http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2005/11/17/551/ The magazine for the project age Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:24:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.5 http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2005/11/17/551/#comment-1895 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:17:21 +0000 http://www.reformingprojectmanagement.com/2005/11/17/551/#comment-1895 I find Mayfield's comments thought provoking but filled with ideas stemming from little real life experience. I believe you cannot have innovation or improvement without standard processes because you don't know what you improved. I believe it is not processes or innovation but both that organizations need. Look at Toyota - they have very detailed standards but also have constant improvement. It is a culture of always looking for a better way but until one is found to have everyone do it the same way. PDCA is about experimenting to improve one what is. 'What is' must be defined to improve. The President of Toyota once challenged his employees that today they have the best processes to do the job but tomorrow they are to come to work and assume those are the worst processes and to find better ones. We need both processes and innovation and Mayfield's article does not suggest ways to build a culture of both. My thoughts. dennis I find Mayfield’s comments thought provoking but filled with ideas stemming from little real life experience. I believe you cannot have innovation or improvement without standard processes because you don’t know what you improved. I believe it is not processes or innovation but both that organizations need. Look at Toyota - they have very detailed standards but also have constant improvement. It is a culture of always looking for a better way but until one is found to have everyone do it the same way. PDCA is about experimenting to improve one what is. ‘What is’ must be defined to improve. The President of Toyota once challenged his employees that today they have the best processes to do the job but tomorrow they are to come to work and assume those are the worst processes and to find better ones. We need both processes and innovation and Mayfield’s article does not suggest ways to build a culture of both. My thoughts. dennis

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