While this exciting nine-part series is in production for publication, I thought I’d give a unique tickler to a new dashboard I wrote for a consulting opportunity out of Charlotte, North Carolina.
The real backbone of quality programs has a diverse team tackling wicked problems. It’s more intricate than plugging a leaking levee, oiling the most squeaky wheel, or jumping to attempt knee-jerk patches. Quality is an ongoing mindset and mechanism of higher-level cyclical activity targeting rocks in the corporate shoe; it requires a team to deploy a structure that will organize people or things to be used for a particular purpose as well as improve operations of an organization.
Before anyone is engaged to make changes, the team needs to consider its corporate culture because it influences available internal resources as well as gaps and any work-arounds to get the job done. In fact, it’s smarter to have a more efficient operation and that’s what quality programs create: a better solution for internal and external customers.
Frequently, buzzwords are used and without proper understanding, the team can run off the rails because they use their own definitions around the activity, which should all be centered on a simple application and adapting features to create relentless improvement. In this case, the buzzword used for this would be disruptive innovation as the quality program takes a product, makes it better, increases demand by customers, and this causes growth.
Once any physical barriers or ideological hurdles are identified, a quality program uses two phases to find opportunities to improve:
Preparation The activities centered on “getting rid of rocks” through either natural problem identification (the old school water cooler complaints or the new school text messages) or blinded problem identification (allowing anonymous pointing of fingers to protect the identifier of a pet project or dumb idea from blame) contribute to the preparation phase, which has three stages to address the hard topics.
- Strategy The framework of deployment and discovering the “why are we doing this” by using assessment techniques to identify the areas with the highest potential for improvement.
- Program The targeted plan and steps for change by selecting the right methodology that fits your company’s needs in both upstream (such as perceptions, creative or innovation team idea generation, training opportunities) and downstream (which could be advertising, manufacturing line changes, order software).
- Project The actionable and manageable units to improvement, knowing that these may be small ideas or big changes, but they will reach across multiple departments as well as identifying what improvement you anticipate as you enter the next phase.
Management It’s easiest to start by saying the second phase of management is not a trigger-pulling directive style, but the collective administration of an activity. It is the review of interrelated facets of an organization (in this case as parts of the quality program) to see an improvement in resource utilization by using three additional phases to achieve successful outcomes.
- Leadership More important than picking someone with the biggest title on the highest rung of the ladder, experience is the most valued commodity, and provides the key stakeholder requirement for supporting these changes. Leadership includes selecting the right participants from all areas of the company as well as opening doors or removing ideological obstacles.
- Process Focusing on improvements, this phase looks at the entire supply chain that touches the facets to be modified. The nitty-gritty is where the quality team disintegrates the rock into dust by using innovation, cyclical review during ongoing championing of new solutions in a series of actions to improve the identified process.
- Measurement The only way to know if you’ve reached the goals of the quality program is not by finishing the process phase, but by evaluating every intention of this quality program with links why an action was taken. Setting the right metrics reminds the team that improving experiences of internal staff and external customers is the keystone of an effective quality program.
People like solving problems; it’s in our nature. Knowing why we are solving a problem and how that solution “came to be” makes it all the more interesting to look at the results. We can produce answers to wicked problems vaguely touched by those knee-jerk directives and bring long-term solutions for sustainable improvements.
Stay tuned for the links to the detailed information, including “how to” pieces as well as case studies!
Heather M. Hilliard is Principal and Chief Strategist for R. Roan Enterprises, LLC, a professional services consulting firm supporting businesses in pointed areas of expertise as well as with individuals for targeted projects or career development. For more articles like these, visit her posts on LinkedIn or G+.
#seizetheday, #makeithappen
