Process Improvement Tool - 8D

Recently I came across this tool, which one of my client is using. It does not have that much of a publicity but a size-able number of organization actually follows it. Check it out.

8D is a problem-solving methodology for product and process improvement. It is structured into eight disciplines, emphasizing team synergy. The team as whole is better and smarter than the quality sum of the individuals. Each discipline is supported by a checklist of assessment questions, such as "what is wrong with what", "what, when, where, how much".

The Eight Disciplines

1. Use Team Approach
    Establish a small group of people with the knowledge, time, authority and skill to solve the problem and implement corrective actions. The group must select a team leader.

2. Describe the Problem
    Describe the problem in measurable terms. Specify the internal or external customer problem by describing it in specific terms.

3. Implement and Verify Short-Term Corrective Actions
    Define and implement those intermediate actions that will protect the customer from the problem until permanent corrective action is implemented. Verify with data the effectiveness of these actions.

4. Define and Verify Root Causes
    Identify all potential causes which could explain why the problem occurred. Test each potential cause against the problem description and data. Identify alternative corrective actions to eliminate root cause.

5. Verify Corrective Actions
    Confirm that the selected corrective actions will resolve the problem for the customer and will not cause undesirable side effects. Define other actions, if necessary, based on potential severity of problem.

6. Implement Permanent Corrective Actions
    Define and implement the permanent corrective actions needed. Choose on-going controls to insure the root cause is eliminated. Once in production, monitor the long-term effects and implement additional controls as necessary.

7. Prevent Recurrence
    Modify specifications, update training, review work flow, improve practices and procedures to prevent recurrence of this and all similar problems.

8. Congratulate Your Team
    Recognize the collective efforts of your team. Publicize your achievement. Share your knowledge and learning.

~~ Show me the data.

Embracing yourself for the tough questions

The economic turmoil is far from having fully recovered. Company's management team will look into all aspect to strengthen their stake in the market share pie that they have and also looks for way to expand it. At the same time, they will also be looking for ways to reduce operating costs.

I found some tough questions that I need to address when I attend meetings on operating costs reduction. Below are some of it and I am about to share it with you. See if you face the same problem in your environment and are you addressing it. If you have some good answers, do share it with me

1. Reduction of development team size meant they have less time to address most of the minor bugs. They will only fix the major bugs. As for the rest of the bugs, you may work hard to find the bug, but development team is not going to do much about it. What can the quality team do about this?

2. What does the software tester thinks is best for the quality of the product, agile or waterfall?

3. Is exploratory test better or scripted test better? How can you be sure?

Well I find different people have different argument or thought about this. Do share what you have in mind with me. 

~~ Show me the data.

A Long Break

After about a couple of decade not writing blog, or at least that was how it felt like, I decide to write something today. But have no specified topic to write about, so lets just say I'll comment on something and everything that I can remember or know that is happening around me.

1. Economic Crisis OR Financial Crisis: Friends and family around me has been talking about the crisis and our stock market hitting rock bottom. That is then when we buy our house and invest a few 100k into blue chip stocks. Apparently over a period of 5 years, it will double your income. Well if that is true, lets us dig into our pocket and see how much we have :) 2nd problem, when do we exactly hit rock bottom :) And lastly, will you have that much to invest, just in case you have emergency. Well have to do a risk analysis already

2. Politics: Nothing like what I have read in the Sejarah textbooks. It is amazing how politic play a role today. It even seems to overshadow everything else like the police, the judiciary, the MACC and it is like all this pillars of the country is under political party. Well how sad that we can only make a decision every 4 to 5 years (that is, every general election). So, it is like we pay a movie ticket and watch it for 5 years. In between, you could do nothing about it. But one thing I do wish, can everyone involved in it just think of the country first, and everything else second. Look at the shape of the economy in our country. Companies are doing all the cost cutting for survival and we still can see a lot of 'advertisement' of political leaders, of that our country is in a good shape, of everything is good and fair. Nope I don't buy that. We have come into the working world and we only know one thing, only RESULT is justifiable. I don't see any activity that can justify result from 8/3/08 until now. So, zero result thus far, and not to mention the poor return of my EPF :( I thought the country did pretty well last year. Enough talk I suppose, I could go on forever.

3. Global Climate Change: I have said this many times, look at the kind of weather we have. It is really bad. It gets really hot and we have rain almost every evening. The climate is definitely changing, but how would it affect things globally. No one knows, hopefully our kids still gets to see what we see today.

