Quality Objectives for a Business Consulting Company

[Sam4Quality]

Originally Posted by Iman Attarzadeh

hehe
Sam, it's HE

Then, he stands a better chance at getting fired than the fairer sex!

Ciao.


___________________________
Sincerely, SAM
"To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought!"

 

[JaneB]

I would be interested in knowing why such an objective is not found to be a useful one

Can you provide say 3 good, relevant examples in business consulting firms of this objective you recommend?

 

[Sam4Quality]

Originally Posted by JaneB

Can you provide say 3 good, relevant examples in business consulting firms of this objective you recommend?

No Jane, I actually wanted to know the reason of not using it in service industry. Because, I have recommended such an objective to 2 of my past clients (none of them are in business consulting), especially when their QMS was not being maintained adequately and NC's were frequent across the companies.

Also, my mention of the example was just an idea for a proper objective (not neccesarily the same) for QA Dept, unlike Iman's objectives which were actually part of QA regular work. She probably may not even use my example if her company's QMS is well maintained and NC's are kept to a minimum.

Just for my clarification then, if you could help me out with understanding why such an example is not very useful, will be appreciated.

Ciao.

____________________________
Sincerely, SAM
"To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought!"

 

[Iman Attarzadeh]

ok,

I did some modification to the objectives.
more important, I reduced the number of objectives so they could be

controllable.​

I appreciate to have your feedback again on the attached objectives.

 

[Sam4Quality]

Originally Posted by Iman Attarzadeh

ok,
I did some modification to the objectives.
more important, I reduced the number of objectives so they could be controllable.

I appreciate to have your feedback again on the attached objectives.

Yes, the objectives seem more taut and measurable than before. However, I am still not convinced with the QA objective of 'maintaining the system'. How will you measure that? Objectives need be measurable.

Also, most of these are objectives (some already targets). If you give targets for each objective (probably using the summary sheet I attached in my first post) along with action plans, you will be able to better control them and even achieve them systematically.

Ciao.


____________________________
Sincerely, SAM
"To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought!"

 

[Jim Wynne]

Yes, the objectives seem more taut and measurable than before. However, I am still not convinced with the QA objective of 'maintaining the system'. How will you measure that? Objectives need be measurable.

Also, most of these are objectives (some already targets). If you give targets for each objective (probably using the summary sheet I attached in my first post) along with action plans, you will be able to better control them and even achieve them systematically.

Ciao.


____________________________
Sincerely, SAM
"To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought!"

Objectives are targets and they are goals.

 

[JaneB]

Iman

Good stuff. I think these are pretty fine for now (I'm assuming you are going for cert at this point? at a rather later point you may consider adding in some more improvement ones - eg, some time down the track).

You've got pretty clear targets & measurables in there, suitable for a project-based service business.

I've made a couple of minor suggestions (in bold).

1 remaining issue: you've got dual accountability for delivering projects on time & budget (I marked as yellow in the attached file) which is not a good idea.

I think you need to clarify & refine that - eg, if Sales is responsible for the costing & budget, say, then hold them responsible just for that (presuming people with appropriate project experience/knowledge had an input of course!), and then hold each PM responsible for delivery. You cannot reasonably make Sales responsible for delivery if they have no role in it (nor, conversely, hold PMs as responsible for delivery to an impossible scope/budget/timeline etc.)

 

[JaneB]

Oops, forgot the modified attachment.

 

[Iman Attarzadeh]

Dear Jane

Thank you for your inputs.
You are correct with assigning dual responsibilities for an objective since confusion may occur of objective accomplishment.

but what i understood from my company is all responsible account managers have a biweekly progress meeting with the PM to check on project status and controlling the milestones. In every progress meeting we state some constraints which may prevent us from moving forward in a project and account manager will assist to solve these problems since he is more senior in the company and he is the one having good relationship with the client. so this is the reason I mentioned it's a dual responsibility.

And what Sam mentioned regarding the targets, is true unless otherwise I dont state any quantifiable term. If i say I want "ALL" the projects to be completed within agreed budget, means we are not looking for overhead cost at all!
If I say I want to reduce the over budget from X amount to Y amount, then our team dont struggle that much to bring this down to zero! so i guess I already mentioned my target. any suggestions?

 

[QEC1989]

I think you have a blend of Quality Objectives and Process Performance Measurement (Section 8.2.3 Monitoring and Measurement of Processes).....those departments listed being processes which from your table look to have performance measurements established.

Always room for interpretation....Quality Objectives vs. Process Measurement