“The idea is to step back, get a cross section of people involved and get them to improve (the process) with the goal of reducing errors,” Gaucherin said. “We’ve used (Six Sigma) with a number of our clients.”
However, Gaucherin agreed with DeNovo TQM isn’t popular, largely because some people find it too complicated. “Somehow (Six Sigma) turned into rocket science … ,” he said. “People only have so much patience.”
Jim Harding, CIO of Henry Schein, a healthcare services distributor, said that, while his organization doesn’t take a formalized TQM approach, like Sapient, it infiltrates much of what his IT shop does.
“Quality is a major mainstay of our team here. It’s a priority,” Harding said. “But I wouldn’t call it TQM per se.” Harding and his managers make sure processes are in place to improve quality and work hard at creating what he calls “a quality mindset.”
“We’re trying to make it part of our culture,” he said. “Quality is one of our main deliverables day in, day out.”
DeNovo takes a more formal approach to TQM explaining that, in simple terms, TQM uses variants of a seven-step problem solving methodology.
“You use data to work upstream to find the sources of problems,” he explained.
Culture Clash
For instance, a while back, DeNovo said it became apparent his department was spending too much time fixing problems instead of preventing them. So he used a TQM stand-by, the checklist, to gather data.
“Every time we got a helpdesk call, we made a check on a checklist,” he said. “Every month, we’d look at the top ten types of help desk calls. First, we got really good at fixing them, then we started trying to prevent them. By constantly going after the few problems that created a lot of calls, we eventually got to the virtuous side of the 80/20 rule.”
He was referring to the familiar rule, called the Pareto Principal, stating that 80% of problems come from 20% of causes. But, in some enterprises, this approach will cause culture conflicts.
“We did a check on both the personal environment and the corporate culture,” he said. “We asked individuals (in the IT shop): ‘Do you get satisfaction from fixing problems or preventing them?’ Not everybody can make that transition.
“From the corporate culture point of view, we had to honestly answer: Do we reward people who solve problems or prevent problems? If your company rewards system focuses on fixing, you’ll do a lot of fixing. What incentive is there to prevent problems?”
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