First of all I’d like to thank John Hunter for a couple of things. Firstly for inviting me to contribute to the excellent 2010 Management Improvement Carnival, and secondly for taking on the admin associated with co-ordinating contributions. Good job as usual John

Anyway, this year I have chosen to review the blog of practising Quality Manager, Improvement enthusiast and friend Rob Thompson – Learn Sigma. Rob has been posting his thoughts on quality and improvement on Learn Sigma for a few years now, and the blog is worth a browse for its extensive and growing back catalogue of well written and thought provoking posts. I checked out the “Popular Posts” section of Learn Sigma to see what appeared to have been sparking people’s interest, with these highlights (in no particular order)

PDCA is dead?
I penned an article with a similar title a while back, so this one caught my eye. Rob’s argument was a different one to my own (I’m deliberately not linking to it, as this ain’t about me). Rob’s argument, with nods to Jamie Flinchbaugh and Mark Graban, was that SDCA has now taken the place of PDCA via a natural process of learning and evolution. Life moves on. Of course things must change

Can Lean and ISO 9001 be integrated?
Another question. The post asks  ”is it possible?” and concludes that it is. The post however explores how this might be done in an efficient and practical way as, we all know, initiatives do have a habit of developing lives and reasons to exist all of their own, with efficiency sometimes being little more than an after-thought. Particularly with ISO 9001 in my experience

How beer really, really helps with Lean
Not just a great title, but the post also opens with a great quote

“When you invite the whole world to your party, inevitably someone pees in the beer” (attributed to Xeni Jardin)

The post itself does go on to explore harder concepts of managing quality in the supply chain, using the brewing industry as its vehicle. Some great links in this post too. Read it

Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading these posts that I have selected from Rob’s back catalogue, and I hope that if you do bother to click through, you spend a little time browsing the back catalogue for a load of other great stuff that I couldn’t be bothered to list

Finally, from Shaun, thanks for reading, please call again. Have a Happy and Successful New Year