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

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

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0787902578 ISBN 13: 9780787902575

Publisher: Jossey-Bass, 1996

Synopsis

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.

About this title

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.

From the Back Cover:

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.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0787902578
• ISBN 13: 9780787902575
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400