Understanding current challenges of quality profession

As professional experts we ought to recognize continuously needs for development, renovation and transformation within our profession in order to preserve its effectiveness, competence and attractiveness to exist and to serve the society by responding to its current requirements and challenges.

We have had almost one hundred years development in the modern type of professional quality principles, methodologies, and practices. Success of the discipline has primarily based on brilliant thinkers and persistent, brave and unprejudiced appliers. In the end this is a people issue.

Responsible professionals of the field are interested in looking and planning for future challenges both in general and from their own particular interests. In reflecting this one should be clearly aware of the facts of current situation and how we have entered this situation.

Having a protracked active involvement with professional quality thinking and applications one is able to consider the present “Now” situation in the development perspective. Factually, there are always three temporal dimensions in the present moment “Now”:

• The ‘Now’ of future events and performance
• The ‘Now’ of present events and performance
• The ‘Now’ of past events and performance

The present “Now” always includes the impacts of the past events and the pressure / challenges of the future events.

Things are always seen and understood by individuals. Practical things are singular, not general. Knowledge cannot be objective. Objectivity is theoretical generalizing real things. Knowledge makes us possible to act in a new meaningful way. Knowledge is genuine only if it can be tried and justified in operation.

Everybody has his / her own tacit knowledge of experience, background, bias, and interests when selecting items to be addressed and making observations for getting and understanding facts.

I have considered the current situation of the quality discipline in a previous blog-post, “There are serious problems in the prevailing quality management approaches”. I don’t feel the situation satisfactory. In fact, the quality profession is in a serious crisis. We should have something radically new based on new innovations in the field.

This year’s Future Study ”The old boundaries have been obliterated” of the ASQ has also emphasized the need of change in our profession. Their preferred scenario proposes Global adaptation: Evolution toward a synergistic society. This is a big challenge to the prevailing quality approach. We should also reconsider the whole concept of quality taking into account the large global and societal perspectives.

Individuals influence according their inherent networking capabilities and power through their relationships (Ref. e.g. Valdis Krebs). Distribution of ideas is promoted by the evidence of practical applications and result thereof. However, fundamentally adopting new ides is a cultural issue within organizations, communities, societies, etc. (see the figure later).

When planning for the future in rapidly changing environments we should get radical transformations happen into our operations in increasing pace. One way to understand this is that we should move in our time-thinking from the khronos (time as a physical entity) to kairos (time as a personal challenge) (Ref. Christian Mayeur).

Kairos is a non-linear challenge to proactive development-decisions. In today’s situation this requires a broad and multi-disciplinary collaboration among experts and non-experts. Networks with relational ”hyperlinks” may break linear time concept (khronos) and open ways to new multidimensional and nonlinear quality of time (kairos): This makes it possible to operate at this moment and context so that our human reality and unlimited creative omnipotentials meet. Life becomes an interactive experience and coexistence of paradoxical things and events and insoluble problems (oxymoron) from where unlimited creativity may liberate.

Development takes place within different scopes (see figure).
At all these levels the developments are unique. Although these different areas interact it is difficult to liberate from the burden of the existing cultures and behavior. Experts and expert organizations may act as mediators for border-breaking development and even for solving acute crises and conflicts. It is only a question of will and collaboration (Ref. Nobel Awarded Martti Ahtisaari: Nobel lecture text, Nobel lecture video). The will includes that they should start with strategic development plans for themselves.