Member of ASQ for14 years
Most recent/current job title:
Member of Technical Staff at Lucent Technologies
Current occupation:
Software Quality Engineer
Certifications held:
CQE, CQA, CRE, CQMgr, CSQE
What do you see in the future for the Quality profession?
When you look in the past at when the quality became important, I like pointing to Japan after World War II and America in the mid-80s. Quality became important not when things were going well, but when companies, organizations, and countries were not doing too well. With the current economic situation, while not bleak, it’s not too good either. Thus, I’m hopeful for another resurgence in quality for the next few years.
What qualifications do you see as necessary in the new job market?
A quality professional has to have knowledge and skills in many different areas. Quality is really a multi-disciplined profession requiring an understanding in operations/process management, statistics, systems thinking & measurements (the "hard stuff") as well as organizational behavior, facilitation & leadership (the "soft stuff").