Module 1	Module 2	Module 3	Module 4	Quality Library

Module 5: Organizational Improvement and Quality Policy Deployment

OBJECTIVE:    To to discuss management strategies needed to assure the success of the organization by viewing the organization as a system and understanding quality policy deployment.

Note: Here are three cases to ponder:

1. There are many managers who do a great job in their own area of responsibility, who may even make a profit, but unbeknownst to them, have contributed to the demise of their company.
2. A consulting firm is hired to create a strategic plan for the organization. One year later, the plan has not produced the desired results and the consulting firm blames the organization for not implementing the plan as written.
3. The Director of Quality is asked to provide the organization with a "quality plan" that is separate from the strategic plan for the organization. A plan is submitted, but not much happens.The leaders decide that this person and this quality stuff is not very useful and decide to eliminate the position.

All these situations could have been prevented had the leaders thought of their organization as a system.In the Quality Library for Module 5, you will find a tutorial that has been used by many senior leaders to create their improvement plan. Review these materials and think about an organization for which you once worked or are working for now. Your final assignment should use these materials as the overarching framework.

There are a myriad of books and seminars devoted to leaders' role in quality improvement, and yet we are not seeing many success stories. I would encourage you to review the companies that have received the Baldrige Award as well as the criteria for winning this award. This information can be found on the Internet. (The best site I found was The National Quality Award). Again, in your final assignment, bring in the components of the Baldrige Award criteria.

Quality Policy Deployment:

Once an organization has decided on its business strategies, then its priorities for improvement, communication of the vision, mission, and marching orders need to be orchestrated in such a way that everyone in the organization knows how he or she fits in the big picture and what his or her role is. This has traditionally been done poorly in most organizations. Employees do not have a clear sense of what is happening, and so constantly feel like management is getting ready to "pull a fast one" on them. Morale suffers terribly in these situations.

Please read in the Quality Library and the following articles in your course reader:

• Harrar, G. (January 1993). The sweet sound of unison. Enterprise, 20-29.
• Simons, R., and Davila, A. (January/February 1998). How high is your return on management? Harvard Business Review, pp. 71-80.
• Garvin, D. (July/August 1993). Building a learning organization. Harvard Business Review, pp. 78-91.

Benchmarking:

There are many organizations that believe that benchmarking is essential for the organization to succeed. I have an opinion about benchmarking that I will put forth for you to consider. Benchmarking works if companies already know their processes before they go looking for benchmarking partners. They have flowcharts AND data, know exactly how their data were collected as well as the data from the benchmarking partner. If they only compare results, that is an invitation for mischief. Remember the process, the people issues, the environment, etc. that contribute to the outcomes. However, benchmarking should let you see where the "best of the best" are and why you had better improve if your competition is ahead of you. The following articles are meant to stimulate your thinking, but I suggest you explore other authorities on the subject.

• Bemowski, K. (January 1991). The Benchmarking bandwagon. Quality Progress, pp. 19-23.
• DeToro, I. (January 1995). The 10 pitfalls of benchmarking. Quality Progress, pp. 61-63.

Final Assignment:

Write a critical analysis of the case presented in Stayer's article, "How I let my workers lead".

A critical analysis is not a book report. Do not summarize the article: I've already read it! Rather, a critical analysis means you should have lots of sentences that start with: "I think...," "I disagree with...," "He should have done...," "Stayer instituted fear according to McBean...," etc.This analysis should contain materials, with appropriate citations, (Joiner states that.....) from all the modules and articles of this course.

Your analysis should demonstrate your understanding of the materials in this course. IT SHOULD CONTAIN APPROPRIATE CITATIONS FROM ALL MODULES AND ARTICLES OF THIS COURSE ! The paper should be about 12-15 pages (double spaced) and will indicate your overall understanding of quality improvement. This paper will carry the most weight in the course.

You have two choices for the framework for your paper,

(1) "The Organization as a System" in the Quality Library. If you select this framework, follow the ten steps in this model of analyze the article. For example, the output of Johnsonville Sausage would include not only sausage, but other products as well. Customers and customer knowledge includes how people fit in the picture, i.e., the employees of the sausage company.

(2) "Baldridge Criteria" (Web site on National Quality Award). Review the seven categories (Leadership, Strategic Planning, Customer and market focus, etc.) and analyze the article from these categories. Production should cause you to think about the process, based on your work in Module 2.

One last favor. I am very interested in improving this course. Therefore I would appreciate your comments on the content of this course, instructor support, and any other items you feel could be improved upon in this course.