The vast majority of The Quality Management Blog Reader (TQMB) has some sort of experience working in quality team. This post is targeted to both new and experience quality management practitioner.
In this post, I’m going to give a list of 6 steps on how you can kick-start your career in quality . I also did like to hear from experience QM member on how you have started it differently.
Please drop your comment…. below.
To be honest, I didn’t follow these 6 steps when I started my 1st Quality management role. If you have wondered around where to start and feeling depressed ! You’re not alone! This post will provide you some doable steps and guidance on “How To kick Start Your Career in Quality”.
- Spend some time to understand company products or services as soon as possible.
- Know where the company is in terms of Quality Management System or its quality program (Make internet your best mentor if you are new in your role
- Review company’s available historical data such
- Vital Performance Index or KPI metrics.
- Audit reports
- Quality assurance reports
- Analysis of customer feedback
- Management review minutes. (this list can grow longer, alternatively ask the department head to rank which report you should study
- Conduct your own audit or gap analysis, you may start with simple check list . If time allows go for full benchmarking exercise based. (Just to name one) Process Enterprise Maturity Model (PEMM) can be a good start.
4. Walk the floor and talk to the people to clarify your doubt. You may learn one of two about current quality culture.
5. Finally take action: use what you have learned to move forward with a 30/60/90 days plan.
Wish someone gave me this 6 steps on how to kick-start my quality career.
I’m still on learning journey on this topic and would love to hear what you have learned from this topic.
Ganesh,
This is a great way to get to know your product when in a new role. I have also found it beneficial to schedule one-on-one meetings with some key players to uncover the opportunities. It helps if you e-mail a list of questions to review so they can be prepared. A few examples of questions I’d use:
- What do we do well?
- What do our customers and/or consumers like about our product?
- What do they want us to do better?
- What kind of opportunities do we have?
- What do we need to do better?
- What should I focus on in this role?
There is some overlap with these questions but you might get some different responses by asking from a different angle. You can certainly add to the list depending on the leadership role, product, etc.
Thanks,
Chris
Posted by Christian Paulsen | September 14, 2011, 11:43 pmHI Chris,
Thanks for being a regular reader of The Quality Management Blog.
Its a great idea to plan the 1 to 1 session with open ended questions and this will certainly benefit both the Quality team and service managers.
Those are good sets of question to start with ! thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Posted by ganeshmuthiah | September 16, 2011, 9:56 pm