Creating A Quality Business Case by Jolito Ortizo Padilla

                                          

Strategic Management- Building Competitive Advantage 2nd edition (2011)  is now in the market ..Worldwide.

                                                      
There is a general rule of thumb that most organizations waste about 25% of their effort. In manufacturing this could be in the form of scrap and rework., in services it could be complaints or wasted journeys and in government it could be failed strategies and unnecessary bureaucracy. Each problem requires an improvement initiative and someone, ideally a quality professional, to make the business case for action.

Putting together a business case for quality is a series of simple steps , with actions to be avoided and actions that mustn't left out. However, we need to be sure we don't confuse simple with easy. Standing up to present quality case is equivalent to putting your head above a parapet. Your visibility is increased and any demand for resources is always contentious, now more than ever. Each of the following simple steps requires a lot of effort, knowledge and skill to be completed successfully , but the organizational and personal rewards are worth it.

The Beginning

Do have an objective in mind.It is a good quality principle that in order to achieve you have to know what goal it is you want to reach. Definition of the problem is vital.There are many tools outlined in my book Strategic Management - Building Competitive Advantage, 2011 edition. Knowledge that can be used for defining problems , including specifying the scope of what will be covered and the areas to which any problem relates. 

Don't assume too much. Although senior managers are "all quality" they may not be aware of the detail of how processes are managed and where the organization's areas of waste are. When it comes to the presentation stage you may need to summarize some things that may seem obvious to you.

Step 1: Gather your facts

Do be clear on the type of business case you are making. The sort of facts you collect will depend on the case you are making. If you are justifying current activity then you need to know what your function is spending its time and money on and, more importantly , how it contributes to the overall business including current goals. If you have some idea how much it would cost to outsource this activity then this may support your case. Through all of this do make sure that the value is clear or it can be used against you.

Do assess the whole of the process in order to gather facts. If you are making a case for change-an improvement project-then the data should include the current state of the area you are looking to improve. Test each piece of data going into the plan because it is likely you will be challenged. Use hard data wherever possible and make sure the information is relevant to your case and lines up with the organization's objectives. A Supplier saying you are good to work with may sound like good news in the short term, but there has to be a payback for your organization. Your fellow managers may expect you to be tougher with suppliers. By following and possibly mapping the process you will have an accurate understanding of the interactions of people and information to enable you to make your recommendations int he next stage.

Do make sure your language is appropriate. As a support activity, quality often struggles to obtain the interest and funding that core processes such as sales and operations attract. Quality professionals need to speak the language of business so, despite what we may think , gauge calibration and internal audit are not good things in their own right. They only exist in the context of what they provide for the business.

Do think of your investigation as starting the Shewhart cycle at the " check" stage. You are looking at current practices to see how they are performing with a view to "acting" on your findings to make an improvement. If your recommendation to top management is given the go ahead it will result in a "plan" that will be implemented (or "done").

Don't cut corners with fact gathering -make sure you have the facts correct. You will be asking for authority to take action and therefore need to present the facts to those who have the power to say yes or no. The amount of effort at this stage needs to be proportional to what you are asking. You wouldn't expect a good reception from the board of the organization if you asked for a million dollars investment based on gut feeling. Similarly, a four week group savings in the future just to pay for the research time. You need to gather and carefully check your facts.

Time invested at the stage helps to make your case "open and shut" with a smooth ride when it comes to presentation time. The reverse is also true-many sound cases have not been taken up because the presenter hasn't had answers when challenged.

Don't forget the people. We all have to work with the processes we are part of and by talking to the people involved you will get a good idea of the current issues and you may even get ideas for possible solutions.

Don't restrict your investigation to your own organization. If others are doing things better then gather the facts and bring them in as part of your proposal -your own benchmarking will support the case

Quality Tools:

- Check sheets, tally, and "measles" charts- where people gather data about errors and where they are found to simplify analysis later.

- Bar and Pareto Charts- to help present and make sense of the data collected above.

- Trend/run and statistical process control charts-to identify changes in performance overtime.

- Flowchart- as part of information gathering you can assess the current process and identify the steps. With further development these can become value stream maps of identifying times and timing of process steps and where the organization adds value

- Read the problem diagnostic tools under technologies and techniques in my book Strategic Management-Building Competitive Advantage, 2nd edition-2011 at Samsung Galaxy e-book, Sharp Galapagos tablet reader, Amazon Kindle e-book and Sony tablet reader.

