Strategic Innovations, Inc.

Right after I started work on this article, an interesting story appeared in the local newspaper. It had to do with a county government that was considering some local legislation that would, among other things, have an impact on how the municipal governments in the area operated. Unfortunately (and this is why it was news), some of the municipal government officials felt they had been left out of the discussions and deliberations and were very upset with the county government. The situation has very quickly degraded as officials try to defend the process used to get to the point they were at. In addition, there will likely be significant "rework" of the discussions and deliberations as the county government attempts to examine the issue, this time with municipal government participation. How did something like this happen? How is it that a county government's top management forgot to include a key stakeholder group? Perhaps most importantly though, what could have been done to prevent this from happening in the first place?

I would like to propose one solution you may want to consider – the introduction of a quality management program (that is, management of quality) for your organization. I know the concept of a quality management program may sound funny in a world based on buying from the lowest bidder (and the corresponding perception that one is getting the lowest quality as well). Please read on though as I hope to show that a quality management program can help you to control costs and achieve the goals you have along with a host of other benefits.

In this article, I'm going to focus on laying the groundwork by describing some features and benefits of a quality management program built based on the framework of the ISO9001:2000 standard. I will follow up with another article that digs deeper into the actual implementation of quality standards in a local government organization.

What are quality standards?

According to The American Heritage Dictionary, a standard may be defined as “something, such as a practice or a product, that is widely recognized or employed, especially because of its excellence.” Likewise, quality is defined as “essential character; nature”. We do need to be sure that we do not confuse quality with “grade” or “excellence” (though I do encourage you to establish excellence as a goal). For purposes of this analysis, quality refers to a practice or service or product meeting the expectations of our customers. In other words, government services will be characterized by the essential characteristics that are expected. This may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Combining these two, we can arrive at an understanding of quality standards as being those widely recognized practices that produce services and products that contain the essential characteristics expected of them.

As we have defined the term, quality standards implies that there are some widely recognized practices for ensuring quality. Perhaps an easily recognizeable example from local government would be the health and sanitation ratings assigned to restaurants. For citizens, the A, B, C, system is widely recognized as a quality standard system. You may note the system does not say anything to us about the “grade” of the food or establishment – it may be a fine eatery or a fast food restaurant. However, the system used helps consumers make sure that no matter what type of restaurant they are at, it contains those essential characteristics one expects of a restaurant – it is safe and clean. Other examples may include systems like fire ratings or accreditation of law enforcement agencies.

If we were to turn the light on our local government organizations in general, what system might we use to demonstrate our commitment to ensuring our services meet expectations and that is widely recognized? One excellent source would be ISO9001:2000 standards. Many readers may be familiar with the ISO9001:2000 standards (and possibly others) in the context of manufacturing companies obtaining such certification. However, the standards are not limited to manufacturing, or even to the private sector. In fact, as the ISO explains on their site , the ISO standards that include the 9001 standards are “generic management system standards”. The "generic" part means they can apply to organizations large or small, providing products or services, businesses, public administration, or government departments. Likewise, a "management system" is concerned with how an organization manages the processes to convert inputs of resources (like tax dollars) into products or services that meet objectives. In applying the ISO9001:2000 standards to a government organization, we are concerned with making sure the organization has implemented the necessary practices to ensure tax dollars and other resources are being changed into services or products that meet the customer's requirements.

Principles of Quality

In implementing a quality management system, we hope to implement practices that help ensure the organization is providing the products (and services are products) that meet our customer's expectations, they meet applicable regulatory and statutory requirements, and that aim to enhance customer satisfaction.ⁱ ISO9001:2000 standards are meant to provide us with a framework to ensure the practices implemented achieve those goals. ISO's standards are based on eight quality management principles.ⁱⁱ These principles and some of their benefits include:

Principle: Customer focus

Benefits: the ability to quickly respond to changing opportunities and demands for services; increasing the effectiveness in the use of resources (getting the most "bang for the buck" if you will); and improving customer loyalty (think about businesses moving to other locations or if you have a problem with your best and brightest youth leaving the community and perhaps you'll get an idea of how "loyalty" may be applicable to government).

