Authoritarian Culture - An organizational culture characterized by the holding of all power (decision making and information) at the top of the organization. The authoritarian organization seeks to maintain the status quo and forces workers to conform, never question or give feedback, play politics, and wait for orders.
Benchmarking - A systematic process of continuously measuring an organization's critical business processes against business leaders anywhere in the world to gain information which will help the organization take action to improve its performance. Steps include Planning the Study, Collecting Information, Analyzing Results, Implementing Improvements.
Benefit - See Outcome
Boundary - The beginning or end point in the portion of a process from a Supplier to a Customer that will be the focus of the process improvement effort.
Brainstorming - A group decision-making technique designed to generate a large number of creative ideas through an interactive process. Brainstorming is used to generate alternative ideas to be considered in making decisions.
Cause and Effect Diagram - See Ishikawa Diagram.
Center Line - The line on a control chart that represents the average (mean or median) value of the items being plotted.
Check Sheet - A data collection form consisting of multiple categories. Each category has an operational definition and can be checked off as it occurs. Properly designed, the Check Sheet helps to summarize the data, which is often displayed in a Pareto Chart.
Coach - A key resource person from within the organization who will support the CEO's leadership of the CQI. A respected peer from the hospital work force who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about CQI, eager to learn and eager to help others learn.
Collaborative Culture - An organizational culture characterized by a shared vision, shared leadership, empowered workers, cooperation among organizational units as they work to improve processes, a high degree of openness to feedback and data, and optimization of the organizational whole versus its many parts.
Common Cause System of Variation - The collection of variables that produce common cause variation and the interaction of those variables.
Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) - The culture, strategies and methods necessary for continual improvement in meeting and exceeding customers' expectations.
Control Chart - A display of data in the order that they occur with statistically determined upper and lower limits of expected common cause variation. It is used to indicate special causes of process variation, to monitor a process for maintenance, and to determine if process changes have had the desired effect. One of the basic tools of the New Quality Technology.
Control limits - Expected limits of common cause variation. Sometimes they are referred to as upper and lower control limits. They are not specification or tolerance limits.
Customer - The receiver of an output of a process, either internal or external to an organization or corporate unit. A customer could be a person, a department, a company, etc.
Customer Data Table - A tool for translating customers' words into requirements, quality indicators and features of the product or service.
Data Collection - Gathering facts on how a process works and/or how a process is working from the customer's point of view. All data collection is driven by knowledge of the process and guided by statistical principles.
Deming Cycle for Continuous Improvement - A visualization of the CQI process usually consisting of four points - Plan, Do, Check, Act -- linked by quarter circles. The cycle was first developed by Dr. Walter A. Shewhart but was popularized in Japan in the 1950 by Dr. W. Edwards Deming.
Deming's 14 Principles - The foundation of Deming's philosophy. The points are a blend of leadership, management theory, and statistical concepts which highlight the responsibilities of management while enhancing the capacities of employees.
Facilitator/Advisor - A person who has developed special expertise in the CQI process. In a CQI team, the facilitator/advisor is not a team member but a person outside the group who serves as a process guide, teacher of CQI methods, and consultant to the team leader, and who helps connect the work of the team to the organization's overall CQI effort.
Fishbone Chart - See Cause and Effect Chart.
Flowchart - A graphical representation of the flow of a process. A useful way to examine how various steps in a process relate to each other, to define the boundaries of the process, to identify customer/supplier relationships in a process, to verify or form the appropriate team, to create common understanding of the process flow, to determine the current "best method" of performing the process, and to identify redundancy, unnecessary complexity and inefficiency in a process.
FOCUS-PDCA - A strategy that provides a roadmap for continuous process improvement when linked to a quality definition. It is an acronym meaning: Find a process to improve, Organize a team that knows the process, Clarify current knowledge of the process, Understand sources of process variation, Select the process improvement, Plan the improvement and continued data collection, Do the improvement, data collection, and analysis, Check and study the results, Act to hold the gain and to continue to improve the process.
Force Field Analysis - A systematic method of understanding competing forces that increase or decrease the likelihood of successfully implementing change.
Future State - In an organizational transformation, the vision of where the organization will be after it is transformed. For the transformation to CQI, the future state includes constancy of purpose, leaders who model the new way, collaboration, customer mindedness, and a process focus.
Immediate customer - The person or unit that directly receives the output of the process.
