching activities such as project management and risk management to all teenagers. This will help them in thinking through things, help them identify the consequences to choices and decisions made, help them identify the critical dependencies in their activities and sequence things most effectively to achieve valid results.

Finally, and contrary to most education policies, I would stress the importance of the arts. Teaching young people to understand and appreciate different types of art (painting, architecture, music, ballet, sculpture) will help open their minds to the creative process, encouraging them to make decisions and choices that will widen their outlook on the world. This is in opposition to the system today, in which young people are taught to follow instructions and study only the minimum they need to pass their exams and tests.

The Service Industry

More and more we are living in a world that is run by what is called the “Service Industry”. This includes all the people who are not producing tangible, storable products but are delivering something different. This includes the banking industry as well as consultants (as myself).

The Service Industry needs to refocus and determine what exactly we are providing to our customers. I deliver a service, which means that I need to bear in mind at all times what the benefit of my work is to my customers. Also, banks are not there to make money, they are there to service their customers and need to understand what are the services their customers needs or require and work accordingly.

This is a change from the current attitude, which sees a lot of service providers believing in themselves as being key to the future of society. Banks are rewarding people who make money for banks. Consultants are selling solutions that do not fit the problem. In general, we are all seeking to make work for ourselves, regardless of the cost. This is the attitude which has led to the excessive levels of inflation and price rises since the early twentieth century. It is time to realize that we can no longer bank on continued growth for ever, there comes a time when every balloon must burst.

Subcontracting

As the global market has unified, we have seen increasing need to subcontract and allow other people to do some of the work. It is perfectly normal today for a car to be designed in one country, manufactured on a different continent with pieces from all over the world and finally assembled in a completely different place. This is acceptable if you are considering that the work being done by these people will directly reflect on your results and capabilities.

Choosing a supplier simply because they have cheaper labour costs than your local labour is a guaranteed failure. It is necessary to be able to make sure that the supplier with whom you are working will deliver better quality (to be defined) than you would be able to deliver internally (unless the only quality you are seeking to deliver is “cheap to manufacture”). This is the focus of standards such as “CMMI for Acquisition”, the poor brother in the CMMI chain. This model remains largely under-used because few organizations see it as a good short-term marketing advantage. While the other CMMI constellations are seen as manner in which customers may be impressed by a supplier having a “level”, few are seeking to truly understand how their suppliers are ensuring the quality of subcontractors. And yet, this is probably more critical today than the development processes found in the classical CMMI for Development.

Conclusion

As long as we don’t focus on quality, we are doomed to losing our market, our skills and our values to people who can produce similar products cheaper. This is largely a recent phenomenon which appears to have flourished in the twentieth century when the short-term cheap credit became the focus of the de-industrialized world. The urgency of the change cannot be underestimated.

Don’t believe everything you see

Sometimes things are not as black and white as you might think…

Forget Process; Focus on People!

I have been thinking (and writing) a lot lately about the fact that we do not concentrate sufficiently on the people who are doing the work, but tend to believe that processes, theories and practices are the thing we need. If we want to produce high-quality services and products, we need to remember that these are produced by people, not by budgets, not by processes, not by theories. I have tried to bring this together in a presentation (which I have not managed to embed here), to be viewed here: Forget Process, Focus on People on Prezi.

SEPG Europe Conference

Coming soon, the premier process improvement conference in Europe, being held in Dublin from June 7th to 9th. I will be there, presenting “FP2: Forget Process, Focus on People” and participating in the official launch of “Orchestrated Knowledge”, the new co-operative focused on ethical consulting. More details can be found on the SEI website at http://www.sei.cmu.edu/sepg/europe/2011/index.cfm.
The event is being held at the Burlington hotel, which is situated on Upper LEESON street. Coincidence? I think not. Recognition, more likely!

Sampling: Does It Work?

