Quality is the Base, Knowledge is the Seed

Invincibility lies in the defense; the possibility of victory in the attack.  Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. Sun Tzu

I’m combining two quotes of the master of war Sun Tzu to illustrate the importance of planning, resources to plan correctly, and the final outcome.  First we all may agree that planning correctly is the correct use of the resources for planning.  These resources in an organization are represented by the expertise people brings to the organization when they are hired, the data banks providing all data that is needed, and the tools mostly in the form of computer programs to access data.  And the final outcome is the quality of the processes that are created and is reflected in the quality of the products and services being delivered to the final consumer.    

It is obvious that all the data is converted into information in order to make it useful to support different activities.  This conversion requires a set of elements that can be represented by what we know as knowledge.   I am not going to elaborate about what knowledge is but replacing the word victory by success I will continue the quotes at the top saying that Knowledge means power and success requires power, therefore to be successful requires knowledge.  For companies knowledge means many things depending on the level of granularity of the task to be performed.  The higher it is (coarse grained) the more strategy is involved and more impact is expected at its conclusion.  The lower the level (or fined grained) the more functional oriented it is and its impact is hard to measure individually.  But in both cases knowledge must be captured, stored, preserved, and at a given time, it must be retrieved.  This is what Knowledge Management is about.  

There is a relationship between how the company embraces knowledge management and its strategic planning.  First, there is a constant creation of knowledge in the daily activities of each department.  Most of it may be in the form of abstract behavior that is just done to complete a task.  In this case that behavior or series of actions is directed by the objective of getting something done.  In this case planning was intended to provide a list of what needs to be done.  These small tasks together are directed to specific goals of the company and therefore are building blocks to achieve the company’s core objectives.

But there is something that exists between this list of required tasks and the ability to perform the necessary steps to have them done as required.  Starting from the end point it is easy to realize that it is necessary to develop standards of acceptability to know when these tasks are done in accordance to our required quality.   Once these standards are defined and well understood the next step is to think about what tools are necessary to have those tasks done meeting the required quality.  Together with finding those tools obviously is thinking about how those tools should be used.  And up to this point in the process some knowledge has been derived but it is in a tacit form.  It is necessary to convert it into an explicit form in order to be used and support quality. 

How is that?  We started talking about processes and knowledge and now we come to the point where we need to meet Ms. Quality.  What we can think of quality is that it is good when something is well done or durable and it is bad if not.  Mhhh…. Probably the paintings in the Sistine chapel are an example of good quality.  But let’s analyze that.  Michael Angelo painted and took some time doing it and the question is:  Was he able to paint an exact replica of that?  When I say exact I mean overlaying every single pixel and having a perfect match.  And base on that I can say there was not quality involved in the Sistine chapel paintings, at least in the way we know it or from the production perspective.  Those paintings are a master piece and in master pieces what we find is inspiration.  But something seems wrong here.  How come master pieces are not product of quality?  I’m not saying that there is not quality involved in a master piece.  Of course there is but not in the final product because a master piece goes beyond quality.  Quality as we know it in a master piece resides nowhere else but in its master or creator.  To avoid going around with words and getting lost I just want to say that there is quality when something is repetitive.  Back to my example about the Sistine chapel paintings, in master pieces the final product goes beyond quality standards but there is quality in the way Michael Angelo worked.  He was able to reproduce the same quality of work many times on each of his masterpieces.  But in individual processes of business, we don’t need masterpieces, that is something that belongs to art or it is a very high level accomplishment in the enterprise world.  We find art when we build a corporation.  We can see that a corporation may be a master piece.  This means, we find Michael Angelo’s touch in the high level management of an enterprise, regardless its size. 

