If you’ve ever done a jigsaw and judging by the ABC article more of us have during Lockdown, you will probably have a system.
In my family we separate the corners, the edges and the main pieces.
We place the corners first, finish the edges and then group the rest by colour and type, things like pieces with words and those with faces.
This theming makes the jigsaw easier to tackle.
A table full of pieces means it’s overwhelming, who knows where to start?
The quality plan is often the same. A long list of recommended actions is not helpful.
Each task is allocated and ticked off but the real magic happens when you turn a list of similar recommendations into a system project.
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Theming your quality plan by system, not department means less tasks, a more planned and systematic approach and better chance of getting it right the first time.One of the problems I see with quality plans is that they are often filtered by department.
Delegating tasks by department feels safe, because once its delegated, everyone else can forget about it
The problems occur when a department or person focuses only on closing out these extra tasks as quickly as possible.
A better approach can be to theme actions before you delegate.
One organisation had over three hundred outstanding actions on their quality plan and by theming them we reduced that to six quality plans.
Not only did it create a more robust change management strategy it meant departments weren’t left feeling overwhelmed with quality tasks.
The added bonus is it took the focus away from compliance to developing effective systems.
❓ How could you see this working in your organisation?