UPFRONT

Innovate or Die

"Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship … the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth,” wrote Peter F. Drucker in his book Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Collins, 1993).

When he died in November, Drucker was hailed as the man who invented modern management. Many of his concepts for business also have formed the foundation of quality management, such as a focus on the customer and the importance of effective performance and measuring for the right results.

Drucker was known for being able to see into the future and anticipate major trends like innovation, which he first started writing about in the 1980s. Today, leading business thinkers are talking about innovation as an imperative for all organizations to compete and survive.

That thinking is now spreading to quality. In ASQ’s fourth futures study, conducted last year (p. 37), innovation, combined with creativity and change, ranked as the second most significant force that will shape the future of quality and call for new skills and competencies for its professionals.

In response to that finding and input from members and customers, ASQ has launched a free access, Web based network on innovation featuring information and ways to connect with others. Visit www.asq.org/communities.

All the talk and attention signal more than a trend. In “After Six Sigma—What’s Next?” (p. 30), Søren Bisgaard and Jeroen De Mast cite a 2004 U.S. Council on Competitiveness report that urges a focus on innovation as an answer to the economic upheaval caused by globalization (not surprisingly, the first key force in the futures study). Bisgaard and De Mast point out quality’s evolution was based at every phase on what economists would define as innovation. The next step is systematic innovation throughout organizations.

For left-brain, orderly thinkers, topics like innovation and creativity may seem a little too, well, soft and squishy. On p. 44, John Dew explains how TRIZ (a Russian acronym for theory of inventive problem solving) can help quality professionals think creatively in a scientific, systematic way.

Whether you leap to try something like TRIZ or worry that innovation might become the next “flavor of the day” for quality, remember the words of W. Edwards Deming: “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” A more current and harsher way of putting it would be change or die.

QP has a few changes to announce. Based on your input, the “Statistics Roundtable” column is now monthly (p. 70). We are also starting a bimonthly column on lean in February. And, on a sad note, this issue marks Jerry Brong’s final contribution to “Career Corner” (p. 62). We thank him for sharing his wisdom for the past five years and wish him well as he semiretires and focuses on the field of education and training.