Yardstick of Quality: Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs' Biography

I finished reading the bestselling biography of the late Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.  This is not light-reading, nor does it align with the heroic figures of Horatio Alger.  Steve Jobs was a complex and driven man, whose personal flaws often distracted from his intense and competitive genius.

The most relevant lesson is that QUALITY WINS THE BATTLE.  Jobs did not have a 100% success rate, but the initiatives for which he was most admired reflected his relentless desire to intersect the prevailing desires for technology, design, usability, and business savvy.  This desire resulted in the successful launches and sustained penetration of Apple II, Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, as well as the influential driver behind the successful Pixar movies and Apple retail stores.

I also learned the word "IMPUTE" which is to attribute the quality of a product or entity based on its initial impression, literally judging the book by its cover.  This was one of the core design principles from the earliest days of Apple, and is reflected in the current product designs.

Some memorable lessons derived from the biography:
- Focus
- Think Different
- Eat your vegetables
- Enforce collaboration and face-to-face interactions
- Pause and rework to get the optimal solution

And the most relevant for any quality professional, BE A YARDSTICK OF QUALITY.

Unexpected Quality - Design of Experiments in a PBS Cooking Show

This month's challenge from the View from the Q post this month is to find quality in unexpected places.

One of my personal interests is the pursuit of proper and effective cooking techniques.  Unlike the celebrity-driven cooking shows portraying slim socialites, haughty foreigners, or gluttonous hosts, I have switched the channel to the calmer programming of Public Broadcasting to find a more appeasing and intellectually stimulating approach to cooking.

There is a cluster of shows emanating from the America's Test Kitchen concept which includes Cook's Illustrated, Cook's County, and similar brands.  Operating out of Brookline, Massachusetts, this group presents and publishes instructional recipes from the unique perspective of experimentation.  Without intending to do so, this organization has demonstrated the principles of Design of Experiments.

I will simplify the discussion with this summary:
- Each recipe or cooking approach represents an instance of experimentation
- Factors include cooking method, ingredients, flavorings, and other approaches
- Treatments refer to the alternatives of the different factors and can include:

• Cooking meat with or without the bone
• Cooking with the pot covered or uncovered
• Making a pie crust with flour and water or flour and water plus vodka (reducing the gluten and resulting in a flakier crust

There is a recent publication, The Science of Good Cooking which elaborates on the scientific principles behind the cooking methods and approaches. A summary of some of the concepts, obtained from experimentation in the test kitchens, include:

• High Heat develops flavor (due to the chemical interaction known as the Maillard reaction)
• Resting the meat 20-30 minutes after meat has been cooked results in less loss of meat "juices", resulting in slices with higher levels of moisture and flavor.
• Salt makes meat juicy and skin crisp (by attracting the fluids of the meat to the surface creating a super-concentrated, shallow brine which dries the surface, leading to a crispier finish)
• The high content of butterfat in creme fraiche (30-40 percent, compared to much lower concentrations in sour cream and yogurt) protects against curdling (clumping with proteins) when used in hot dishes.

The appeal of this program goes beyond cooking demonstrations to compare kitchen appliances (i.e. BBQ smokers, blenders, kettles, etc.) and taste preferences of commercial brands of common grocery items (ketchup, peanut butter, etc.).  It is very interesting how they compare alternatives and come up with an optimal solution, or a reasonably close approximation obtained from simplified cooking techniques or compressed practices.

Design of Experiments is a quality concept that is frequently performed inadvertently by those seeking to optimize solutions or eliminate negative outcomes.  The cooking approach taken by America's Test Kitchen applies Design of Experiments so effectively that DoE examples can be reconstructed by following the recipes and rationale described in the publications.

STEM in Canada - Education Resource

The articles by the various ASQ Influential Voices has consistently expressed the need to promote and sustain STEM teaching among our youth.

In Canada, this challenge was met by educators and one tangible outcome was the formation of an initiative, Let's Talk Science .  According to the website, 

"Founded in 1993 by Bonnie Schmidt, PhD, Let's Talk Science has excited, inspired and engaged more than 2.4 million children, youth, educators and volunteers in science, technology, engineering and math."

In the ASQ Blog View from the Q, the CEO of ASQ, Paul Borawski, provided a reference to the ASQ STEM Survey revealing that teens, fearing failure, will avoid science, technology, engineering, and math.


In Canada, as a way to mitigate this fear, a reader-friendly handbook has been prepared to provide, in accessible and animated language, a helpful resource.  The All Science Challenge - 2013 Study Handbook is intended for students in middle-years (tween and early-teen), but can also support high school students and adults by summarizing the key points of different areas within the STEM domain.

I encourage educators in the US to follow the Canadian example, and support students with helpful learning resources.