Quality books

Citation

(2003), "Quality books", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 7 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2003.26707dab.014

Quality books

Quality books

Business process modelling tool products (6th edition)

Cory, T. and Quinn, P. SODAN, 2002 £345.00 (UK)

Explains business process redesign, looks at business technology available (hardware, software, patterns of usage, knowledge management, Intranets and the Internet), describes the e-business revolution with its attendant processes and their need for managing those processes, and looks at the software that can model such processes. Devotes almost 180 pages to actual business process modeling tools products and suppliers, including analyses of the products themselves – the nitty-gritty stuff – with diagrams to help explain some of them. Concludes with a glossary ranging from ABC (activity-based costing) to XML (extensible mark-up language). Greatly reduces the risk of buying the wrong product.

Quality software project management

Futrell, R.T., Shafer, D.F. and Shafer, L.I. Prentice-Hall 2002 $59.00 (USA)

Endeavors to combine the bodies of knowledge of software engineering, software quality engineering and project management, to overcome the limitations of these knowledge areas as separate entities. Addresses the full range of quality issues related to software project management from process overview, through validation and verification and post-performance analysis. Includes discussions of selecting software development life cycles, defining the goal and scope of the software project, identifying the tasks and activities, estimating software size and reuse, considering dependencies, and scheduling the work, plus requirements, project risks, reliability, software metrics, project tracking and control, and continuous process improvement. Provides illustrated, real-world examples of business plans, risk analyses, project plans, test plans, templates and glossaries. Contains helpful resources that address the proper methods for nearly every conceivable task or step in a successful software development initiative. Deserves to be one of the key foundations in every software professional's personal or organization library.

Design for Six Sigma: the revolutionary process for achieving extraordinary profits

Chowdhury, S. Dearborn Trade Publishing 2002 $25.00 (USA)

Defines six sigma as a high-performance, data driven approach to analyzing the root causes of business problems and solving them, that ties the outputs of a business directly to requirements of the marketplace. Explains "a revolutionary five-step process in accessible language for managers and practitioners across all functions" for achieving the near-perfect rate of only 3.4 defects per million in today's ultra-competitive business world. Highlights the value in designing products and processes right the first time. Targets anyone who wants to serve customers effectively through understanding the true voice of the customer.

A selection of interesting Web sites

The Wise Marketer

www.thewisemarketer.com

Aims to provide marketing professionals with news, analysis, original research and resources to keep them ahead of the game. Site membership is required for access to the entire site but this is free and also entitles visitors to receive a free weekly e-mail marketing news update. Feature articles, either written in-house or by respected contributors, are regularly added to the site and typically contain analysis of recent industry developments, new metrics and results of surveys. All articles are complemented by links to relevant Web sites, and keyword searching can retrieve any number of relevant articles from the site's archives.

The Quality Portal

www.thequalityportal.com

A multilingual portal, offers visitors information on manufacturing, service and software quality. Intended as a quick guide to resources for quality professionals, delivers focused search results by providing quality professionals with pointers to useful tools, data and services. In topics in brief, includes brief introductions to or overviews of several commonly used quality processes – a sensible way to ensure that everyone is "reading from the same page" in sharing common definitions of these processes. The remainder of the site is devoted to Web resources under categories that range from buyers' guides, through links to the wider world of business to an extensive list of publications and articles for further research.

American Society for Training and Development (ASTD)

www.astd.com

ASTD is the professional association and a leading resource in the USA on workplace learning and performance issues. Their Web site offers news, research, analysis and practical information derived from its own research and its professional network to support organizations of all sizes in developing a high-performance culture. To this end, the Web site includes a wide range of topics that include: data on training expenditures, intellectual capital, linking training and performance and what constitutes a high-performance workplace. While there are benefits for paid up members of the site, casual visitors still have access to excellent resources presented under specific topics, or "learning communities".

Frost and Sullivan

www.frost.com

Frost has developed a reputation as a world leader in industry growth consulting. Back in the 1960s, the company pioneered market consulting, the monitoring of new technologies, tracking changes in distribution channels, forecasting market trends, and performing strategic analysis of competitors. Today's customers can now buy growth consulting to create strategic programs, market consulting for tailored research, annual interactive subscriptions services, or individual research reports. The casual visitor to this site is also well rewarded. Take the time to register and take advantage of industry research assembled by market, region or portal. Alternatively, browse the well-stocked research database for papers and market insight.

Juran Institute

www.juran.com

The Juran Institute provides a wide range of training, consulting services and products developed to improve an organization's business performance by focusing on improving and re-engineering the quality of goods, services, and processes. These days, quality management is nothing new but it is worth remembering that it is not restricted to manufacturing but has a home in marketing, sales, human resource and finance functions too. Consulting services available at the site draw on six sigma, in addition to other well-respected methodologies for quality management results. Free resources at the site are abundant and include a wealth of current articles plus many of the Juran classics.

The Business Research Lab

www.busreslab.com/default.htm

Want to know what your employees really think about the company? This site offers clients a range of customized market research services designed to assist with performance management. Employee-related surveys cover such areas as satisfaction, ethics, productivity, diversity, culture and health and safety. If you are not in the market for employee surveys, offers other free online services that may appeal, such as what constitutes a "bad" human resources policy. (You may think this would be obvious but you would be surprised how easy it is to slip up.) If you are looking for remedial action for flagging morale and performance that is below par, check out how some clients with high employee satisfaction scores have achieved their results.

Kae:marketing intelligence

www.kae.co.uk/index.cfm

Kae invites visitors to take up its offer of marketing consulting services in marketing strategy development, marketing evaluation and forecasting, product development and competitor evaluation and benchmarking. To drive its message home, Kae leaves it to client case studies in each of its service offerings to speak for themselves rather than use a hard sell approach to tout for business. The Web site is fresh and enticing because of this approach. The case studies are so remarkably generous with the amount of information they reveal about the situations in which their clients found themselves that visitors may easily be able to put themselves into their shoes. The case studies are supplemented by a discriminating collection of articles relating to marketing strategy. Be warned that some of the downloadable "PDFs" are actually Powerpoint files.

Datawarehousing Online

www.datawarehousingonline.com

Targeting participants in e-businesses, offers a broad spectrum of intelligence on the state of technology, market trends, business benefits, news and views on data warehousing, business intelligence and business performance management. Success stories pepper the site and visitors have the capacity to search for the most relevant ones through their own keyword search. Visitors may also sign up to receive a free e-mail business intelligence newsletter. Resource-heavy sections include data mining, data quality and integration, and balanced scorecard. Offers white papers and journal articles by industry analysts, and includes an impressive list of related Web sites.

Asia Pacific Management Forum

www.apmforum.com

The Asia Pacific Management Forum (APM) acts as a portal to news, commentaries, reviews, resources and articles that report on the role played by Asian-Pacific nations in the global economy. From its home page, APM points to several key resources at this site, alone. A great place to start is the Asia Business Strategy and Street Intelligence e-zine. From there, visitors may browse business strategy news, valuable advice on conducting business in Asia, market research trends and regional commentaries from regular columnists. The Asian Business News Portal is the other major attraction, with its links to articles and news from leading business publishers.