Input - The service or product a supplier provides to a process. Inputs to one process are the outputs from preceding processes.
Interrelationship Digraph - A way to display cause-and-effect relationships among all the elements in a system. The relationship arrows indicate the issues/causes that are the most fundamental among all the related items.
Ishikawa Diagram - A graphic tool used to explore and display all the factors that may influence or cause a given outcome. (Also known as a cause and effect or fishbone diagram.)
Key Process Variable - A component of the process that has a cause and effect relationship of sufficient magnitude with the Key Quality Characteristic such that manipulation and control of the KPV will reduce variation of the KQC and/or change its level.
Key Quality Characteristic - The most important quality characteristics. The KQCs must be operationally defined by combining knowledge of the customer with knowledge of the process. KQCs are measured to understand the actual performance of the process.
Median - In a series of numbers, the median is a number which has at least half the values greater than or equal to it and at least half of them less than or equal to it.
Meeting Process - A defined method for conducting meetings that includes specific roles and responsibilities for a team leader, a recorder, a timekeeper, team members, and a facilitator or advisor. The steps are 1) Clarify the objective, 2) Review roles, 3) Review the agenda, 4) Work through agenda items, 5) Review the meeting record, 6) Plan next steps and next meeting agenda and 7) Evaluate.
Mentor - A highly skilled CQI professional with extensive training and experience in the initiation and operation of CQI. A resource person from outside the organization or department who visits periodically to counsel the CEO, Coach and Quality Improvement Council in the development, implementation and evaluation of CQI.
Multiple Voting - A group decision-making technique designed to reduce a long list to a few ideas.
Nominal Group Brainstorming - A group process technique designed to efficiently generate a large number of ideas through input from individual group members.
Operational Definition - A description in quantifiable terms of what to measure and the steps to follow to measure it consistently. Deming has suggested that a good operational definition includes: 1) a criterion to be applied, 2) a way to determine whether the criterion is satisfied, and 3) a way to interpret the results of the test. An operational definition is developed for each KQC or process variable before data is collected.
Opportunity Statement - A concise description of a process in need of improvement, its boundaries, and the general area of concern where a CQI Team should begin its efforts.
Outcome (Benefit) - The degree to which Outputs meet the needs and expectations of the Customer.
Output - The service or product that a customer receives from a process. The output of one process can be the input to a succeeding process.
Owner - The person who has or is given the responsibility and authority to lead the continuing improvement of a process. Process ownership is a designation made by leaders of organizations and depends on the boundaries of the process.
Paradigm Shift - A point in time when the knowledge or structure which underlies a science or discipline changes in such a fundamental way that the beliefs and behavior of the people involved in the science or discipline are changed.
Pareto Chart - A bar graph used to arrange information in such a way that priorities for process improvement can be established. It displays the relative importance of data and is used to direct efforts to the biggest improvement opportunity by highlighting the vital few in contrast to the many others.
Penny Matrix - A way to prioritize a list of options by pooling the opinions of raters. Raters "spend" their pennies across several options with the sums of "money spent" indicating a priority weighting and ranking to the options.
Present State - In a force field analysis, the description of an organization as it currently exists. It includes what happens in the organization, both formally and informally.
Prioritization Matrix - A way to prioritize options by requiring the raters to work to consensus on priorities. Also known as a paired-comparison technique., the tool pairs each option with each other, with row totals indicating weighting and ranking.
Process - A series of actions which repeatedly come together to transform Inputs provided by a Supplier into Outputs received by a Customer. A process can be used to develop products and services.
Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC) - A tool for improving implementation through contingency planning. By considering "what could go wrong?", plans for prevention of problems are generated.
Process Improvement - The continuous endeavor to learn about all aspects of a process and to use this knowledge to change the process to reduce variation and complexity and to improve customer judgments of quality. CFI begins by understanding how customers judge quality, how processes work, and how understanding the variation in those processes can lead to wise management action.
Process Owner - See Owner.
Process Variation - The spread of process output over time. There is variation in every process, and all variation is caused. The causes are of two types - special or common. A process can have both types of variation at the same time or only common cause variation. The management action necessary to improve the process is very different in each situation.
Quality Characteristics - Characteristics of the output of a process that are important to the customer. The identification of quality characteristics requires knowledge of the customer needs and expectations.
Quality Improvement Council (QIC) - A group composed of the Coach and the senior leadership of an organization which is primarily responsible for planning, strategy development, deployment, monitoring, educating, and promoting CQI.
