Concept definition Case Study 7: Descriptive practice-oriented research
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a best practice regarding company standards development is that there is a clear organizational framework for standards
development and that top management participates in this framework e.g. in a steering group;
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a best practice regarding company standard distribution is that a “why document” is attached to each company standard
to provide the underpinning of the most important choices decisions that were made during standards development.
In order to give an idea of how we developed such statements, we describe here how we arrived at the last mentioned best practice state-
ment. One of the interviewees mentioned the example of a standard for durability of piping materials related to corrosion. Because a pipeline
in a desert may be less susceptible to corrosion, applying the standard for such a pipeline may lead to an unnecessarily costly design. If there is
a “why document” attached to the standard, in which it is explained that a specific treatment is standard and has to be applied in order to pre-
vent corrosion, this might enable the standard user to decide not to fol- low the standard in specific conditions such as producing pipes for use
in a desert. After having formulated this element of best practice, we were able to also find some support for it in the literature see Brown
and Duguid, 1991: 45.
We applied the criteria we had developed in this way to the practices that we had found in the six companies and chose from these practices
those that met these criteria. The result of this procedure was a compre- hensive description of a best practice consisting of different elements
from each of the six companies. Here we cannot present the entire best practice, as it is a detailed document of 42 pages Oly and Slob, 1999;
summarized in De Vries, 2006. For some criteria, we did not find the best practice in any of the companies but only in the literature, or it was
the result of our own brainstorm only. An example of the latter, a criter- ion that was our own invention, is a best practice for publishing of com-
pany standards. Each of the six companies published standards on paper, some of them also on microfilm, and one of the companies on
CD-ROM. We, however, considered publishing on the Intranet to be a best practice. At the time of our research 1999, the publication of
company procedures in general on an Intranet, which is now very common, was not a standard practice in these six companies.
After we had generated our proposal for a best practice for company standard development, we then wanted to assess for each part of this
best practice the extent to which it was acceptable to practitioners. This was done by presenting the findings to the companies and asking them
for feedback. Following the example of Chiesa et al. 1996, we made a scorecard per process for each company on which each element of our
proposed best practice could be scored on a scale from 1 currently not at all to 5 currently very much so. If we take the example of our pro-
posal to consider the “why document” as a best practice, the score for a company that currently attaches a “why document” to each of its stand-
ards is 5. The score for a company that never does it is 0. In case the “why document” is attached only to a limited number of important stan-
dards, the score might be 2. We asked each standardization manager to make scores for his company and the researchers themselves also made
scores per company. The score per characteristic per company was the average of these two scores. In case of a difference of more than one
point between our and the company’s scores, we contacted the stand- ardization manager. Did he disagree with the best practice itself or was
the difference in scores due to a difference in perceived quality of the company’s current practice? It turned out that there were no significant
differences in opinion concerning the best practice, which was a first confirmation for us that our proposal was a good one.
Next, we compiled the resulting scores from the different companies though anonymously in tables and a mean score was computed. These
figures were presented in tables, the most interesting ones also in graphs. This was done per process. For every process the companies were ordered
differently, so the companies could not recognize which score belonged to which other company see Figure 11.3 for an example. Figure 11.3
shows seven sets of three bars. The first six sets represent the scores of the six different companies on the three criteria for the standard develop-
ment process as formulated by us in our proposal for a best practice. The seventh set represents the mean scores on these criteria.
1 2
3 4
5
Mean Involvement of 1 demanding party
2 end-users3 suppliers or contractors in the development process
1. 2.
3.
Figure 11.3 Example of a
scorecard graph representing scores
for three criteria for the company
standard development
process
By comparing their own score with the best practice and with the other companies, it was possible for the participating companies to identify the
gaps between their current practice and our proposal for a best practice, to think about reasons for this gap, and to decide on focus and improve-
ment points for their future policy on company standardization. Moreover, besides an overall research report for all companies, a small
report per company was made with a description of their actual company standardization and the focus points for them to work towards best prac-
tice. No company scored high or low on most of the characteristics. There was quite a diversity per characteristic but in each company low scores in
some characteristics could be balanced against high scores in other points, and each of them had average scores on some characteristics as
well, so there was no distinction between “good” and “bad” companies.
In five of the six companies, we organized a focus group. This group consisted of 15–20 people: the standardization manager, one or more
technical managers, technical experts, and, in most cases, some other people involved in one or more of the processes: standards officers and
standards users. The focus group meeting took 2–3 hours. In the first hour, the project and the main findings were presented. Then we dis-
cussed how the relative scores of the company as compared with the best practice and with the other companies should be interpreted.
Such interpretations could either involve challenging the best practice or diagnosing reasons for less-than-best practices in the own company
or both. Some comments on details of the best practice were made. For instance, the above-mentioned “why document” was recognized to be
best practice in all companies, including the ones that did not include one in their current procedures, but still some companies doubted
whether the costs of writing it in all cases would outweigh the benefits. However, in general, all best practice characteristics were assessed by
each of the five focus groups as real best practice, so the best practice model passed the test with flying colours.
In addition to the focus group meetings, the results were presented to the Steering group and to the Dutch Academic Network of
Researchers in Standardization and Certification. Both practitioners and scientists confirmed the main findings without having the time in
a 2 hour meeting to discuss all best practice details.