Primilis Ltd

Of all the quality ‘gurus’ I find the late Philip Crosby one of the most readable.  In his book ‘Quality is Free’ (Mentor 1980, ISBN 978-0451625854), which I can thoroughly recommend, he advocates the use of a simple tool to show where you are in the quality management spectrum; he calls it the Quality Management Maturity Grid.

The grid is a simple 6 x 6 matrix that shows different stages of maturity of the company’s quality management against six different quality management categories (management understanding of quality, problem handling, cost of quality, etc).

The lowest stage of maturity is called ‘Uncertainty’ – the organisation is inexperienced, quality management is a low priority and reactive, etc – then as quality management matures it goes through the stages of ‘Awakening’, ‘Enlightenment’, ‘Wisdom’, then the highest level, ‘Certainty’.

Each point – maturity versus category – on the grid has a brief description of how that combination appears in the company; for instance, in the ‘Uncertainty’ stage, Problem Handling looks like “Problems are fought as they occur; no resolution; inadequate definition; lots of yelling and accusations.” If that sounds like your company then I’m sorry to hear it and you are at the ‘Uncertainty’ stage for Problem Handling!

Here’s the grid:

You use it by asking a number of people to assess the company; the more the merrier from different levels and roles across the company as it helps to give a more complete picture. Each gets a copy of the grid and makes a subjective judgement about which Stage the company is at for each category; they mark the grid in the appropriate position.

It is important that they are very honest in their assessment; make a point of this with them.

(By the way, you may find Cost of Quality a bit tricky to estimate if I don’t explain what it really means; sorry about that, I’ll have to talk about it another time.)

The total score is obtained by adding up the scores for each category; Stage 1 ‘Uncertainty’ gives a score of 1, Stage 2 ‘Awakening’ = 2, Stage 3 = 3, etc. The minimum score is therefore 6 (all categories are at ‘Uncertainty), and the maximum is 30 (all are at Certainty); I know of no company that is at 30 so if you really are there please get in touch as I’d really like to meet you!

It is really interesting not only to see the scores for each category (as well as the total), and the arithmetic mean across all the assessors, but also to see how individuals from different departments or roles in the company mark each category; big variances in scores indicate that people see the company as being very different in this area – why is that? Is the high score or the low score more appropriate? What needs to be done about a low score from just one part of the business? It can be a fascinating exercise.

The thing I particularly like about the Quality Management Maturity Grid is that it is (a) very quick and easy to use, (b) insightful – it makes you think, and (c) – most important – it doesn’t just show you where you are but, also, what your company would have to be like to get a higher score; it therefore acts as your route-map for strategic quality and helps you plan your quality improvement initiatives so that you move steadily towards the right in the grid.

21 January 2010

Tom Gaskell offers business quality, product quality and reliability, manufacturing management and trouble-shooting services through the consultancy Primilis Ltd.  Contact him at http://www.primilis.com/contact_us.html, visit the Primilis website at http://www.primilis.com, or read his blog at http://www.qualityandproducts.com.