When using the new version of SCAMPI appraisals (v.1.3), there is a new sampling methodology that aims to ensure the selected projects being analysed are actually representative of the organization. Previously, the appraiser needed to select some three (or four) projects that were considered as representative of what the organization did. By demonstrating that these projects did a good job, as they were representative of the whole, they naturally showed that the whole organization always did a good job. Of course, companies were eager to present only what they did best, there are many techniques that can be used to hide the projects you don’t want to see.
With the new system, one needs to check all the factors that may influence the way work-practices (processes) may be implemented in different manners, consider the various possible combinations, and select a proportional sample of projects from each possible combination. The number of projects to select is influenced by the total number of projects in the organization vs the number of projects included in the subset.
Let’s consider a commercial software development organization, not a big multinational, but a running concern, which develops and sells products to a variety of customers. They have a number of different projects running, they are all for different customers, related to different types of products. Some of them are implemented according to Agile principles, others are more “waterfall” and a few are a home-made combination of the two. Some projects have heavy involvement by the customer, who can control the requirements, do the project management or even run the testing; others are completely hands-off, depending on the customer. Some of the developments are quite large, others are quite small. This is just a software development company, they work to customer requirements.
The MDD requires that the following factors be considered: location, customer, size, organizational structure and type of work, as well as any other factors that may influence the manner in which the processes are being implemented. In my (theoretical) example above, we have a different customer for each project, the organizational structure depends on the level of interference/control allowed to the customer, the sizes of the projects vary widely, they use different life-cycles and a variety of languages. Very rapidly, when doing the calculations for the sampling, we can discover that every single project is potentially in a subset that is peculiar to that one project, meaning that in order to get a true representative sample of the projects in the organization, there is an implicit need to review every project in detail! At this point in time, the natural tendency will be to determine that maybe this factor does not really have that much influence, perhaps the other is not really a variation, and the number of projects to consider is creatively rationalized down to something realistic, honestly and in good faith.
Of course, a series of small projects, run by the same team, using the same processes do not implement them in different manners, every time a parameter changes in the environment, so the appraiser is required to analyse which of the parameters have an impact on how the processes are implemented. How do you determine this? You can discuss it with the appraisal sponsor and participants, who then have the opportunity of making the claims they want to make, once again, focusing attention on the best projects and hiding the others. Otherwise, the appraiser will have to perform a detailed analysis of the differences in implementation, and that would be done through a mini appraisal of all the projects in order to identify what are the factors that really matter – so one would need to perform a full appraisal of all projects in order to determine how to select the factors to sample the projects to review. Not an economically viable solution.
Once the subsets of projects have been identified, there is a requirement to review one project from A to Z, and to collect “artefacts or affirmations” from another project within the same group, for “at least” one process area. So a second project can be reviewed and approved based only on affirmations in a single area – and this guarantees that everything else is done correctly.
Shame, when I first heard about the sampling factors, I thought this was a good idea; unfortunately, it seems that a choice needs to be made in implementation: go to a bureaucratic, extensive and expensive appraisal of everything, or select to play the numbers with as much ease and facility as previously.
The consequence of this: lead appraisers (and organizations) that believe in quality and want to do a good job, will continue to provide reliable results; those who want to give away (or receive) the highest maturity level possible, will continue to falsify data.

Orchestrated Knowledge

It seems that the recession is (finally) receding into the past and businesses are trying to restart being active – that is good news, indeed. During the recession, when business was at its slowest, organizations should have made the best to plan for the recovery and implement strong training and improvement activities. Most were concerned about the loss of income, so don’t worry, you were not the only one that decided to cut costs and wait and not invest in the recovery…
Possibly one of the reasons that so many organizations hesitate is because of the risk related to working with consultants – you know the story: a consultant is someone who takes your watch and gives you the time. There is truth in that statement, however, I am glad to announce the creation of “Orchestrated Knowledge” (or OK for short), a cooperative of consultants, advisors, trainers who are committed to ethical consulting – guaranteed. Orchestrated Knowledge, which held its first event last month in London, represents a new approach to providing business and public sector organisations with the accumulated wisdom and insight to achieve real and sustainable improvement.
OK partners are committed to the rapid and permanent transfer of knowledge and capability with a focus on maximizing the value delivered to your organisational stakeholders.

