Page 152 - The Handbook for Quality Management a Complete Guide to Operational Excellence

rganizational assessments provide an understanding of the cur­
rent state of the organization relative to specific goals or objectives
Orelated to the three main stakeholder groups: customers, share­
holders, and employees.

Assessing Quality Culture
Juran and Gryna (1993) define an organization’s quality culture as the
opinions, beliefs, traditions, and practices concerning quality. While some­
times difficult to quantify, an organization’s culture has a profound effect
on the quality produced by that organization. Without an understanding
of the cultural aspects of quality, significant and lasting improvements in
quality levels are unlikely.
Two of the most common means of assessing organization culture are
the focus group and the written questionnaire. The areas addressed gen­
erally cover attitudes, perceptions, and activities within the organization
that impact quality. Because of the sensitive nature of cultural assessment,
anonymity is usually necessary. The organization should develop its own
set of questions, as the generation of questions is an education in itself.
The critical­incident technique is a common method for developing ques­
tions that produce favorable results. The critical­incident technique
involves selecting a small representative sample (n ≈ 20) from the group
you wish to survey and ask open­ended questions, such as:

“Which of our organization’s beliefs, traditions, and practices have a
beneficial impact on quality?”
“Which of our organization’s beliefs, traditions, and practices have a
detrimental impact on quality?”

The questions are asked by unbiased interviewers and the respon­
dents are guaranteed anonymity. Although interviews are usually con­
ducted in person or by phone, written responses are sometimes obtained.
The order in which the questions are asked (beneficial/detrimental) is
randomized to avoid bias in the answers. Interviewers are instructed not

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