Jumping into the Quality Manager role with confidence
- mcphersonqualityma
- Jun 19, 2024
- 2 min read
As someone who proudly holds the American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence (CMQ/OE) certification but not the actual post, I took great notice of Govind Ramu’s article in this month’s Quality Progress magazine. Mr. Ramu’s article is titled, ‘Five steps to establish your role as a Quality Manager’. He is an author and is highly recognized in the quality field.
Mr. Ramu suggests focusing on building a robust foundation for the new Quality Manager. He provides guidance on the way to do this in 5 strands:
1. Getting to know the organization and its culture; 2. Building relationships with key stakeholders both inside and outside of the organization; 3. Understanding and baselining the current state of quality; 4. Identifying opportunities for improvement; 5. Developing an action plan.
The new Quality Manager can accomplish this first step by reviewing the organization’s mission and vision statements and values and asking whether mergers or acquisitions have taken place in the past.
Mr. Ramu suggests building relationships with the CEO and other members of the leadership team. This will help to secure support from those around. It would be a good idea to keep an ear to the ground to learn the respective pain points of fellow employees. This would provide a background for future reactions.
The Quality Manager can do the third step of getting a baseline for the current state of quality by conducting a gap analysis, running a survey and/or doing a SWOT analysis.
Based on the results in step 3, the new Quality Manager should be able to identify opportunities for improvement in step 4.
By the time the Quality Manager gets to this fifth step, he or she should be able to develop an action plan that would allow the organization to reach its goals. The plan should be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely). The now self-assured Quality Manager should be to jump into his or her role with confidence.
Kereen R. McPherson
CEO/Founder
KRMcPherson Quality Management (KQM)
LI: Ms Kereen McPherson
1-868-761-8206
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