OK founding partners include:

Tom GILB

Tom Gilb is a systems engineer who invented the term “software metrics”. He has long been a vigorous and articulate campaigner for better engineering rigour in software. He is the author of many books on the subject.
He works in partnership with his son Kai Gilb, helping multinational clients improve their organizations and methods by using “evolutionary systems delivery” (Evo). He has guest lectured at universities all over UK, Europe, China, India, USA, Korea – and has been a keynote speaker at dozens of technical conferences internationally. He is a member of INCOSE and is active in the Norwegian chapter, NORSEC, which presented him with an award in 2003.
From a review of “Competitive Engineering” by Tom Gilb: “….addresses difficult software engineering problems that other methodologies don’t even recognize. This is important, groundbreaking stuff.”

Keith JACKSON

Keith Jackson is a specialist in using business excellence and performance improvement to sustain competitive advantage. He is an experienced conference speaker, teacher, coach to Executives and Project Leaders, and workshop leader. He was one of the drivers behind the European Software Process Improvement Foundation, which ran the European SEPG conference for many years into the early part of the 21st century.
Keith has managed a number of performance improvement and cultural change programmes for multinational organizations, European Government Departments and UK Local Government. His ability to put together a world-class team and co-ordinate their efforts to delight the customer is second to none.
Keith is currently Managing Director of TBL Transformation Business Leadership.
Customer endorsement, Keith Jackson and TBL: “The support and leadership of TBL had provided a vision, goals, measurable targets and, more importantly, the ability and confidence to ensure these could be delivered.”

Peter LEESON

Peter Leeson is a visiting scientist with the SEI and a SCAMPI Lead Appraiser. He is authorized for both CMMI-DEV (for development) and CMMI-ACQ (CMMI for acquisition). He is also trained in other models and approaches, such as ISO/IEC 15504 (SPICe) and Bootstrap.
Peter complements a quality-engineering approach with a comprehensive knowledge of products such as Prince2, CMMI and ISO standards (9000-2000, 15504) as well as approaches such as Six-Sigma, NLP or mind maps.
With some thirty years experience in the software development industry Peter has a truly international approach to successful improvement effort, working with management and staff to determine the most effective approach for the culture of the business and the society.
Customer endorsement: “Peter Leeson is a very engaging, professional and thought-provoking workshop facilitator and assessor. He has successfully supported numerous activities in our organisation which required him to deal with participants at various levels of responsibility including our most senior leaders.Peter has the personality and experience to approach and deliver,often uncomfortable and challenging subject matter in a non-threatening but focussed manner. Peter is an asset to any workshop activity”

Bob MARSHALL

Bob Marshall is the originator of the term “Rightshifting” to describe the process of transforming organisations from the wasteful and ineffective left-hand end of the performance scale to join the high performers on the right hand side.
Bob has arrived at the Rightshifting message based on over 30 years experience in software development and IT. He is recognised as a leading UK expert in Agile methods, and has an extensive background in software quality management and quality assurance. He is one of this country’s leading practitioners in the fields of software development, business process engineering (BPR) & operational effectiveness.
Bob’s experience gives him a rare combination of commercial awareness, management perspective and cutting-edge technical knowledge across numerous disciplines. He is the author of Javelin™ – the only explicitly risk-based Agile project management method. He is currently developing the Flowchain method for chaordic organisations to the right of the Rightshifting curve.