Principle: Leadership

Benefits: people(employees? volunteers? community groups?) understand and are motivated toward the organizations goals and objectives; the activities and services provided by the government are evaluated, aligned and implemented in a unified way; and miscommunication is minimized.

Principle: Involvement of people

Benefits: the organization experiences greater innovation and creativity; employees are motivated, committed and involved; people are increasingly held accountable for performance, especially their own; people participate and contribute to improvement initiatives.

Principle: Process approach

Benefits: costs to provide services or products are lower; results are better, more consistent, and more predictable; you can improve the decisions made about priorities, especially those related to improvements.

Principle: System approach to management

Benefits: improved integration and alignment of processes; the ability to focus on key processes; improved ability to provide "confidence" to interested parties about the organization's consistency, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Principle: Continual improvement

Benefits: the organization can achieve a performance advantage; activities can be aligned with the organization's strategic plans; again, it improves the ability to the organization to respond, quickly if needed, to a changing environment.

Principle: Factual approach to decision making

Benefits: the organization can make informed decisions; there is a greater ability to show how past decisions were effective; it increases the ability of stakeholders to review, challenge, and change opinions and decisions.

Principle: Mutually beneficial supplier relationships

Benefits: the ability to create value for both parties; the ability to respond flexibly and with speed to situations; optimization of costs and resources.

I hope you will recognize in the list of principles and their benefits several that may be extremely important to a local government.

An Example in a Service Focused Organization

At this point, we have looked at definitions and principles from a theoretical perspective. More important may be how the implementation of a quality management program can help to improve a local government. Before really digging in to specifics, let's take a look at how implementation of ISO 9000 standards helped a service oriented organization. In a Quality Digest article (ISO 9000: No Longer a Stranger to Service ), Norman Ho describes the efforts of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' (AICPA) to successfully implement and be certified in ISO 9000.

According to Chuck Peck, a senior vice president with AICPA, the decision to pursue ISO 9000 certification would help the organization "make decisions that will positively impact the way we run our business, as well as the bottom line". Peck was also quoted as noting the certification would help "differentiate" AICPA as an organization that was "top-flight" and "world-class". I know in government, hoping to create a "top-flight" or "world-class" organization may not be high on the priority list (especially if you do not think you are competing on a global scale). But improving the way you run the local government and improving the "bottom line" (tax rates in many cases) are important.

Another important benefit of implementing a quality management program is establishing or improving what Chuck Mitman, vice president with Alamo Learning Systems , described as "a quality consciousness". I am sure we are all familiar with the refrain – "that's good enough for government work." By implementing a quality management program, you can help put an end to that mentality.

So, did the theory of quality management produce results and benefits for the AICPA? According to Peck, they did. A couple of the more concrete results included the discovery of deficiencies in service delivery and duplication of functions. Other "soft" benefits included fewer customer complaints, a continuous improvement process, better clarification of job responsibilities, and consistent training standards for employees. The bottom line for the AICPA was 4% growth in gross margins in one year after implementation, the largest improvement ever recorded by the AICPA.

Is Quality Right for Your Organization?

Having briefly introduced you to quality management principles, I hope you now understand why I think the implementation of a quality management program in local government could help avoid problems like the county in my opening paragraph was having. I would like to propose that you try to imagine:

• everyone on the same page in your organization.

• being able to demonstrate how you have met constituent service expectations (or alternatively, being able to explain the decisions and processes that got you to the level that you are at if not meeting expectations).

• miscommunication is minimized in your organization.

• costs are controlled or lowered for your government.

• priorities are clear and resources are focused on achieving them throughout your organization.

If you can imagine those scenarios and your organization has made them a reality already, that is great news. If you are not there yet, you may want to consider a quality management program. In my next piece, I'll look at how ISO standards for implementation of a quality management program can be implemented in a local government organization.

ⁱSelection and Use of the ISO 9000:2000 family of standards, http://www.iso.org/iso/en/iso9000-14000/understand/selection_use/selection_use.html

ⁱⁱQuality management principles, http://www.iso.org/iso/en/iso9000-14000/understand/qmp.html