Background: All organizations stand or fall on their foundation of policies, procedures, and processes. Without this foundation, management cannot function nor succeed. As important as this structure is, organizational excellence depends on how well its people implement and refine these processes: employing a system of continuous process improvement. The quality movement first introduced in the 70's and 80's continues as a cornerstone of successful companies. GE's recent introduction of Quality Management through its Six Sigma program proves that quality management is not dead, indeed, Jack Welch, CEO emeritus of GE, believed it so essential to create opportunities for all of GE's workforce to participate in continuous process improvement that he required all senior managers to be certified as GE quality management "black belts" (personal leadership of 3 or more successful quality implementation.).

The goal of this seminar is to equip process improvement team members to plan and lead successful quality process improvement projects. Leadership at the work team level begins by understanding and practicing quality management ethics and values and then assuring that other work team members adopt and practice the same values. This translates into specific issues of how we view co-workers, quality improvement team members in other departments and their role in designing and controlling cross functional work processes. As quality process improvement teams grow, their jobs often take on more responsibility for managing their own quality and production. In some organizations this leads to the development of self directed work teams where the team members plan their work, decide who does what, coordinate process redesign with team members from other departments, and even meet with quality improvement teams from customers to fully integrate internal changes to customers' processes.

Goals: Help quality process improvement team members plan and lead a successful quality implementation at the team level.

Help team members develop and communicate quality ethics and values
Help team members define team roles and responsibilities
Help team members build basic process improvement skills
Help team members understand and avoid common problems and pitfalls

Objectives: after successfully completing this seminar, participants will be able to better;

• Explain quality management concepts, values and strategies
• Explain team member's roles and responsibility in conduction a process improvement project
• Develop an improvement plan based on their quality improvement process charter
• Prepare a basic process flow analysis and cause and effect diagram
• Prepare a quality project improvement progress review
• Explain basic process improvement tools and techniques

Methodology: Group discussions, Role Playing, Case Studies, and Hands-on application of process improvement tools.

A G E N D A

Course Overview: Goals, Objectives, Methodology, Roles

Quality Management Concepts, Strategies

Selecting and Prioritizing Process Improvement Areas -Case Study

Process Improvement Tools - Process Flow Analysis, Cause and Effect Diagrams, Pareto Analysis

Process Flow Analysis workshop

Creating a process improvement plan from your team charter

Selecting the Process Improvement Team

Review meetings ¨ Role Play

Implementing the Process ¨ Action steps

Final questions and answers

Course Evaluations and Close out