Business Process 'quality' Management
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William Edwards Deming focused his entire career on the improvement of ‘quality’. Mr. Deming believed 85% of faults and issues reside with systems, processes, infrastructure, and the management practices utilized within an organization, with only 15% being associated with a lack of workforce skill and/or execution.
"A bad system will beat a good person every time." W. Edwards Deming
Every business has an ecosystem of capabilities that work together to fulfill the Mission of the Enterprise, through the results provided from the sequence and interaction of the enabling business processes that support each capability within the ecosystem. People make that happen.
Directors and/or Managers within a VP’s organization are actually the ‘steward owners’ of the business processes within their span of control. The people they lead rely upon the ‘quality’ of the business processes they are required to execute to obtain the results that matter for the business.
- SVP’s are accountable for ensuring the capability to obtain results at an Enterprise level.
- VP’s are accountable for results at an organizational level, from the functional groups they oversee. These people are responsible for the ‘quality’ of their business process infrastructure to obtain the results that truly matter to achieving the goals of the business.
- Directors and/or Managers are accountable for the ‘quality’ of the outcome achieved from the work of their functional group(s), in support of the organization. These leaders are directly responsible for the ‘quality’ of their business process infrastructure to get results.
- People who work within those processes are only responsible to execute that work (“All work is process.” - Deming) in a compliant and efficient manner to obtain effective results.
A ‘quality’ outcome from any business process is not absolutely guaranteed and/or certain. Business leaders must strategically proactively create the infrastructure that is necessary to effectively and efficiently implement, sustain, or improve business process results as a ‘quality’ outcome. The capability to predictably manage ‘quality’ requires a system that can:
Plan the work… Do the work… Check the results… Act to improve the constraint.
Strategically and professionally managing the ‘quality’ of organizational business processes will ensure the predictability of results that ultimately matter for “bottom line” value to the business.
Mr. Deming had done significant work within the Toyota Corporation. Afterwards, Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho famously stated: “We get brilliant results from average people managing brilliant processes, while our competitors get average or worse results from brilliant people who manage broken processes.”
Leaders who are responsible for ‘quality’ and accountable for results can predictably manage their business processes for results that truly matter to the organization utilizing the Predictive Quality Management Plan-Do-Check-Act framework.
