2022 Day of Quality Overview
The Greater Rochester Quality Council is a collaborative network of organizations and individuals whose purpose is to stimulate and foster excellence in the products, services, and processes of all organizations and businesses in the community by the sharing of trained resources, learning opportunities, and expertise in quality principles and practices.
Modeled after the United Way's Day of Caring, Day of Quality matches process excellence professionals with local organizations for one-day engagements to help improve processes. The Day of Quality is a service offered by GRQC to any organization in the Greater Rochester Community. The program is a free service benefit for GRQC members and a nominal fee of $50 for non-members.
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We welcome your interest in this year's Day of Quality and request that you submit the application by Friday, August 5, 2022, to Lori Cohen at lcohen@compassqs.com. Non-members will receive an email with a link to a page with a payment form after your application is submitted. Click below to download the application.
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Choosing a Project for Day of Quality
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The best project for Day of Quality is based on an operational process that your organization performs very often—perhaps on a daily basis. GRQC will provide experienced quality professionals who will partner with you to identify ways to improve your process and implement as many improvements as possible - in one day: Thursday, November 3, 2022.
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In describing your project on the Application, please do not provide solutions—solutions will be identified during the Day of Quality. Instead, if you have a goal for the process, explain that and we will work together to determine if the process can be improved to meet your goals.
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Organizations participating in the Day of Quality are expected to:
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Submit an application by Friday, August 5, 2022, to be eligible for Day of Quality
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Work with the Day of Quality Committee and your assigned quality professional to refine your application and set you up for success.
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Work with the quality professional prior to November 3 to create a current state map and identify data to be collected and used on the Day of Quality.
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Participate in four meetings:
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Virtual Kick Off - Thursday, September 15, 2022, 9:00-10:00 AM (Zoom)
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In-person Day of Quality – Thursday, November 3, 2022
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In-person Celebration (recognition) - Thursday, December 8, 2022 (Location and time information will be sent at a later date)
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Virtual Follow-Up Session – February/March 2023 – We will ask you to present an update on your project implementation.
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Identify the following members from your organization to participate:
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A Project Sponsor and Team Leader who will (1) talk with a representative from the Day of Quality committee for about 30 minutes to assess the adequacy of your project for Day of Quality, and (2) talk with your assigned GRQC quality professional for approximately an hour about your organization and refine your one-page application if needed. The Sponsor generally presents the process improvements and benefits at the Day of Quality Celebration event on Thursday, December 8, 2022.
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A Team Leader who will work with the team the entire day on the Day of Quality and take responsibility for ensuring any action items from the event are completed.
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A team from your organization comprised of the people who perform the work within the process you want to improve. All team members are expected to stay for the entire day. The Team Leader is required to attend the Virtual Kickoff, Celebration, and the virtual follow-up session to discuss your improvements. All other team members are encouraged to attend the Kickoff and Celebration.
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Need Help Choosing a Good Project?
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Option 1 - One-hour Virtual Class Offered by GRQC and RIT on July 26 at 10 am
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​Spend only 60 minutes learning how to identify processes in your
organization that could be improved. Then, write a carefully worded
problem statement that describes a process issue such that a process
improvement team would be able to develop solutions for the process issue.
You will leave the Zoom class with a draft a problem statement that can
serve as a template for other process issues in your workplace. There
will be time to ask questions and dig into issues you might be
encountering. Lead your organization through this process and prepare to
participate in a Day of Quality event to jumpstart your use of quality
tools. Click here to register for this class.
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Option 2 - Phone-a-friend. These professionals and members of the Day of Quality committee are available by phone to help you choose an appropriate project:
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Lori Cohen (585) 737-8441
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Lynn Hettel (585) 750-8160
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Michael Lookup (585) 506-6779
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Bill Self (585) 370-1038
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Option 3 – Do It Yourself Considerations for choosing a process to be worked include:
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Definition — A process is something that takes inputs, changes them and then produces an output for you, your clients (either inside or external to your organization), etc.
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Process Pain Points — Choose a process that takes too much time, money, resources or does not satisfy you, your staff, customers, etc.
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Process Scope — The process must have a distinct starting point and ending point—processes that span too many departments or teams within your organization can be large and hard to organize for one day’s effort (it is helpful to list what is “in” and “out” of scope)
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Process Scale — Scales refers to which product lines, locations, customer segments, or other factors are to be the focus of the improvement initiative (it is helpful to list what is “in” and “out” of scale)
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Process Understanding — We need to measure the current state of the process, analyze the root causes of the problem, develop some solutions and discuss the leading solutions thoroughly—we have one day to accomplish all these steps
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Ability to Change — You must have the ability to make the changes that are within your control—generally technology or budgetary changes can require more intense effort and scrutiny and may not be appropriate for a one-day project.
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Creating a Problem Statement
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Create your problem statement using this fill-in-the-blank template:​
We have a <insert process name here> process to <describe what the process is intended to do>. The process starts <identify the process starting point> and ends <describe the process ending point>. The scope does not include <list process steps outside the focus of the improvement initiative>. The process as performing is not meeting our needs. <Quantify how the process is not meeting your needs compared to a desired goal>. The goal of the project is to <describe project goal> resulting in <describe benefit>. The scale of the improvement effort includes <list> and excludes <list>.
Examples
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We have an Accounts Payable Process to pay outstanding invoices each day. The process starts when the employee asks for a bill to be paid and ends when the check is sent. The scope excludes invoice preparation and check deposits. The process as performing is not meeting our needs. It takes an employee about 2 hours per day to gather the information needed to pay the invoice correctly versus a goal of 1 hour. The goal of the project is to reduce the time required to collect the required input to prepare for payment to 1 hour per day, resulting in 30 hours less time per month. The scale of the improvement effort includes invoices from the western region only and excludes other regions of the state.​
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We use the Daily Appointment Process for scheduling of customer meetings with our professionals. The process starts when a meeting is requested and is completed when the meeting is successfully scheduled. The scope excludes making calendar updates at the start of each day. The process as performing is not meeting our needs. Each day, two people on my team process about 15-25 requests per person for professional appointments which takes about 2 hours per day per employee versus a goal of 1 hour per day per person. This impacts customer satisfaction because of the time required to set up the appointment and affects employees because of the waiting time involved. Our goal is to reduce the time required to successfully complete the booking of these meetings to 1 hour per person per day, saving 60 hours work time per month, while not increasing the number of staff people to do this. The scale of the improvement effort includes customer-requested meetings only and excludes meetings requested by our professionals.
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