Quality Improvement Teams: Do's and Don't's
                                by Tom Glenn

     (Notes for presentation at the ASPA/PCMI Conference, July 1992)

     Why do some quality improvement teams succeed brilliantly
while others flop? 

     One agency I worked with had more that 100 quality improve-
ment teams during the first year and a half of its quality
journey. 

      One team saved $2.5 million by reducing the penalties the
     agency was paying for late payment of bills. 

      Another cut in half the time it takes to install computer
     terminals.

      Another saved 6,000 manhours by automating the visuals in
     the agency's many conference rooms. 

      Yet another reduced the time it takes to process incoming
     shipments from 10 days to three days, reduced the number of
     people doing this work by 19 percent, and saved 13,000 hours
     of overtime. 

      Still another one reduced the average time it takes to get
     correspondence out of the plans and programs organization
     from 13 days to one day. 

     On the other hand, another team spun its wheels for thirteen
weeks and then was dissolved, having achieved nothing.

     What's the difference? The agency studied the teams that
were successful and those that weren't and in the process came up
with rules they now apply throughout the agency when a team is
formed. What the agency found is that for teams to be successful,
they need to:

      Consist of five to eight people (can be more but is less
     effective)

Fewer than five: tendency to pair. More then eight: too hard to
reach consensus.

      Be cross-functional

In the beginning (where we are), the biggest quality problems are
between organizations rather than internal to a single organiza-
tion: Sam tends to throw his finished work over the wall to
Harry, thinking to himself it's now Harry's problem.  We need to
bring Sam and Harry together to solve their mutual quality
problems.

      Be made up of the people who do the work in the process

Not the managers, the planners, the experts, the system design-
ers, or the trouble-shooters: the people who do the work.  They
know it best.

      Know their boundaries

Examples of boundaries: no more money, no more people, no more
space, but you can change the operating rules: we made 'em, we
can change 'em.

      Be trained at least in:

           Total Quality Management principles and practices
          (awareness)
           Interpersonal dynamics (teamwork)
           Problem solving methodology and statistical tools

Failure to train the team in these minimum skills invites the
team to fail!

Awareness and tools, obvious, but why team work? Japanese aren't
trained in team work. Different culture. Almost 23 times as many
lawyers per capita. John Wayne as a model of the lone wolf hero
is not the model of Total Quality Management.

      Have brief problem statement and mission statement, both
     in principle quantifiable

Travel voucher example: Problem statement: Takes six weeks to
process travel vouchers; too long.  Mission statement: cut that
by 50 percent.

      Implement their own solutions

Implementation is the genius of quality improvement teams. So
managers say,  Let them study it; I'll implement.  Not if you
want first class results. If members of the team cannot because
of their position implement, then you have the wrong people on
the team.

      Be supported by management

...who give them time, help, resources and a pat on the back.
It's called empowerment, and it's part of leadership.

      Have a trained leader and an accomplished facilitator 

...who must work together. The leader is deeply involved in the
team's mission. He/she hold the torch to light the way that the
teams wants to go. The facilitator remains neutral and somewhat
aloof: he/she helps the team through interpersonal bogs and
offers tools and techniques of Total Quality Management.

      Complete mission within six to nine months

Any longer than that and people begin to lose heart (in the
beginning, anyway).

      Meet no more than two to six hours per week

Otherwise, managers and supervisors are hesitant to let people
work on teams. They'll give you the people they can  af-
ford  people who aren't producing anyway.

      Work on a process, not a plan, moral dilemma, or policy

That's the genius of quality improvement teams improving pro-
cesses. Other kinds of teams take on things like planning.

     We have invented or borrowed other kinds of teams, but we
have found that the basic rules for quality improvement teams
found in the text books cannot be violated if teams are to be
consistently successful.

     It is, in other words, a reflection on management if teams
fail, not on the team members. So in forming and managing teams,
the same rule applies as applies to doing quality work of any
kind:

Do it right the first time and every time!


Copyright Tom Glenn, 1992