A Combination of TQM & HPT

Total Quality Management & Human Performance Technology. In 1993 my two business partners at SWI (Svenson & Wallace Inc.) embarked on a book writing exercise to present our approach to Performance Improvement.

As we were all full-time consultants we hired a ghost writer to meet with us and draft our book. In the end we decided to credit Bruce Wexler – as – honesty is the best policy. It did take 2 attempts with Bruce3 – the 2nd being a total rewrite – as we were not happy that the 1st version of the book wouldn’t provide enough detail for guidance of readers in trying some of it/ all of it themselves. It was more of a marketing tease – and that’s not how we rolled.

I had been attempting to merge HPT with TQM since discovering TQM while an employee at Motorola in 1981. I wrote a White Paper about my thoughts in 1982 about 6 months before I left to join Ray Svenson and his 3-person consulting firm – which included my former wife – as Bill Wiggenhorn had recommended to Ray that he hire her.

By 1993 we had a staff numbering between 15 and 25. Ray and my former wife Karen did the Strategic Planning for T&D work and the HPT (Improvement beyond Instruction) while I ran the ISD Practice area. Back in 1982 as I took over and grew the ISD Practice area of R. A. Svenson & Associates, I standardized our ISD methods so that I and my staff, and my subcontractors, could divide-and-conquer large projects and work in parallel instead of in series.

And as I developed those methods beginning in the early 1980s I was cognizant of my desire to eventually have an integrated set of models, methods, tools, and techniques of both ISD and HPT (and TQM). For example I started using the Ishikawa Diagram in the early 1980s to tease out Instructional Content from Subject Matter Experts/ Master Performers to share more than just the obvious, observable Tasks – but to include what to think about and look for in other aspects of the Performance Context.

By 1993 I had adapted that model/tool to this version:

Now it looks like this:

And that fits in a 3 Tier View of EPPI – Enterprise Process Performance Improvement that I have been using in my consulting engagements for decades now. And writing about in the Quarterly Newsletters and in Conference Presentations since the mid 1980s as well.

Here is a short video about this:

Currently I have my 16th book out for review with a team of volunteers. Before I had started on that book, I had started another, which I will pick-up again soon, and it become book #17:

Meanwhile, of the two prior books, the one from 1994 is out of print and available in the used book marketplace, and the version from 2011 is available as a Kindle and Paperback – here.

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