Quality as an Organizational Strategy: Building a System of Improvement

From the authors of The Improvement Guide, The Health Care Data Guide, Quality Improvement Through Planned Experimentation, and Transforming Health Care Leadership.

Quality as an Organizational Strategy describes an approach to leading organizations based on W. Edwards Deming's charge that leaders need a new theory of management and a strategy built on quality. The book defines quality as a strategy and describes a framework of five activities for leaders that can generate both immediate results and long-term performance. The framework aligns the functions of measurement, marketing, planning, and execution of improvement projects to optimize the performance of any organization.

Five activities for leaders to focus the organization on improvement:

1. Purpose activity - Establish and communicate the purpose of the organization
2. System activity - View the organization as a system (System Map and Vector of Measures)
3. Obtaining information activity (customer focus) - Establish a system to obtain information relevant to the Need the organization is fulfilling
4. Planning activity - Planning to improve
5. Managing improvement activity - Managing improvement efforts