The Catalyst Perspectives Group
Process Quality and Performance: Information as the Catalyst
Do you know...
A. Who are your customers?
B. What are your customers’ needs and expectations?
C. What are the characteristics of your products & services?
D. What are the gaps between customer needs and your products & services?
E. What are process errors that impact the quality of products & services?
F. What process inefficiencies impact your costs?
G. Benchmark other processes (is your process efficient)?
H. Benchmark of comparable products & services (are your products preferred)?
How do you spell effective measures?
Meaningful...
The measure must tell you something about product or process quality. How big is the gap between what you are providing and what your customer expects? How effectively is the process working?
Easy to collect...
The information must be worth the effort. Don't add excess overhead just to gain knowledge. Look for measures and information that is already part of the process that can tell you what you need to know. If it's hard to collect, collect it only when it's really needed.
Actionable...
Use measures that can guide your actions or tell you no actions are needed. If the information doesn't change your actions...you don't need it so why collect it?
Satisfaction related...
To be effective, any measure you collect must tell you something about how well you are satisfying the customer...the gap between your output and their expectations; the difference between your cost to deliver the output and what the customer accepts as adding value.
Understandable...
Everyone should understand why the measure is being used to reflect the quality of your output and the effectiveness of the process. The customer should realize how well your product meets their expectations when they consider the value of the measures being used. The employee executing the process should understand what the measure says about their performance. Management and other stake-holders can use the measures to see how well the organization is operating.
Reliable...
The method of determining the measure must be accurate and reliable. The measure must be a consistent assessment of the attribute being considered.
Electronic...
Fagetabout writing the measurement on the back of an envelope. Develop and use measures in electronic formats that are easily accessible, amenable to analysis and provide both immediate and longitudinal knowledge.
Systematic...
Establish and use measures as follows:
- Identify what you need to know to take actions
- Identify specifically what and how to measure what you need to know
- Take the measurements you need for as long as you need them
- Analyze and plan actions based on the measures collected
- Take actions to make improvements
- Verify if the actions produced the expected changes and return to step 1.
So, how effective are your measures?
Do you know what you need to know to know how well you are doing and what you need to change so you can improve? If you don't know...we can help you find out.