The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) [Hardcover]

Gerald J. Langley (Author), Kevin M. Nolan (Author), Clifford L. Norman (Author), Lloyd P. Provost (Author), Thomas W. Nolan (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0787902578 | ISBN-13: 978-0787902575 | Publication Date: November 13, 1996 | Edition: 1

Improve quality and productivity in most any organization

Based on W. Edwards Deming's model, this guide offers an integrated approach to testing and improvement?one that is designed to deliver quick and substantial results. Using simple stories to illustrate core ideas, the authors?all active consultants?introduce a new, flexible model for improving quality and productivity in diverse settings. They draw from research conducted in a variety of areas?manufacturing, government, and schools?to present a practical tool kit of ideas, examples, and applications. What's more, they've included a Resource Guide to Change Concepts so even beginners can utilize the tested techniques of some of the world's most experienced practitioners.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is a major milestone in our understanding of the science of improvement. It is destined to be a classic in the field. It offers leaders not only a comprehensive framework, but also dozens of useful specific suggestions for achieving new levels of quality and productivity." (Donald M. Berwick, Institute of Healthcare Improvement and author of Curing Health Care)

"The Improvement Guide is a rare jewel of a book packed with powerful ideas and knowledge; it should be required reading for every student and should be on every corporate bookshelf. This book fills a major void in the Quality literature by combining fresh insights, practical guidelines, and compelling examples on improvement in a captivating and easy-to-understand manner." (Paddy Meskell, senior vice president of human resources, Silver Diner Development, Inc.)

"The Improvement Guide provides a proven framework for quality as business strategy by linking improvement to methods of managing change. It clearly will assist leaders in making permanent improvements." (Robert Tusch, manager, Quality Development and Organizational Effectiveness, Exxon Chemical Company)

"The Conrad Company has been able to double its sales while reducing operating costs during the last five years. I attribute much of our success as an organization to the theories and methods discussed in this long overdue book. People who are interested in learning -- and in making improvements and money while having fun -- should take the time to study this material." (Robert Butts, president, The Conrad Company)

The Improvement Guide can be used by anyone in an organization to successfully integrate improvements into their system while achieving results in customer satisfaction, quality, lower costs, and productivity." (George Haefner, former president and CEO, Conegra Poultry Company)

From the Inside Flap

Making effective changes in how businesses are run has become a matter of survival today. Performance improvement is more than ever a key focus for business leaders concerned with long-term growth and success. Executives, managers, and consultants alike continue to search for practical methods and techniques that are clear and specific, easy to use, and able to produce sustained results. The Improvement Guide offers a fundamental approach that promotes integrated activities designed to eliminate quality problems, reengineer systems to reduce costs, and create new products and services to increase demand. Unlike other books that focus on such tools as flowcharts and cause-and-effect diagrams, this book demonstrates how to make change happen. With stories that illustrate core ideas for enhancing quality and productivity, the authors — all active consultants — introduce a new and flexible approach to improvement. Their easy-to-understand model uses a proven methodology for developing, testing, and implementing change that produces specific, identifiable improvements. Drawing from experience over the last fifteen years in such diverse settings as manufacturing, construction, healthcare, law, government, education, and the nonprofit sector, the authors provide an innovative blAnd of practical ideas, examples, and applications for improvement. To make the change process even easier, the authors have compiled a Resource Guide to Change Concepts containing a rich collection of ideas for improvement and examples of how they can be applied. It catalogues a variety of change concepts — such as smoothing the flow of work, scheduling into multiple processes rather than one, and building in consequences to foster accountability — and presents real-life examples of each, enabling even beginners to utilize the tested techniques of some of the world's most experienced practitioners.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 1 edition (November 13, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0787902578
• ISBN-13: 978-0787902575
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.3 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #160,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #80 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Total Quality Management

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Improvement viewed as a science., July 25, 2000

By 

R. S. Thomas (Brighton, MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) (Hardcover)

Whether involved with improving products/processes within a business or coaching little league baseball, The Improvement Guide provides a practical and fundamental approach for improving performance. The book serves as an excellent reference for those involved with change, specifically, change that will result in improvement.

A few of the items from the book which ring in my mind continuously include:

Improvement can be viewed as a science (in fact, some of us do!).

Three questions provide the framework for improvement: 1. What are we trying to accomplish? 2. How will we know if we if a change will result in an improvement? 3. What changes can we make that will result in improvement?

While there are many opportunities to change, there are only 70 change concepts (included in the Appendix) available to us today.

Any system for improvement will include five activities: 1. Establishing and communicating the purpose of the organization/team. 2. Viewing the organization/team as a system. 3. Designing and managing the a system for gathering information for improvement 4. Planning for improvement and integrating it with business planning. 5. Managing individual and team improvement activities.

Leaders are required to implement change that will result in improvement and they draw their power from three sources (the informal leader gets his/her power from sources 2 and 3 below). 1. Authority or position 2. Knowledge 3. Personality and persuasiveness (caring about people)

These items and many more, are introduced in the book via an easy-to-understand model that uses proven methodology for developing, testing, and implementing change that produces specific, identifiable improvements.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Answer to Dr. Deming's question: "By What Method?", May 14, 2000

By 

David Wayne, SR Director, Quality Improvement... (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) (Hardcover)

Dr. W. Edwards Deming, whose management ideas and Profound Knowledge provide the theoretical underpinnings of this book, continually asked the question to anxious audiences: "By what method? How do you go about it?" As a professional in the quality sciences field, I believe this book has the answer to those questions as it relates to improvement. The Improvement Guide defines improvement and describes in complete detail workable, easy to use techniques that are effective and time-tested. The book is based around the Improvement Model, an expanded and improved version of the Deming-Shewhart cycle, whose historical roots trace are grounded in applications of the scientific method and applied scientists since Roger Bacon. The principle of testing on a small scale, learning using the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, and building knowledge sequentially using the Improvement Model are some of the most practical and useful aspects of the book. Part I is written on an introductory level and provides lots of simple examples that guide the beginner through theory and practice. The heart of the book, and some of its most useful content, describes ways to develop, test, and implement a change. The insights provided, based on decades of experience and knowledge of the authors, are invaluable. They are followed up by thoroughly documented and easy to understand case studies that ring true using real life examples related to manufacturing, services, health care, and a variety of standard business and educational processes. Finally, the third section describes an integrated approach to various standard improvement goals and useful strategies for achieving them. This section also includes extremely insightful guidance for leaders trying to promote and enable improvement, and an innovative and thought-provoking section suggesting techniques for expanding customer expectations to increase demand for products and/or services. This section, too, is replete with examples and case studies to support and illustrate methods and concepts.

This book should be studied by anyone, beginner or experienced professional, interested in a systematic method for improving processes, products, or services. I strongly recommend it.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A simple and easy to use methodology for making improvements, May 11, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Chicago, IL, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Improvement Guide: A Practical Approach to Enhancing Organizational Performance (Jossey-Bass Business & Management) (Hardcover)

The Improvement Guide has brought to our business and my life a simple and easy methodology for making improvements regardless of the scope of the process.

The guide is based on a systems approach to improvements, which allows a better understanding of how the improvements that you are working on effect your system.

I teach an operations class and I use this book and its ideas as a semester long improvement project. The students have come to understand that an improvement must begin with an objective for the improvement and that you run a cycle (plan, do, study, act) to test your prediction. The students have commented they really enjoy learning this methodology and can easily apply it to their daily lives.

The book is easy to read and has useful examples of real life improvement efforts. I use this book on a daily basis. It allows me the opportunity to manage our company's, my students as well as my own improvement efforts.