Process Owners and Educating the General Public

[TJclark@aol.com]

Regarding Ken Kuang's reply, subject New Mexico Fire, who is the owner of the 
system, couldn't agree more on the statement that the general public are the 
owners of government and need to be educated on the Deming/quality philosophy.

Educating the Public.  To help educate and promote the benefits of quality to 
the general public, the Indianapolis Section of the American Society for 
Quality (ASQ) has been sponsoring free seminars and workshops for the general 
public at the Library since 1994.  We also offered free public sessions this 
year at the Annual Quality Congress (May 8-10) that were attended by 264 
people.  For more information about the Library program, see community 
quality at our website at http://www.indyasq.org. 

Supporting the Transformation.  I wrote an article for the May issue of ASQ's 
Quality Progress magazine, titled, 'A Transformation to Quality Government' 
that identified a few steps that could be taken in getting people involved in 
learning more about improving the quality of life in America.

The article 
reinforces the need to "plot points" to gain a better understanding of common 
and special causes of variation and to help determine when change results in 
improvement.

Reducing Barriers.  I think one of the challenges for practioners is to 
translate the Deming philosophy into terms that the average person can relate 
to, understand and apply. I've often been accused of over-simplifying things 
but I strive to challenge people to take action and apply the quality 
technology to something they have a passion for improving or learning more 
about.  I think action via the PDSA process, can lead to profound knowledge 
which in turn will lead to profound improvements.

Tim Clark
tjclark@aol.com
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