The Quality Guru

In a joint press release the Managing Director of ACI Global Mr. Ian Erskine and CEO of Carbon Managers Mrs Helen Weston announced today the 22nd of May 2010 the public release of the Whit Paper on “Energy Auditing” of Emissions and Carbon Foot Printing to ISO 14064 Guidelines.

Further details will be announced shortly but a copy of the White Paper can be accessed at   http://www.aciglobal.com.au/Energy_Auditor.html

Comments are welcome Ian Erskine ACI Global

In a joint press release today ACI Global and Carbon Managers have announced their intention to develop a “Personnel Certification Scheme” PCS for the auditing of Emissions. In announcing the development of the PCS Mr. Erskine Managing Director of ACI Global, Helen Weston CEO of carbon Managers and John Wayland Director of Carbon Managers expressed full support for the development of the PCS which will be Titled ”Energy Auditor”.

It will be the intention to have the PCS registered by all Leading Personnel Certification Body’s to ensure the “Energy Auditor” gains true International and Independent recognition. 

A white paper will be released shortly to encourage comment and feedback as part of the initial process of the development of the PCS and will be published on both the ACI Global and Carbon Managers Websites plus the Quality Guru where all interested parties and individuals will be encouraged to comment.

Ian Erskine Managing Director and CEO ACI Global  http://www.aciglobal.com.au

Helen Weston CEO Carbon Managers http://www.carbonmanagers.com.au/

Next to the language barrier, it is the thing that has caused me the most stress when I’ve travelled abroad.

How do others feel about this issue and what effect it has on your understanding or feelings for others Countries and their cultures?

Deb Hampton

Dear all,

1. Are there any benchmarks for healthy process maintenance Vs. improvement activities for software (service or hardware) organizations?

2. If there are no benchmarks, in your subjective opinion, what they should be?

C. Does it make sense to measure the two activities (process maintenance and process improvement) separately? Alternately, is it okay to club them into one and name it ‘Process Improvement Activities’ and measure accordingly.

I thought of bringing out the issue to this forum to encourage healthy discussions.

Best Regards,
Ribhu

ISO 9001:2008, clause 6.2.2 b goes like “…..provide training or take other actions to achieve the necessary competence”; i.e. training is considered as a means to achieve competence.

CMMI-Dev, V 1.2, OT PA: SG2 demands imparting training to provide competency development and competency maintenance for critical functional areas.

Still I find more and more organizations talking about ‘training’ and not ‘competency development’. As a result, more often than not, organizations land up providing training in a mechanical way, without bothering about the aim of the training, i.e. achieving employee competency. Members may please share their views and suggestions on this issue……

According to the Hindu traditional calendar based on a ancient, accurate and scientific  lunar system, most of the northern provinces of India celebrated their new year on the 16th of March. It is marked with worship and observing fast in some of the communities. ACI Global wishes Hindus world over a happy new year. Further Informantion can be found here http://hinduism.about.com/od/festivalsholidays/a/hindunewyear.htm

ACI Global and Quality Mentors with the release of their Project Management White Paper have signaled its intention to seek the industries leading players input into future training needs for Project Management. The main author of the ACI Global White Paper on Project Management Mr. Ribhu Nath Lavania himself a senior project management auditor has expressed his desire to seek a change to “Competency Based” Training with the help of the main players in Project Management Training.

Ian Erskine Managing Director and CEO has congratulated Ribhu Nath Lavania from Quality Mentors on his efforts in putting this paper together and has called on all major industry bodies to contribute to the proposed new direction indicated by the White Paper.

Further details can be found on the ACI Global Website http://www.aciglobal.com.au/Project_Management.html and the Quality Mentors website http://swqualitymentors.com/Documents/White%20Paper%20on%20Competancy%20Based%20Training%20on%20Project%20Mangement.pdf where the white paper can be downloaded.

Mr Erskine has invited comments to this Project Management White Paper form all interested parties.

Feb 28, 2010

Contributed by Joanne Ma from the People’s Republic of China. This year the Festival of Lantern falls on February 28, 2010, the full moon night. Incidentally, this full moon night is celebrated in India as ‘Holi’, the festival of colors….Ribhu Nath Lavania

“The Lantern Festival or Yuanxiao Festival is a traditional Chinese festival, which is on the 15th of the first month of the new year in Chinese Lunar Calendar. Feb. 28th is the Lantern Festival of Chinese Tiger Year of 2010.

Chinese started to celebrate the Lantern Festival from the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 221 AD). A rumor said the festival is originated from Taoism.

On the night of the festival, people usually go to streets with a variety of lanterns under the full moon, watching lions or dragon dancing, playing Chinese riddles and lighting up firecrackers. Having Yuanxiao is an important symbol of this festival.

Yuanxiao or Tangyuan(sticky rice ball) is a special food for the Lantern Festival. It’s named after a palace maid – Yuanxiao, from the Empire Wu Di of Han Dynasty, according to the folklore. Yuanxiao is made with sticky rice flour filled with sweet stuffing. It looks round and white from the outside, with sweet stuffing sitting inside. Foreign people usually are curious about how to stuff the sweet into the ball. Nixon – the president of United States asked the same question when he visited China in 1972. The trick to make a nice Yuanxiao includes four steps:

1. blend the flour with water to be a big dough;
2. take a small piece to make it in the shape of cake and flat;
3. put the stuffing in the centre of the cake and pull all the edges together to make it a ball with stuffing all covered;
4. put the ball on one palm, rubbing it with the other palm, clockwise or counter-clockwise, till it’s completely round without any crack.

Yuanxiao is sticky, sweet and round in shape, symbolizing family’s unity, happiness and completeness. People make Yuanxiao themselves before 1990s at home, but now it’s sold as quick-frozen food in most stores.

After have nice Yuanxiao with the whole family together and enjoy the lattern and other games on this special day, the long celebration of the Chinese New Year officially ends. People go back hard work and life for a happy, prosperous new year with most hopes”.

The link for the “holi” festival is http://www.holifestival.org/ plus an interesting site to visit can be found here http://article.yeeyan.org/view/44480/87846

China- The Festival of Lantern

“Project Management is the only way” is a popular saying in project management circles. One can’t successfully manage projects without following the basics concepts of project and quality management. Let us make a start with Deming’s PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. It is not only quality models and standards which invariably follow Deming’s PDCA but also all successful projects. By definition, projects are temporary in nature as they have a date of start and end. Project Managers always remain under pressure. The only way they enhance the chances of their success are by following the PDCA cycle. How?

1. Unless planned well, there is no guarantee that the project will be able to satisfy its customer and other stakeholder needs.
2. Once the PM and others implement the provisions of planned arrangements in their projects, invariably there would be variations between the planned and actual parameters like time lines, effort deployed, cost and problems/ defects e.t.c.
3. One has to measure such parameters and compare them with planned ones.
4.  In case there are significant variations, the project manager has to initiate appropriate preventive and/ or corrective actions to bring the project back on track. This completes the PDCA cycle and it always remains in a spiral of continual improvement and change.
5. Members are invited to express their views and comments on this topic. We shall not only encourage comments on project management methodologies but also those on domain/ technology specific areas

Further details regarding project management courses can be found on the ACI Global Website http://www.aciglobal.com.au/Project_Management.html