Lessons learned and the growth of Quality methods

Before I leave the topic of problem-solving, I want to look back briefly at the idea of "Lessons Learned." We talked about this when looking at the anatomy of an 8D, and at that time I said this step (D7) is where you widen your scope to see if the same problem you just solved might be about to show up somewhere else. In that context it's a risk-mitigation step, and of course that's a perfectly good way to understand it.

But in a larger sense, the idea of Lessons Learned underlies the entire field of Quality itself. It is not going too far to see the whole collection of Quality methods as the output of a huge, ongoing, worldwide Lessons Learned activity.

Laws of motion from Scientific law - Wikipedia

For consider: Quality is not primarily a theoretical system. Unlike geometry, it does not proceed from axioms. Unlike physics, it does not rest on natural laws. There are no famous equations that have revolutionized the field. Rather, Quality is a collection of techniques for avoiding problems and getting what you want. And each of these techniques grew, logically, out of analyzing problems when they happened to find out how they happened so that future generations could make sure they never happened again.

• Because things never turn out the way you expect, Quality systems require testing after development (and often many other times as well).
• Because machines break down after they've been used for a while, Quality systems require preventive maintenance.
• Because measuring tools can slide into inaccuracy over time, Quality systems require calibration.
• Because customers and contractors often remember the project differently, Quality systems require written specifications, contract review, and (where appropriate) formal customer acceptance.
• Because no two people ever walk out of a meeting with exactly the same understanding of what went on, Quality systems require meeting minutes and other similar administrative tools. 

Even the most mathematical part of Quality — I mean the introduction of statistical methods by W. Edwards Deming — was introduced as a way to solve the problem of variability of output in industrial production. There's no obvious a priori reason why statistics should have such an important place in the practice of Quality; but when you realize that one of the big problems to be solved has to do with variable outputs, statistical analysis and control becomes a logical approach to take.

And this is why the Quality system for an aircraft manufacturer is so very different from the (mostly informal) Quality system for a hamburger stand. Each of them has a system of some kind — the hamburger stand has to do something to make sure the hamburgers come out OK — but the problems they are trying to solve are very different. Therefore the Lessons Learned that they have to apply are very different. And therefore their Quality systems have almost nothing in common.

Robert Pirsig.
Photograph by Ian Glendinning.
(c) 2005 Dr Anthony McWatt

Outside of commercial or industrial applications, discussions of Quality-with-a-capital-Q are often associated with Robert Pirsig, so it is interesting that he says the exact same thing I am saying here. When he talks about teaching rhetoric (English composition) and introducing all the normal rules for improving the Quality of a piece of writing, he explains:

At first the classes were excited by [an earlier] exercise [about identifying good writing], but as time went on they became bored. What he meant by Quality was obvious.... Their question now was, "All right, we know what Quality is. How do we get it?"

Now, at last, the standard rhetoric texts came into their own. The principles expounded in them were ... not ultimates in themselves, but just techniques, gimmicks, for producing what really counted and stood independently of the techniques — Quality.... He showed how the aspect of Quality called unity, the hanging-together-ness of a story, could be improved with a technique called an outline. The authority of an argument could be jacked up with a technique called footnotes.... And if a student turned in a bunch of dumb references or a sloppy outline that showed he was just fulfilling an assignment by rote, he could be told that while his paper may have fulfilled the letter of the assignment it obviously didn't fulfill the goal of Quality, and was therefore worthless.*

It's the same in industry and commerce, and in every place where the Quality business makes an appearance. What matters is Quality — getting what you want. All the structures and methods that come along with formal Quality systems are just techniques or gimmicks to keep things from going wrong, which is why following them blindly is never enough by itself to guarantee Quality. And we discovered every last one of them by analyzing problems and looking for Lessons Learned.

__________

* Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1974, 1999), p. 208. In his later and more philosophical book Lila, Pirsig refers to these same kinds of gimmicks as "latching-mechanisms."