This text focuses on using quality improvement as a means to enhance bottom line results. Written for managers in industry, services and healthcare, it provides an approach on how to target critical improvement initiatives and ensure their success.

Focused Quality: Managing for Results is a book about using quality improvement as a means to enhance bottom line results. Written for managers in industry, services, healthcare and government, this important new book provides a focused approach on how to target critical improvement initiatives and insure their success. Prepare - Plan - Deploy - Transition are the steps in the improvement process that are covered in detail. Included are examples of how organizations have successfully accomplished each step. Practical lessons on how to and how not to implement quality and process improvement initiatives are given. Process assessment is crucial to identifying the importance of a process and defining the scope of what is involved in order to improve it. Before deciding to refine, redesign or reengineer an assessment is needed. Focused Quality: Managing for Results not only shows you how to do an assessment but also how to apply the results to improve the bottom line. Application is emphasized throughout the book with the focus on the managers role in leading the change effort. The authors have provided a set of questions that management should answer to determine if their organization is ready to effectively implement the improvement process. Realizing that even the best plans can go astray there is also a diagnostic check sheet to pinpoint the causes of and solutions for process improvement failures.

TABLE OF - PART I: MANAGING THE VITAL FEW 1Why Focused Quality Management? Where TQM Falls Short The Way It Is A Maze of Frustration The Way It Should Be PART II: FOCUSED QUALITY MANAGEMENT: A FRAMEWORK FOR SUCCESS 2Prepare: Laying the Foundation Organize a Quality Leadership Team Envision the Organization Assess the Organization The Process Assessment 3Plan: Focusing Process Improvements 4Deploy: Making Process Improvements Happen Charter the Improvement Teams Improve the Process Test the Improvements 5Deploy: Making Organizational Improvements Happen Training: A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste Reward and Recognition: Credit Where Credit Is Due Measurement: If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Manage It 100 Communication: The Message Is the Medium 102 In Conclusion 104 6Transition: Making It Stick Introduction Applying Advanced Tools and Techniques Employee Empowerment Toward Process Empowerment Alignment and Reassessment PART III: LEADING THE CHAN GE 7Leading the Charge Leadership Commitment and Vision Individual Resistance and Skills Development Incentives Resources Action Planning 8Is the Organization Ready? Does the Organization Have a Vision? Have the Mission and Values of the Organization Been Developed and Clearly Communicated? Has an Organizational Assessment Been Done? Have Strategic Business Goals Been Identified? Have the Key Business Processes Been Identified? How Do Key Business Processes Affect Critical Success Factors? Have the Capability Gaps Been Identified? Do Employees Want to Do a Good Job? Do They Have What They Need to Do So? Is Quality Rewarded? Is the Organization Focused? Is the Organization Ready? 9When Things Go Wrong The Whole Is Greater than the Sum of the Parts Has the Vision Been Communicated? Do Employees Have All the Skills They Need? Have People Been Given Incentives to Succeed? Do People Have Adequate Resources? Has the Organization Planned for Success? Are Y ou Focused to Succeed? APPENDICES AQuick Quality Survey BCritical Success Factor/Key Process Matrix CEvolution of Quality Management Nineteenth-Century Industrialism Twentieth-Century Humanism The Emergence of TQM INDEX