The Problem with Quality Management

II. The myth of "process orientation"

1. The process problem I: Processes and structures are two sides of the same coin

In QM, it is a common strategy to equate processes with change, movement, progress and speed, while structures are taken as a standstill and inflexibility. There is no doubt that quality movement orients itself on processes. In a quality management organization, dynamic processes are finally supposed to control the frozen structures. However, a closer look reveals that processes and structures are bound so tightly that their distinction is a very artificial endeavour.

Let us take a look at Image 1, one of the most famous pictures by the artist M.C. Escher. We believe to know at first sight what is in motion in this picture: flying birds. We arrive at this judgement due to earlier experience, with the help of which we categorize and interpret new information. We know what a bird looks like. And we know what it looks like when birds fly. When looking at Image 1, we thus compare the structures of the picture with a structure that has already been saved in our memories.

Let us now have a closer look at the picture. What kind of birds are these? Where are they flying? At what time of day does this flight take place? For the observer it is impossible to answer these questions. Is the picture about white birds flying through the night from left to right? Or are we dealing with black birds moving at daylight from right to left? No matter how long we look at the picture, we will not be able to determine the answers.

There is only one possibility of answering these questions with any certainty: We have to take the picture as in motion. Through motion it can be decided what is moving (white or black birds), how they are moving (from left to right or the other way around), and when this is happening (at night or in daytime). Structures can thus be perceived in movement. Through motion - meaning through processes - the structures, being the distinct and constant units, become apparent.

Image 1: Day and night, by M.C. Escher2

And conversely it is also true that only through unchangeable structures and through distinct units can movement and change (i.e. processes) be perceived. The perception of processes implies the simultaneous existence of constant things, such as structures. Without structure, we would not get an idea of movement or processes in Image 1.3

As has been so well visualized in the picture by Escher (Image 1), structure and process are two sides of the same coin. If in QM the process-oriented view is preferred to the structure-oriented view, then in fact, neither structures nor processes have lost any of their significance. Every process is the outcome of structures and again creates structures of its own in the end.4

If, for instance, a work group is formed as a quality circle with the goal of overhauling the production process completely, then its members often have a large creative leeway. The head of the team will express this in comments like the following: "Imagine you were starting from scratch. Forget the old procedures. In the coming days, you have all creative freedom. Think the unthinkable!" Who does not believe that when everything is set into motion that ultimately the processes dominate the frozen structures?

Nonetheless, every participant of such a circle knows how this new start finally ends in meeting rooms with their walls full of metaplan wallpaper and flip chart sheets. Even if the unthinkable is being thought, the power of the factual and already existing situation, the prevailing former structures will prevent radical changes. And also those changes proposed by such a quality circle will again evolve into tight structures in the process of implementation - that is, into requirements that have to be fulfilled.

The rhetorical emphasis of processes in QM obscures and ignores the sight on the structures that stand behind and before them. This ignorance is truly dangerous for an organization and can ultimately prevent every further progress. This was an extensive subject in the 1980s in Organization Theory, and it is considered here in chapter III.

2. The process problem II: Process/divisional organization against functional organization - a sham battle

Companies and administrations can be organized - namely structured - in different ways. The structure of an organization is readable from the so-called "organigram". All processes, all action flows and events orient themselves towards these structural specifications. A traditional way of organizing is functional organization, sketched in Image 2 in a simplified manner.

The decision-making processes from top to bottom are here determined extensively through the hierarchical facts, while the horizontal decision-making processes, thus from left to right, have to be coordinated between the departments. In QM, this model is assumed to be hopelessly out of date. Solely those companies can clutch to this structure of functional organization that always produce the same products in the same procedure for the same supposed clients. This means those companies that lack real (dynamic!) challenges in their uniformity.

Therefore, functional organization is opposed by process/divisional organization (cf. Image 3). In this system, the authoritative decision-making processes proceed in a functional organization turned around by 90°.

Image 2: Direction of processes in functional organization

The decision-making structures are no longer determined vertically, but rather horizontally. Process or product managers replace the earlier department managers under their responsibility. The problematic interfaces thus no longer exist between the departments, but rather between the responsibility areas of the respective process managers. In this kind of organization structure, negotiation processes between the process managers work vertically. This possibly involves the (former) department managers, who may then have some staff position within process/divisional organization at best.

The profit of such a reversal remains however in the dark. In the so-called "process/divisional organization", processes obviously do not have any other, let alone "more" significance than in the functional organization. It is argued here that in QM the important processes in an organization would not take place within the departments, but rather horizontally through the departments. The organigram of an organization should therefore always be viewed from left to right. This is almost as if asking the admirer of a painting to look at it from left to right rather than from top to bottom, in order to see the most relevant features. Even more bizarre in QM is the frequently uttered assumption that the horizontal organization operations may well be processes, but the vertical department procedures are not.

Image 3: Direction of processes in process/divisional organization

The problem of the structural firmness of decision processes in organizations remains the same: Irrelevant of how the determinations take place - the naming of the decision makers also decides who shall not decide. The competence of those, however, is sometimes even more relevant. In order to solve this problem in QM, it is suggested that functional organization should not be replaced by process/divisional organization, but to only add the process or product managers on the horizontal level.

Image 4: Direction of processes in matrix organization

Applying such a dual organization form, which is also called matrix organization (cf. Image 4) means that the decision processes would happen as in the following example:

The manager of a mobile phone company regards the sales problem to be the result of mistakes in the product's development. However, the person responsible for the process, the product manager, finds failures in the marketing. In the production division, they have realized that a problem with the delivery of vendor parts restricts the user friendliness. Up to that, the controller, who is responsible for bench marketing noticed that the mobile phones are not in line with market prices. He suggests that a reduction of the prices would be indispensable for a stimulation of the sale.

Now what to do? Shall we be "process-oriented" and prefer the suggestions made by the process or product manager from the "better horizontal" perspective over other perspectives? However on the basis of which arguments? In the dual organization, decisions could be made either by the product manager, the responsible of the production division, or by the company manager and the controller. This facilitates the greatest possible change (horizontally, vertically, centrally...), yes, an almost "multidimensional processing". Everything could be decided and resolved "just in time", spontaneously and in one stroke. Then, in our example, with the help of a greater advertisement expenditure, we would have mobile phones that are produced more costly but also more user-friendly and end up cheaper on the market. At the very end of this process chain our mobile phone producer would probably be declared unavoidably bankrupt, under dual process/divisional organization.

This example demonstrates that it is not possible to follow various directions of decisions and at the same time reduce the problem of decision-making processes. The...