Grant RULE

Grant partners businesses and public services to deliver better value to their stakeholders by implementing lean, more agile practices. He is a recognised authority on Lean workflow design, software metrics practice and measurement-enabled process improvement. He is a Fellow of the RSA and has contributed to numerous national and international professional bodies concerned with software development standards. He is a member of the Intellect Government Group, an NCC ITDA Assessor and a member of the BCS PROMS-G committee.
Grant is familiar with all the exemplars of success in software-intensive product and service delivery. He pioneered many of the principles adopted by the market-leaders and has huge experience of successful software process improvement. He used iterative delivery methods before the term ‘agile’ was coined. He is a contributor to the Common Software Metrics Consortium, a world-wide group of software metrics experts formed to develop a new method of measuring software output.
Grant works tirelessly to increase awareness of the huge potential Lean systems thinking offers for sustainable business success, better public services, increased workplace effectiveness and individual job satisfaction.
Customer endorsement: “Grant’s knowledge of software measurement and processes is encyclopaedic, and he is always willing to share this with others to drive greater knowledge and control. Grant’s output is prodigeous and fascinating. He has long ago reach guru status.”

CMMI books

One of these days, the new hardback of CMMI version 1.3 will be available for purchase. In the mean time, you need to download the pdf from the SEI website and print it out locally or you can purchase a printed version of the books online (CMMI for Development v1.3, CMMI for Services v1.3, CMMI for Acquisition Version 1.3). Cheaper than buying the hardback, easier than printing the pdf yourself.

The Problem with People and Process

Regularly, I am confronted with badly implemented processes, processes that focus on explanation, clarification, demonstration and documentation. Somehow, the impression that appears to come out of models such as CMMI, ITIL, etc is one that is justifiable when working with public services, such as the US Department of Defense (who commissions the CMMI) and other government bodies. But, when working in a different context, such as that of a private company seeking to offer rapid service to customers, the approach needs to be considered in light of the people, not the standard.

People working in creative, intellectual jobs, such as the ones we are considering when performing this kind of model based improvements are selected based on their intelligence and ability to perform the work with minimal supervision. Yet, when we start talking process improvement, management appears to lose all confidence in their staff and require them to create mountains of documents justifying every choice made. With a little experience, any professional can start identifying the “right” solution or approach to problems based on instinct and very little information. When allowed to do its work, the human subconscious can process information we do not consciously think about and identify what is the most appropriate reaction. This can be demonstrated very simply by catching a ball.

When forcing the documentation and explanations about the rationale of the choices, we tend to have a lot more difficulty. For instance, if I was to ask you to describe how you caught the ball, what measurements you took, how did you calculate velocity and parabola, how did you estimate the position at which the flying ball was at a future moment in time, how you determined which hand would be most appropriate to catch and what instructions you gave to muscles and sinews in order to place your hand at the right place… Suddenly this all breaks down. When catching a ball, you trust your subconscious to do the calculations. Most of the work performed is right-brained: visual and graphic; when asked to describe how you caught it, even if you do understand the mathematics involved, you are forcing the instinctive reaction into the left-brain, where the language centres are found. The result is that not only do you take ten times as long to explain what you did, but you probably will not be able to do it while thinking.

The same is true in engineering work. We make a number of instinctive decisions and choices. These choices are largely dependent on our state of mind and our abilities. If you make the choice in the wrong context, you may make a choice based on incomplete data or based on prejudice. A significant number of experiments have been made in which the mental status of a person has been changed by the context, making people act in different ways. There are even a number of people who make a living out of forcing people to choose a pre-determined answer to a question – this is a popular stage trick in which the performed “reads the mind” of a spectator, when in fact the spectator was subonsciously prompted to make the predetermined choice.

A similar phenomenon is true in the world of business. The focus of the “process improvement” effort should be to create an environment in which the people doing the work are encouraged and management can trust them to do the right thing. In fact, the opposite is frequently the result: management puts in place procedures and documentation which demonstrate their lack of trust in people, then bombard them with requirements to do tasks that do not help in the actual work, creating a bureaucracy that slows people down and demotivates them.

By focusing on the right things, we can make the people doing the work make the right decisons. By creating top-heavy bureaucratic processes we only kill off staff motivation, and therefore negatively impact productivity and quality.