In business we define standards to direct our reach and range of our actions.  Once this reach and range is defined we develop the skills to perform predefined steps to be performed again and again in order to produce results, and again and again these results are measured and compared against an accepted standard to ensure that each time those methods produce the same exact result.  Obviously this involves what we call quality control.  The ability to obtain the same results or the ability to achieve similarity is what defines the quality of our methods.  And this is the point where knowledge management meets planning.  This point is the equilibrium or center of gravity many systems interacting in a coordinated way to produce the signature of our product and sustain the reputation of our brand.  Different levels of knowledge granularity that is produced at different levels of the company and must be reused in order to optimize resources.  To reuse it, first it must be capture and then it has to be easily available for its retrieval.  

To interpret the first quote at the beginning of this presentation I like to use a different way to see it.  It may be a derived one or their similarity is just coincidence.  I like using some terms that we find common in sports.  And here is how it goes:  “Good offence fills stadiums… Good defense wins games”.  I personally like this approach because it has tactics embedded in its description.  Some tactics are used in the defensive line supported by the technology that delivers the means to perform them efficiently toward a specific goal.  Same thing for offensive tactics that will ensure the company moves forward toward its objectives.  The first group may involve the tactics to build the product or service, since the procurement of the different elements to the final product.  The second group involves the delivery of the product or service to its final consumer.  In both cases there should be quality control of the methods involved meaning that the technology should also be able to deliver feedback and all data needed to evaluate the performance and therefore, knowledge. 

Continuing with our sports analogy it is easy to see the importance of identifying the line of defense to supply it with the right tools to perform the tactics that they need to perform to move according to the planned strategy to achieve the goals assigned to them.  Once this is done and controlled we will have a product or service of the quality we think suitable to jump into the market with a good chance to survive.  The second task involves how to do this jump.  This is a task of the offensive line.  Here, we need to support it with the right people to use the technology we considered adequate for the procedures we designed to perform the tactics we need to move accordingly to the strategic thinking that upper management agreed upon.  Like in the defensive line performance, management needs to know how things are going before having to realize that the quarter did not go as planned.  It is not necessary to see the button line to see if things are going well or not.  The right feedback at the right moment can produce the information needed in timely manner before having disagreeable surprises.  This is one of many vital roles information technology has to support.

And to end this discussion, there is another set of words to analyze that are involved with quality.  When evaluating a product or service there are three words that may described it:  Good, fast, and cheap.  There may be a lot of discussion when analyzing those words but for sure if it is not good then it is not cheap.  And if it is cheap, but not available when needed, then it is not good and probably in the end, neither cheap.  Many would think that the correct action is building a good product or delivering a good service.  They may be probably right.  But, what is “Good”? Let’s take a pause and let’s move to the next word: Fast.  It definitely is necessary to deliver a product or service right when the final consumer needs it.  This one was easy but at what cost?  So, what is cheap?  From the final consumer perspective cheap means at the least possible cost to get it and for the producer cheap means at the least possible cost to produce it.  And here comes the interesting part.  Cheap may not be at the least possible cost of production and “good” may not mean the best product or service we can put on the market and “fast” therefore is not the shortest time of delivery.  These three variables have a dynamic relationship and they may be better understood analyzing the concept of Level of Service. 

As mentioned in another discussion or blog, Level of Service is the line that identifies the quality of what we deliver.  It may be the best Level of Service in the market but it does not mean that it is perfect.  In other words, there is always room for improvement.  But why to improve it?  One answer is because there is a need caused by the pressure in the market that other options to the consumer represent.  And that is a good reason to have the technology in place that produces the reports necessary to understand the situation in the front line as soon as possible.  A company may be at a Level of Service that is too high and therefore too expensive (not cheap) or the same company may still be at the level of service that its competitors already surpassed (not good).  This means the company may be providing a quality that is not necessary to provide and therefor is losing resources when trying to sustain that level of service and that definitely will impact its future either reducing its capacity to grow or compromising its working capital in the future.  Or on the other hand, if the level of service is below average then the company is in a vulnerable position because its capacity to compete is limited.

I believe I covered all the points I tried to make.  When we have a controlled way to produce a result we have the means to deliver a product or service in a competitive way meaning that it is possible to do the necessary adjustments to remain in the game.  And to get to that stage it is necessary to plant the seeds that will produce the fuel needed to succeed.