Step 2: Developing your proposal
Do think of your business case for quality as a project: Most managers are familiar with project management and will recognize your business case as being the start of a project plan. Your business case will be the project brief that they sign up to. It should contain key deliverables in the form of quality such as end result they can expect to be delivered, cost (what it will take in terms of hard expenditure) resources (such as hidden expenditure in terms of time time from people you will need on the project) and delivery ( when they can expect their return on investment, bearing in mind it may arrive in stages as a range of deliverables at each phase of the project).

Do work out who may be affected by the project and its outcomes. Colleagues , including your peers , may have their own ideas of what needs doing. If your ideas build on theirs then you are likely to find some allies. On the other hand, your assessment of the current state may contain some implied or unintended criticism of their area and you should be ready for some challenges. You need to be sure your facts are correct and focused in order to avoid any scatter gun approach. This would probably lead to attacks from all sides and your argument may become overwhelmed by protest, whether they are justified or not.

Do make sure you understand the implications of any changes you are proposing. What may seem to be a simple change to take out unnecessary work in one area may lead to significant implications for others in the process. Look at the bigger picture.

Do make sure the team of people working on the project is appropriate. Individual team members have responsibility for the work they do but if they fail and cause project to fail then the buck stops with you as the project manager. If you have some concerns about the capability of a team member then express it at the time.

Do provide a range of options-this is always good tactic. If you have a grand plan that will result in 50% savings, but that will require drastic changes across the organization then you might like to present this alongside one or two options involving less transformation and providing some easy wins, albeit with less dramatic improvements at the end.

Don't jump in with the first solution you think. Again, you need to get the root cause of any problem by using established quality tools and techniques and put in place a solution to deal with that root cause. The cause and effect diagram can be really useful here.

Don't underestimate the work involved. You need to give an honest assessment of how much work is involved. Credibility doesn't fall faster then when you promise an individual that a job will take five minutes' work and it seriously disrupts their day/week/month.

Don't forget to build in a bit of contingency. You can be totally honest about it and tell people that it exists but again being able to deliver. Contingency exists for a purpose to allow changes to the project to be accommodated and key elements of cost, delivery and specification to be met.

Quality Tools:

- Brainstorming- a small group can quickly gather a range of potental problem causes and possible solutions using this creative approach.

- Cause and effect diagrams- for example, use brainstorming to construct a fishbone diagram to identify the problem and break potential causes down into category areas. These can be prioritized as potential causes for action.

- Affinity diagram- causes and solutions may be collected to enable clear groupings for further investigation and action.

- Find a cause and effect diagram in the problem diagnostic tolls in my book Strategic Management -Building Competitive Advantage at Nokia MeeGo e-book and Toshiba Libretto.

Step 3:

Implementing the Plan

Do avoid peak times: If your project is going to take up resources make sure that you plan peaks of activity around people's busy time. Remember any work you ask them to do is worked around their day job-the work their bosses and colleagues recognize.

Do keep a check on your progress and monitor to see that predicted improvements actually materialize. Keep people up to date with where the project is. If anything unforeseen looks as if it is going to derail the project, let people know immediately-they maybe able to put things right or at least acknowledge that the improvements won't be realized in your original timescale.

Do make sure the gains are visible and there are processes in place to prevent losses recurring.Successful improvement projects lead to more of the same and your track record will help when you next ask to make further improvements.

Don't take no for an answer. If you have been given the go ahead by senior people, then you need to make sure people do for you what their bosses have agreed to. If you still face resistance , escalate the issue. In mature organization people will recognize that what you are asking is fair. By being given the project you have the authority to require action. You have to use this authority sensitively and use all your people skills to manage the situation effectively.

Don't panic!Improvement projects don't run smoothly every time. Often there are blind alleys you go down when you are trying something new, but you need to trust your knowledge and use your skills to find the route that delivers results.

Quality Tools:

The tools used here are genetically the same as in step 1. The logic is the same :if you have presented your facts to obtain the approval to go ahead based on a business case, then you need to be gathering the same information and showing improvement.

Step 4: Lessons Learned:

Do capture the experience you have gained on this project and try to spread the knowledge around to members of your team and others in the organization. By using the knowledge in this way the organization not only benefits from the individual projects, but can learn as a whole.

Quality Tools:

This requires similar tools to step 2 . If organization is to learn lessons, then the key points throughout the process have to be gathered and analyzed before being presented to the organization. 

Presenting the lessons learned needs to take form that allows people not involved on the project to quickly identify what they need to do in the future to either repeat good points or avoid pitfalls.