The Power of LEOby award winning author and global authority on quality, Subir Chowdhury, has debuted to rave reviews! The Power of LEOis the long awaited follow-up book to best seller The Ice Cream Maker,  which introduced the world to the concepts of LEO – Listen-Enrich-Optimize. While theThe Ice Cream Makerprovided a 30,000 foot look at the concepts of LEO,The Power of LEOis the 5,000 foot approach that details how LEO has been used to great advantage in real, down-to-earth business situations. It’s written in easy-to-understand, non-technical language and details the overall methodology that makes it possible to apply management tools to achieve maximum advantage. The Power of LEOclearly presents the case that LEO is a highly successful methodology, a new [...]

Recently my family decided to start a garden in our backyard with some friends of ours. Last fall we sat down and collectively decided what and how much we wanted to grow. Then, each family went on-line and researched the best places to buy the vegetables that we were interested in growing. We both decided that we would order most of our seeds and starter plants from a large national company, figuring that they would be the most reputable. So, when the time came, both of our families called and separately placed our orders. One nice selling feature that drew us to this company is that they would ship us our starter plants at the time when it is appropriate [...]

Wrong is in vogue. A song by Depeche Mode is named “Wrong.” Seth Godin blogged about failure:http://bit.ly/fGNB1kKathryn Schultz presented at a TED Conference about the importance of being wrong. http://bit.ly/gD0kPm Kathryn said being wrong is the source of our creativity. In the Optimize Phase of LEO, we try to be wrong. We test variations of our best design concept from the Enrich Phase. We test the variants we expect to be good.  We test other variants we expect to be bad. If the expected good are really bad or if the expected bad are really good – we learn. We even learn if the good are good or the bad are bad in a manner different than what we expected. We [...]

A few weeks ago Obama began his bid for re-election in 2012. Don’t worry; this won’t turn into a political blog… But when I heard this, it got me thinking. I was reminded of the last elections in 2010. I remember telling my wife during campaign/election season that it was tough to figure out how I wanted to vote in most cases because I didn’t hear much from any candidate on why they should get my vote. Instead I heard a lot about why ‘the other guy’ should not get my vote. The reasons why I should not vote for ‘the other guy’ ranged from some that were very reasonable to some that could make you think ‘how-could-this-person-even-be-running-for-office?’ In fact, [...]

Seth Godin hits the nail on the head. http://bit.ly/fD47JR But great service designs require more than designers signing their work. Great service designs require a process. Listen – Observe and understand the customer. Take the time to really understand what the customer wants. Understand the why behind the what. Stop talking. Start listening. Designers must experience their customers first-hand. (No, reading tweets is not first-hand experience!) Empathize with the customer who gets a blast of cold water from the hotel’s shower head. Enrich – Explore and discover the best alternative. Once you have a rock solid, visceral understanding of customer needs, don’t rush to the first concept that comes to mind. Take the time to explore all the concepts. Invent [...]

I am often amazed at how easily designers can brush off the fact that their designs are not truly optimized. Dr. Genichi Taguchi’s definition of optimization is: “the state of performance where the technology, product, or process is minimally sensitive to factors causing variability (either in the manufacturing environment or user’s environment) at the lowest possible cost”. His definition can be restated as making products that work the same way, every time, no matter what the condition. They must work for a very long time and still be affordable. A good working definition I once heard for optimize was: “to make as effective, perfect, or useful as possible”. I often have the opportunity to ask designers if their designs are [...]

Quality is a lousy word. It’s hard to define. Quality sounds a little boring. But Quality, we often hear, is King. Seth Godin talks about quality in his new book “Poke the Box.” On page 20: “Just about everything on offer – from a car to an iPad to an insurance policy – does exactly what it’s supposed to… Most of your competition is now without defects as well…” Is doing “exactly what it’s supposed to” quality? It is part of quality. To be a useful word, to be King, quality must be more than not failing. Quality is the way the phone feels in your hand, quality is the sound of your voice the client hears over their speakerphone, [...]

Developing a product that will stand out in the market place is a difficult task.  That task is a little easier when the market place is still developing; as is the case in the tablet market today.  With relatively few offerings to choose from, it shouldn’t be too difficult to make yours stand out above the rest.  But how do you do it?  How do you take your idea to the next level?  How do you compete against the likes of the Apple iPad? Product development is a straight forward process.  It involves watching and listening to the customer, developing a concept that will deliver their wants and needs, and then optimizing that product to deliver exactly what the customer [...]

I thought it would be easy. Transformation of the manufacturing company I worked for seemed simple. I toured and learned from companies in the Toyota Supply base around Nagoya, Japan. It was 1986. The US manufactured goods for both the US domestic and the world markets. The methods I saw and, more importantly, the way of thinking behind those methods could transform any business. The ideas were simple. Check, act, plan, do: what could be easier? CAP-D! Understand the current state. Set a target. Find the causes. Verify the causes. List the countermeasures. Select the best countermeasures. Plan the implementation. Execute the plan. Go back to check. Document the results of a large sheet of paper. Do again. The method’s [...]

Welcome to our first post on the power of LEO blog! This post is the first step toward increasing the awareness of quality in our daily lives. The awareness of quality is noticing the negative effects of poor quality on our lives. The term “quality” is holistic. “Quality” applies to goods, services, our behavior, and relationships with others. That awareness of quality develops the realization that quality is my personal responsibility. Quality isn’t something that I can delegate. Criticizing the quality of others isn’t productive until I have done everything in my power to assure that the quality of my behavior, relationships, work, goods, and services is of the highest caliber. Poor quality is a critical issue in our society. [...]