In the 1980s, Robert Quinn et al, through their research, identified that there were four predominant organisational cultures:

1. Clan cultures: these are family-like, with a focus on mentoring, nurturing and ‘doing things together’.

2. Adhocracy cultures: are dynamic and entrepreneurial, with a focus on risk-taking, innovation and ‘doing things first’.

3. Market cultures: are results-orientated, with a focus on competition, achievements and ‘getting the job done’. 

4. Hierarchy cultures: are structured and controlled, with a focus on efficiency, stability and ‘doing things right’

RACI essentially ensures we know who is doing what:

1. Responsible - who is doing?

2. Accountable - who is accounting for what is being done?

3. Consult - who do we need to consult before we start (internal and external)?

4. Inform - who do we need to inform (communications plan)?

(See Project Management)

A simple process to prioritise or rate issues, processes, activities, hazards, equipment. We use the traffic light system of red, amber and green.

1. Green = good, better than new (not really required for review).

2. Amber = OK (to review next after red).

3. Red = critical, requires immediate attention and controls.

(See FMEA - Aspects and Impacts - RAs)

Reliability Centred Maintenance is an engineering strategy that focuses engineering efforts on equipment availability and reliability and is based on the FMEA process. 

(See FMEA - Availability)

A Risk Assessment is a tool that looks at the relationships of the hazards of our activities, processes and equipment and the likelihood of occurrence. We RAG rate these to ensure we take the necessary steps or controls to reduce the risks. 

(See Setting Standards - RAG Rating)

Risk Priority Number is used in the FMEA process and is determined by RAG rating three factors:

1. Severity - how severe is this effect or problem?

2. Occurrence - how frequently is it occuring, or how high is the probability of occurrence?

3. Detection - is this failure detectable prior to failure?

When these three factors are multiplied together, they create the RPN.

The highest RPN gets the highest priority.

(See FMEA - Rag Rating)

Everett Rogers (1931–2004) was an eminent American communication theorist and sociologist who originated the diffusion of innovations theory and introduced the term ‘early adopter’. 

The Rogers Adoption Curve (also called the Diffusion Process) was introduced in 1957 and described how new innovations and ideas are accepted and adopted by groups and cultures.  It was originally applied to agriculture and home economics but later applied to new ideas and technologies by Everett Rogers in his book, Diffusion of Innovations. 

The bell curve highlights the acceptance of new ideas or change by society through five stages: 

• 2.5% Innovators: these people are risk taking, usually highly educated, prosperous people. 

• 13.5% Early adopters: these individuals are also risk-takers and highly educated but more leadership-orientated than innovators. Think of these people as community organisers, informed, risk-takers and less prosperous. 

• 34% Early majority: these people are less risk taking, tending to be more conventional with a willingness to accept new ideas. They will follow the early adopters. 

• 34% Late majority: these individuals are usually traditional and less educated and socially active, as well as, generally, older. They need to be convinced. 

• 16% Laggards: this is the oldest and most traditionalist of the groups. This group will fight against change and will be the last to accept it.

*My experience is that if you are setting up a large change or transformation, ask for volunteers and you will get the innovators and early adopters (~16% of the workforce will volunteer) volunteering to be part of the transformation team.

Root Cause Analysis is the process of using techniques to analyse all possible variables to determine the root of the problem. We use the five whys and cause-and-effect to determine the root cause of most problems. 

(See 5 Whys - Cause & Effect)

Robert Rosenthal was a German-born American and distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California.

The Pygmalion, or Rosenthal, Effect was discovered by Robert Rosenthal in his 1964 study and was named after the mythological Greek sculpture Pygmalion. 

According to Greek mythology, the sculpturer fell in love with the ivory statue of a woman he made, with the Gods bringing her to life for him to marry. His expectations helped bring the statue to life, which fits in with the Pygmalion effect. Our expectations have the power to change reality. 

According to Rosenthal, the Pygmalion effect works as a self-fulfilling prophecy. This can be seen to work in a circular fashion:

1. People’s beliefs and expectations affect their actions towards others.

2. Those actions impact on the beliefs and expectations that other people hold true about themselves.

3. Those beliefs then impact on the performance of others.

4. The initial belief and expectations of others are verified. 

The Pygmalion effect is where an individual’s performance is influenced by others’ expectations. In other words, higher expectations lead to higher performance. However, the Pygmalion effect specifically refers to how our expectations of others affect our behaviour towards them. In turn, this can contribute to higher performance, in many ways, like Stephen Covey’s See-Do-Get model. 

(See Covey’s See-Do-Get Model)

Run Plot Charts, or run diagrams, are a simple line graph of data plotted over a period of time or sequence.

The x-axis (horizontal) is data in chronological or sequential order and the y-axis (vertical) is the measure (counts, %).

Runners, Repeaters and Strangers (RRS) is an approach used for identifying where to concentrate efforts. It could also be used for evaluation of activities, such as products, problems, processes or projects, to support decision-making and sequencing of activities. 

• Runners are generally considered to be a product or product family having sufficient volume to justify dedicated facilities or manufacturing cells. 

• Repeaters are product or product families having intermediate volume, where dedicated facilities are not required. 

• Strangers are products or product families having low or intermittent volume. Strangers should be scheduled around regular repeater slots as they have lowest priority.

SIPOC is a high-level system map that summarises the suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs and customers for a complex process or functional organisation. 

SIPOC maps are usually one-page documents that can be used for various situations, including:

1. Training.

2. Process mapping.

3. Kaizen events.

4. Standard operating procedures (SOP).

A SWOT Analysis is a decision-making technique used to help understand strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. When used in the context of an organisation, this analysis tool allows us to take in the bigger picture to guide strategic decision-making by understanding and exploiting opportunities and eliminating threats 

(See PESTLE Analysis)

Scatter Plot Diagrams are used to identify the possible relationships observed between two different sets of variables. 

(See 7 Quality Tools)

Friedmann Schulz von Thun was a German professor of psychology and an expert in interpersonal communication and intrapersonal communication. 

Schulz von Thun’s Four Side Model, also known as the communication square or four-ears model, has the basic concept that there are three main elements: 

The sender: the person sending the message (saying or writing something). 

The receiver: the person receiving the message (listening or reading). 

The message: what is being said, the actual spoken or written words. According to the model, each message has four facets or sides:

Factual information: objective, matter of fact information, data or facts. Appeal: desire, advice, instructions, commands that the sender is seeking. 

Relationship: information on the relationship between the sender and receiver, how they get along, what they think of each other. 

Self-revelation: implicit information (conscious or intended) about the sender - motives, emotions, likes/dislikes. 

(See Mehrabian’s Communications Theory - Shannon and Weaver’s Communications Theory)