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At my company we have decided to implement a continuous quality improvement plan, which basically means every year for at least one month we focus on the big pi

by tjmaxal 16y ago

At my company we have decided to implement a continuous quality improvement plan, which basically means every year for at least one month we focus on the big picture for each operational group we have. It's a bit like painting the golden gate bridge, by the time you have finished in one direction it's time to start over again in the other direction.

MPSimmons 16y ago
That's a cool idea. My company has significantly fewer groups, I suspect, but I like the idea of not just touching on a problem, but really being able to dig in and fix things.
allenp 16y ago
Do you think you could flesh this out a little more or link to some good examples of what this looks like in practice?
- tjmaxal 16y ago
  Sure, basically c suite gets together with department heads once every two weeks with a focus on an individual departments current challenges,growth issues, long term issues, etc. The meeting at the first of the month is to outline and identify what needs to change. The second meeting of the month is to discuss how to implement/how implementation is going for the changes we outlined as necessary in the first meeting. In practice this means every department gets it's long term issues discussed at least once a quarter. This is in addition to weekly dept meetings that update c suite on current issues. We are a medium sized organization just on the cusp of being to big to handle this kind of structure with only a small group of people. I would imagine a lot of this kind of structured focus could be handled with a smaller number of people involved if your company was smaller. Also this seems to occur pretty naturally at many start ups which are very conscious of their planned growth.
- khafra 16y ago
  If you'd like theoretical underpinnings for it in addition to the example, it sounds a lot like the "continual service improvement" step of the ITIL v3 framework--which is an open standard (http://www.itilversion3.com/final/itil_v3_continual_service_improvement_design_guidelines.pdf http://www.itilversion3.com/final/itil_v3_continual_service_...). I can't really say whether it's MBA wankery or useful business process, though.

by tjmaxal 16y ago

MPSimmons 16y ago

That's a cool idea. My company has significantly fewer groups, I suspect, but I like the idea of not just touching on a problem, but really being able to dig in and fix things.

allenp 16y ago

Do you think you could flesh this out a little more or link to some good examples of what this looks like in practice?

tjmaxal 16y ago
Sure, basically c suite gets together with department heads once every two weeks with a focus on an individual departments current challenges,growth issues, long term issues, etc. The meeting at the first of the month is to outline and identify what needs to change. The second meeting of the month is to discuss how to implement/how implementation is going for the changes we outlined as necessary in the first meeting. In practice this means every department gets it's long term issues discussed at least once a quarter. This is in addition to weekly dept meetings that update c suite on current issues. We are a medium sized organization just on the cusp of being to big to handle this kind of structure with only a small group of people. I would imagine a lot of this kind of structured focus could be handled with a smaller number of people involved if your company was smaller. Also this seems to occur pretty naturally at many start ups which are very conscious of their planned growth.
khafra 16y ago
If you'd like theoretical underpinnings for it in addition to the example, it sounds a lot like the "continual service improvement" step of the ITIL v3 framework--which is an open standard (http://www.itilversion3.com/final/itil_v3_continual_service_improvement_design_guidelines.pdf http://www.itilversion3.com/final/itil_v3_continual_service_...). I can't really say whether it's MBA wankery or useful business process, though.