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Tactics for Turning Quality Management Systems Lead into Gold

Editor’s note: Enjoy Steven Abrogast’s online presentation: BI in the Context of Business Process Management now available at the current trade show, Aligning the Enterprise. Registration is free at www.dataWarehouse.com/tradeshow.

In February 2003, I published an article for DMReview.com entitled, “What Goes Wrong (and Right) with Quality Management Systems.” That article focused on five of the most common stumbling blocks in the development and maintenance of quality management systems: Turf Battles, Lost Jobs, Losing the Forest for the Trees, Right Church – Wrong Pastor and the Gadfly.

Recent data published this summer in Quality Digest suggests that more companies than expected are proceeding with the upgrade to and certification of their quality management systems under the new ISO 9001:2000 standard. In our consulting with small to large firms, it’s obvious that many of the stumbling blocks that we talked about are in fact utilized by companies to drive their business design and quality management system development as well as their ongoing improvement efforts. Let’s look at each of the stumbling blocks again.

Turf battles have an interesting way of getting people to clearly and openly articulate their roles in the business. Such tugs-of-war also entice people to declare what value they bring to specific processes and to the business overall. This happens as a natural result of their desire to protect what they do and whatever turf they oversee. Turf battles are thus not negative developments, but revealing events that can foster clear analysis and useful documentation.

Not long ago, such a battle occurred within a major computer company. Sales were down, costs up and profits out the window. Something had to give. With layoffs imminent, individuals and teams throughout the organization scrambled to explain their value to the company in writing, via the existing quality management system (QMS). An analysis of the QMS documentation did result in layoffs, but a leaner business resulted. Thanks to the documentation, senior management was able to determine where the greatest redundancy existed and, therefore, where to cut fat. Also thanks to that documentation, they were able to effectively rebuild major departments with fewer personnel. One year later, profitability soared thanks largely to improved operational efficiency.

The fear of Lost Jobs often encourages people to more actively seek opportunity within their company. For example, one company recently discovered significant redundancy throughout their organization which was estimated at 120 excess jobs, a full 25 percent of the headcount. This estimation resulted from a newly implemented quality management system. Top management refused to lay people off. Instead, they bolstered cross-training, better management of the quality control and assurance functions, and improved tool inspections. They put the extra people to work in areas that traditionally got minimal support, resulting in dramatically improved quality control across their entire product line. Customer satisfaction has consequently gone up.

Losing the Forest for the Trees occurs to some degree in every organization for any number of reasons. Perhaps the most prevalent cause is myopia, or lack of perspective. When there aren’t enough views and perspectives considered in the design of a business, the quality management system falters, invariably leading to problems in the business itself. Management and staff take the myopic view that they own their little piece of the business, while failing to appreciate their interdependency with every other department. By contrast, when people maintain proper perspective by considering themselves temporary stewards of their processes, and when they consider and appreciate the critical relationships to other organizational units, they make their part of the total picture more important by improving the business overall.

While working with a firm that specialized in business process engineering a while back, I encountered an executive who was decidedly bull-headed. He was not open to input from his team or his peers about how to engineer or reengineer business processes. He went so far as to tell the entire staff in a meeting one day that they simply didn’t understand the complexities of the situation. He micromanaged the entire project by telling everyone how specific processes needed to be designed. He was also opposed to integration of the overall enterprise. Rather, he wanted complete control of all process reengineering throughout the organization. He was essentially managing a process fiefdom. Before long, he was demoted and transferred because he and his team were not meeting the expectations of the whole organization.

Regarding the stumbling block called Right Church – Wrong Pastor, let’s continue to discuss our friend who was forced to find a new job. His behavior was that of the classic know-it-all. He believed that he not only knew how to do his job best, but that he also knew how to do all of the other jobs best as well. Obviously, no one knows everything. What’s more, this type of know-it-all attitude tends to be highly offensive, not at all conducive for building partnerships and fostering a team spirit. The Right Church – Wrong Pastor categorization applies because it deals with the phenomenon of presuming that because someone is good at one process, they are necessarily good at related processes. While our friend did know a thing or two about process engineering, he clearly did not know everything, and his overbearing attitude coupled with his lack of nuts-and-bolts knowledge ultimately resulted in his departure.

Just imagine how powerful that process engineering executive could have been had he been open to ideas, had he engaged his staff and peers, instead of turning everyone against him. His area of responsibility – process engineering – could have taken the lead in pulling together the whole enterprise business model. As it was, that team ended up being more reactive than proactive. When barriers are eliminated, everyone wins: the individual team members and the overall business. The key is to let everyone play to their strengths.

Ah, that infamous Gadfly! We all know a few gadflies. Most of us avoid them for a variety of reasons: they’re annoying, they eat up time and energy, and sometimes they actually reveal something that embarrasses us or makes us do more work. This third instance is when a gadfly’s complaints can offer real value. Consider this example: a large hospital in the Northeast implemented a quality management system in an effort to boost profits and customer satisfaction. One particular assistant was rather outspoken in the process. She complained about how she always had to enter certain customer data twice. Turns out, she was onto something: one of the larger departments still had its own proprietary database that had not been integrated with the main billing system. Consequently, certain data did need to be manually entered twice, resulting in lost time and an unhappy administrative assistant. Ultimately, the databases were integrated and the redundancy was resolved.

A comprehensive business design and management system makes life better for everyone because inefficiencies are removed, quality problems are alleviated, operations become more efficient and greater profitability results. What’s more, personnel can focus their time more effectively, leading to more productive and happier employees. Poorly designed business models and management systems cause excess costs and poor customer and supplier experiences. When this happens, the business, its customers and suppliers lose.

An effective quality management system is more than a long-term process – it’s an infinite process. When you approach the QMS as only something required to be ISO-certified or you give in to the short-term needs, your company's long-term health will suffer. Stay the course, keep everyone involved, and your business will thrive.


With more than 38 years of experience in managing both business and IT environments, Steven Arbogast specializes in defining, mapping, integrating and changing corporate processes. A veteran of enterprise architecture design and maintenance, he understands both the technical and organizational components necessary for effective business change management. An internationally published author and presenter, Arbogast spent his first 31 years with IBM. In 1999, Arbogast formed Advanced Enterprise Services (www.advent-services.com), a professional services business focused on overall business change management. In 2001, he also assumed the role of president for enterprise software vendor QualiWare, Inc., a subsidiary of Denmark-based QualiWare APS, where he worked through 2005. Arbogast still provides management services to Qualiware (www.qualiware.com), while also providing professional services to a variety of businesses.

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