Focused Quality: Managing for Results is a book about using quality improvement as a means to enhance bottom line results. Written for managers in industry, services, healthcare and government, this important new book provides a focused approach on how to target critical improvement initiatives and insure their success.
Prepare - Plan - Deploy - Transition are the steps in the improvement process that are covered in detail. Included are examples of how organizations have successfully accomplished each step. Practical lessons on how to and how not to implement quality and process improvement initiatives are given.
Process assessment is crucial to identifying the importance of a process and defining the scope of what is involved in order to improve it. Before deciding to refine, redesign or reengineer an assessment is needed. Focused Quality: Managing for Results not only shows you how to do an assessment but also how to apply the results to improve the bottom line.
Application is emphasized throughout the book with the focus on the managers role in leading the change effort. The authors have provided a set of questions that management should answer to determine if their organization is ready to effectively implement the improvement process. Realizing that even the best plans can go astray there is also a diagnostic check sheet to pinpoint the causes of and solutions for process improvement failures.
PART I: MANAGING THE VITAL FEW
1 Why Focused Quality Management?
Where TQM Falls Short
The Way It Is
A Maze of Frustration
The Way It Should Be
PART II: FOCUSED QUALITY MANAGEMENT: A FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS
2 Prepare: Laying the Foundation
Organize a Quality Leadership Team
Envision the Organization
Assess the Organization
The Process Assessment
3 Plan: Focusing Process Improvements
4 Deploy: Making Process Improvements Happen
Charter the Improvement Teams
Improve the Process
Test the Improvements
5 Deploy: Making Organizational Improvements Happen
Training: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Reward and Recognition: Credit Where Credit Is Due
Measurement: If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Manage It 100
Communication: The Message Is the Medium 102
In Conclusion 104
6 Transition: Making It Stick
Introduction
Applying Advanced Tools and Techniques
Employee Empowerment
Toward Process Empowerment
Alignment and Reassessment
PART III: LEADING THE CHANGE
7 Leading the Charge
Leadership Commitment and Vision
Individual Resistance and Skills Development
Incentives
Resources
Action Planning
8 Is the Organization Ready?
Does the Organization Have a Vision?
Have the Mission and Values of the Organization Been Developed
and Clearly Communicated?
Has an Organizational Assessment Been Done?
Have Strategic Business Goals Been Identified?
Have the Key Business Processes Been Identified?
How Do Key Business Processes Affect Critical Success Factors?
Have the Capability Gaps Been Identified?
Do Employees Want to Do a Good Job?
Do They Have What They Need to Do So?
Is Quality Rewarded?
Is the Organization Focused?
Is the Organization Ready?
9 When Things Go Wrong
The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of the Parts
Has the Vision Been Communicated?
Do Employees Have All the Skills They Need?
Have People Been Given Incentives to Succeed?
Do People Have Adequate Resources?
Has the Organization Planned for Success?
Are You Focused to Succeed?
APPENDICES
A Quick Quality Survey
B Critical Success Factor/Key Process Matrix
C Evolution of Quality Management
Nineteenth-Century Industrialism
Twentieth-Century Humanism
The Emergence of TQM
INDEX
Biography
Paul Murphy
"This is definitely a book you should read…that is if you want to get bottom-line results."
C. Jack Grayson, Chairman, American Productivity & Quality Center
"This book was written because we have seen a growing-in fact, an alarming number of organizations going down the path to total quality management, only to falter, fail, or worse, start drifting and blame TQM.
In the process we've seen some organizations that have been very successful with TQM and benchmarking. We've seen bottom-line results. And we've seen smiling CEO's and workers.
Something is wrong, terribly wrong...
Upper management either is or is not involved. When upper management doesn't drive the TQM effort, the results are disappointing at best.
That's why I encouraged the authors of this book to write it. They have created a philosophy and concrete methodology for producing results from TQM. And the best way to get quality results is to read this book"
C. Jack Grayson
(FOLLOWING REVIEW ADDED 7/22/98)
"...an excellent resource and a very easy read... The parts that are especially good relate to the empowerment of employees and the new role of middle-level managers in supporting (focused quality management)."
-Canadian Public Administration