In celebration of World Quality Month, the feature story of November’s Quality Progress is “Off the Clock,” which highlights the passion of quality professionals and their tendencies to incorporate quality into their daily lives. In fact, Jennifer Stepniowski, Pro QC’s Special Project Manager, is included in the article as she discusses using checklists, brainstorming and affinity diagrams to organize summer fun for her family. For most of us in the industry, quality is a passion. It’s something we incorporate into our routines seamlessly. And, it’s something we at Pro QC believe will help raise awareness to those outside of the industry. World Quality Months provides us with an ideal opportunity here. We talk so much about the technical aspects of quality due to the nature of the work of we do, but quality can be found throughout our personal lives as well. A few suggestions from our team for incorporating the quality tools we know and love outside of work includes: Checklists – Checklists are a significant time-saver that come in handy for just about anything. Outside of work, use them to create grocery shopping templates or to organize travel. Brainstorming – Taking a few moments to really consider all of the options and incorporate others into that process saves time and generates new and fresh ideas. Outside of work, use it for menu or vacation planning. Fishbone Diagrams – Figuring out what the root cause is saves time and gets problems solved much faster than trying to patch up the “bones.” Outside of work, use it for anything that continues to be a problem such as time management issues. Getting to to the root cause will avoid continuously patching it up. Flowcharts – Flowcharts are excellent visual devices that both educate and serve as tools for identifying continuous improvement. Outside of work, flowcharts are a great way to teach children how certain tasks and responsibilities should be performed. It can also improve the efficiency of household chores or other common tasks. Line Graphs & Histograms (Bar Charts) – Histograms are great for visually representing data collected and line graphs show a pattern of data in time order. Outside of work, they’re great for organizing chores or even fitness and/or dietary information. These are also excellent tools for analyzing budget information. What are some other ways we can incorporate quality into our daily lives? “Quality begins on the inside… then works its way out.” ― Bob Moawad
