QUEST®
Quality: Through the Eyes of the Customer (4 hours)
When an organization begins a quality initiative, it must make sure employees know what quality is and what they can do to make it a reality. This unit communicates the quality concept and raises employees’ awareness of quality by focusing on products and services from the customer’s perspective. Participants learn the difference between the “good” and “bad” costs of quality and explore the need to develop systems that help them exceed customer expectations.
Quality: The Individual’s Role (4 hours)
This unit introduces employees to their role in supporting quality and to the value of meeting or exceeding customer needs. Participants learn skills for building partnerships with customers, focusing on work processes, and solving problems.
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Quality: The Leadership Role (4 hours)
This unit covers the key aspects of the manager’s role in quality: focusing employees; building commitment; and sustaining momentum. Participants explore key strategies for moving steadfastly toward greater “quality” leadership.
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Focusing Your Team on Quality (4 hours)
This unit addresses how managers can deliver the quality message to the teams that work for them and suggests ways to reassure employees and communicate what quality means to them.
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Building Individual Commitment to Quality (4 hours)
Managers learn practical skills they can use to overcome the obstacles that prevent people from devoting their energy to a quality effort. They explore how to work with employees to clear away stumbling blocks and resolve conflicts between customer needs and organizational requirements.
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Sustaining Momentum for Continuous Improvement (4 hours)
Managers examine the obstacles that often cause employees to lose sight of their goals and their commitments. Participants learn how to keep quality improvement moving forward by reinforcing their employees’ efforts to identify and implement quality improvement.
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Clarifying Customer Expectations (4 hours)
Quality improvement begins and ends with the customer, whether internal or external. Managers and employees learn how to uncover customer expectations, create partnerships with customers, and devise plans to meet customer needs without compromising organizational requirements or resources.
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Resolving Customer Dissatisfaction (4 hours)
Participants learn practical skills for working with customers (internal or external) and to meet their expectations. Participants learn ways to defuse the customer’s annoyance and to refocus the interaction toward successful resolution of the problem.
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Solving Quality Problems (4 hours)
This four-step problem-solving process uses a clear set of guidelines that help participants analyze problems and seek solutions. Participants learn how to avoid two major pitfalls of quality improvement teams: being derailed in the problem-solving process and jumping to the wrong solution. They explore the value of creating specific action plans and following up to keep plans on track.
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Tools and Techniques for Solving Quality Problems (4 hours)
Participants learn how to use measurement tools and techniques to solve problems and improve work processes. They explore 24 practical ways to analyze data, build creative solutions in individual team settings, and expand their thinking to get past roadblocks.
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Participating in Quality Problem-Solving Sessions (4 hours)
This unit shows participants how to contribute ideas and encourage others to do the same. Participants learn the value of achieving better solutions through cooperative action and of taking initiative in problem-solving sessions in order to make a difference in improvement.
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Leading Quality Problem-Solving Sessions (4 hours)
Participants learn why the leader must simultaneously focus on the process of the session and the content of the problem, and they find out how to manage the flow of both.
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Analyzing Work Processes: Finding Opportunities for Improvement (4 hours)
These step-by-step methods show participants how to analyze an organization’s work processes and uncover opportunities to eliminate complexity and waste, thereby adding value, and meeting customer expectations. The unit asks participants to take a ‘systems’ view of work and to take responsibility for the quality improvement process.
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