Quality Inspection - Usually consists of three stages - sampling, measuring, and sorting. While many organizations rely on inspection to improve quality, the better way is to design quality into the product or service - to improve the process. This may include some inspection as a means of data gathering.
Quality Planning/Redesign - Creating new or redesigned products/services/processes to meet customer requirements. The steps of this method are Organize the project, Identify key customers, Determine requirements, Establish quality indicators, Design, Strengthen the design, Test the design, Implement and improve.
Red Bead Experiment - A simple exercise to demonstrate, among other things, that many managers hold workers to standards beyond their control, variation is part of any process, and workers work within a system beyond their control. The game also shows that some workers will always be above average, some average, and some below average, that the system, not the skills of individual workers, determines to a large extent how workers in repeating processes perform, and that only management can change the system or empower others to change it.
Refreezing - Recognizing, reinforcing, and rewarding new organizational attitudes and behaviors so they become the norm. Making processes, systems, and methods throughout the organization support CQI.
Requirement-Indicator Matrix - A matrix that shows the presence of all possible relationships between customer requirements and quality indicators.
Rework - The act of doing something again because it was not done right the first time. It can occur for a variety of reasons, including insufficient planning, failure of a customer to specify the needed input, and failure of a supplier to provide a consistently high quality output.
Run - A point or a consecutive number of points that are above or below the central line in a run chart. Too long a run or too many or too few runs can be evidence of the existence of special causes of variation.
Run Chart - A display of data in the order that they occur. Run charts display process variation and can be used to indicate special causes of process variation in the form of trends, shifts, or other non-random patterns.
Seven-step Meeting Process - See Meeting Process.
Special Cause Variation - Variation in the process that is assignable to a specific cause or causes. It arises because of special circumstances.
Special and Common Cause System of Variation - The collection of variables that produce both common cause variation and special cause variation and the interaction of those variables.
Spider Diagram - A visual report card for the performance of a number of indicators on a single chart. Also know as a "radar chart" and a "gap analysis" tool, this diagram makes visible the gaps between the current and desired performance.
Sponsor - A member of the organizational leadership who serves as an advocate or champion for a process improvement, assists in securing resources, and gives guidance to the effort.
Storytelling - A major accelerator of the process of organization wide CQI that uses Storybooks to follow steps in the QI or QP strategy. Storybooks and Storyboards help teams organize their work and their presentations so others can more readily learn from them. Use of Storyboards and Storybooks reduces variation in the process of Storytelling so the focus of learning is on content, not the method of telling. Storybooks form a permanent record of a team's actions and achievements and all the data generated, and Storyboards can function as the working minutes of a team.
Supplier - The party or entity responsible for an input to a process. A supplier could be a person, a department, a company, a nursing school, etc.
Tampering - Taking action without taking into account the difference between special and common cause variation.
Team Leader - A person designated to lead the CQI Team. An individual who has team leadership skills and basic quality improvement skills.
Teams
Transformation - A major organizational change from the present state to a new/preferred state in which CQI flourishes. The primary steps involved in moving an organization through a transformation are present state, unfreezing, transition period, refreezing, and new/preferred state.
Transition Period - A description of the time when an organization is visibly moving away from the old way toward the new way. During this time, employee attitudes and behaviors range from being excited and busy to being confused and resistant. The support for change is building. New leaders emerge, champions of the change come forward and confusion over roles begins to clear.
Tree Diagram - A tool to expand a proposed change from a general idea to a specific series of concepts or actions. Used to systematically map out in increasing detail the full range of paths and tasks that need to be accomplished to achieve a primary goal and related subgoals.
Ultimate Customer - The person or unit who receives the output from a series of processes and for who these processes are designed. Without the ultimate customer, there would be no need for the intermediate processes to exist.
Unfreezing - Reassessing old values and behaviors and becoming open to the acceptance of a new culture.
(Sources: HCA, Memory Jogger Plus (Brassard), Strategies & Methods of TQM and Quality Planning/Redesign and Benchmarking training manuals (Shamp), etc.)
Compiled by:
M. Johnna Shamp, Ph.D.
Licensed Organizational Psychologist
Independent Consultant in TQM/OD/HRD
413 S. Mildred St.
Charles Town, WVA 25414
Business phone & fax: 304-724-5027
Email: mjshamp@aol.com
File Date: 24 October 98