4. PMP: I am doing this course and it is just so hard to answer some of the questions. I am really trying to work hard, after a long day of work, going back and do revision. It is not easy especially after a long day at work place. I suppose I need a lot of motivation and a lot of coffee. And hopefully with a lot of trial exam question and a lot of reading and memorizing, I can make it through.

5. Scandals: Is it me or what but there seems to be a lot of scandals lately. How come Dr Chua's issue re-surface? Scandal is subset of politics I suppose.

6. Meetings: I propose we held some meeting under the tree rather than air-con rooms. It is better for the environment and heck, important meeting of the state can also be held there, why not a small company's meeting, right.

7. Health: I seem to have problem with cough, it haunts me so often and it takes so long to get well :( Also it takes so long for me to recover after a game of basketball. My muscle ache is really a nuisance. Otherwise, pretty cool. Not to mention my mental stress increased when Man Utd went down to Liverpool at Old Trafford. But let me tell you what champion is made of, they will come back stronger AND so am I.

Well 7 points, represents 7 days in a week, 7 deadly sins, 7 heavenly virtue and of course the 7 dwarves :) I better get on with what I am doing and more updates down the road...

In the photo today: Indiana Choo and the Landmine Museum of Cambodia. Wow, boy do I look like .......

Blessed weekend ahead :)

Global Catastrophy

I have been living in Malaysia all my life. Though I have traveled here and there, most of the time, I have spent it here. I can't help but to notice a few things from where I live here.

- It is getting hotter and hotter all the time. I can either get dehydrated immediately when I am in the open air. It feels that the sun is burning directly into my skin as well. Can't sleep with my air-con ON. I don't think it is about me getting older, but I believe, it is really getting hotter and hotter, day by day.

- There are times when Malaysia entirely is in 'haze' due to forest burning in our neighboring country, Indonesia. The haze affects us by difficulty of breathing, blurred vision and asthma patience have it the worst. The cause of forest burning is of course open burning, which further complicate our environment.

- Sudden rain, and certainly qualify for the word thunderstorm. It was all hot and dry for the first half of the morning and suddenly the 2nd half of the day, it suddenly rained so heavily that trees start to fall the other day. But this are just not isolated incidents, I have seen this happened many times, at times off guard (forgot to carry my umbrella).

And in other countries, you can see the following news

- Tsunami (happen because of earthquake), but I suspect it is part of the effect of Global Warming. I am just guessing, and I am no scientist.

- Heavy snow fall in UK (not the usual but extreme type, happened recently). Climatic changes, attributed to global warming as well.

- Australia, bush fire due to extreme heat, another global warming effect. People actually die of dehydration in Australia and the county recorded the highest temperature somewhere in this year.

- Melting of ice caps. No one really bothered but I have read this many times over in newspaper and watched in TV documentary

Some what can we sum up to all this news and many others which I couldn't recall right now. Is our industrialization and free market capitalism promoting global warming? And how does company re-acts to it? There was call for Green IT during the WCIT forum that I went last year. It may work and it may not, as some claims that at this stage, it is already too late to reverse anything that we have done over the many years to our delicately balanced nature.

Well some people may not know what is the effect of global warming. What I understand, the melting of ice caps due to increasing temperature will cause a rise in water level, which significantly reduce land area. Not only that, the rise in temperature will kill a lot of species.

- Killing of plankton as food for fishes will cause a chain re-action in reducing the number and diversity of fish. This will reduce protein source for us, which is important component for human growth.

- Plantations will not produce enough food, due to the extreme weather and temperature. Not enough food will be a major problem for countries all over the world. Already now, people are dying of starvation in desert rich countries such as Africa. The rice of temperature will eventually turn almost all major land into desert.

- Not enough fresh water for consumption. Yes, with the growing population in the world, the water is decreasing with global warming. You can imagine when our kids grow up, their problem is that they do not have enough water to drink.

Well, what do you think? I don't know about you, but I myself should use less plastic, drive less and car pool more, support Green IT, support environmental groups, do less myself in contributing pollution, use less water, share this with others etc. But will what I do really help to reduce Global Warming. I don't know, but at least, I don't want to contribute further to global warming as much as I could. God knows, but I think I better pray about it, hopefully God can give us a hand to fix this Global Warming problem that we, human started.