Leaders from UR Medicine and Rochester Regional Healthcare describe the systems and practices in place at those two institutions to protect the safety of both staff and patients.

Workplace stress affects every level of an organization — from front-line staff to leadership — impacting morale, performance, and overall quality of services. This session explores practical ways to reduce stress and build resilience at both individual and organizational levels. Carrie Carl, LCSW-R, from Villa of Hope, shares how the Sanctuary Model, a trauma-informed framework, is being used within the organization to create a culture of safety, connection, and growth. Dr. Terry Wu explains how stress affects the brain and human behavior, equipping leaders with science-proven tools to effectively mitigate work and life stressors. Together, they will highlight actionable strategies organizations can use to support staff wellness, promote balance, and strengthen workplace culture.

Lean Six Sigma doesn't have to be complex and intimidating. Eileen Askey and Pat Campbell, who teach Green and Black Belt courses at RIT Certified, describe their very practical approach to process improvement via Lean Six Sigma.

The Greater Rochester area is recognized as one of the country’s top cities for food. Rochester features a vibrant and diverse food and restaurant industry, recognized nationally for its quality and innovation. Also, the region is a hub for food and beverage manufacturing. This program highlights the ways in which food quality is assured. A review of potential food safety problems is followed by a review of the keys to building safety in through contamination control and robust food safety management systems. The program then shifts to the importance of third party inspection and verification, including the role of state and county authorities in assuring good, safe practices. The keys to food quality and safety are universally relevant to all products, industries and organizations.

In this time of significant change and disruption in our workplaces, the principles of authentic leadership, employee engagement, and higher purpose are more important than ever now. By developing leaders at all levels of the organization, we start to engage and build accountability, adaptability and resilience in the individuals on our teams.

Cheryl Adas shares the principles of Conscious Leadership and some tools that you can use to align your leadership style with these principles.

Every group has a beginning. And those early moments—how people show up, how the tone is set, how goals and relationships unfold—can make or break the group’s ability to perform. This interactive session explores how groups form and function—and how you can influence that process for the better. Speakers Amber and John Ramerman blend theory and practice to help you reduce friction and cultivate cohesion in service of generating high-quality results.

In today’s competitive service-driven economy, delivering exceptional customer experiences is one of the most powerful ways businesses can differentiate themselves and build lasting customer loyalty. Dr. Edwin N. Torres explores the critical role of quality initiatives in enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiency. Drawing from his extensive research and service industry expertise, Dr. Torres discusses best practices for service innovation, quality initiatives, and customer satisfaction strategies — whether in retail, healthcare, financial services, hospitality, or beyond.

Modern life moves at warp speed. Sometimes, we find ourselves moving as fast as we can without considering the direction our journey is taking us. Drs. David Pierce (Rochester Regional Healthcare) and Jessica Shand (UR Medicine) share their career and life journeys in medicine, and share their insights into how they maintain their well-being by focusing on the things that are truly important, and all that entails.

The NY SMART I-Corridor, spanning the Rochester-Buffalo-Syracuse super-region, is among a dozen regional tech hubs to receive first-in-the-nation implementation funding to activate an innovative growth strategy. This region is already home to five cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication plants, including Micron’s Syracuse megafab – the largest semiconductor facility in the nation - and around 100 innovative supply chain firms. Driving this success is a first-of-its-kind coalition of over 100 institutions, united by a bold vision - to redefine the future of technology. Rochester and Syracuse leaders Joe Stefko and Ben Sio describe this innovative approach and its implications for US manufacturing and the upstate New York economy.

The first step in many a process improvement initiative is to understand the current state. Process flow mapping is one of the most powerful tools for doing that. Jason and Lucas share the basics of Process Mapping, including examples from projects they have facilitated, and answer questions about pitfalls and implementation.

In upstate New York, we depend on the accuracy of the weather forecast to plan our daily lives. Jon Hitchcock of the National Weather Service in Buffalo focuses on the challenges of weather prediction in the Great Lakes region, past and future technological advances in meteorology, and the role of human experience in weather prediction, as well as how emerging technologies will further improve forecasting.

Learn about the current and future potential of AI to help improve health and support providers of care throughout the Rochester region. Featuring insightful panelists from across the community, including the Monroe County Health Department, Rochester Regional Health, and UR Medicine.

This program offers a practical, hands-on guide for leaders looking to implement distributed leadership models that prioritize equity and empower their teams. Emphasizing the importance of involving diverse stakeholders in decision-making, the program helps leaders build trust, create a shared vision, and foster collaboration within their organizations.

Rochester Made Means Quality! A slogan that was coined over 100 years ago has thrived due, in part, to a community that has come together not once, but twice, to spawn organizations dedicated to advancing quality across all sectors of our economy and community life. Leo Braun and Eric Alden share the history of Rochester's quality movement, and the visions and visionaries that have driven it.

Local non-profits and volunteers from the 2024 Day of Quality describe their projects and answer questions about the experience.

Terry Callanan describes four basic communication styles, along with the characteristics, strengths and potential pitfalls of each. He suggests tips for tailoring your own communications to work effectively with people whose communication style is different from your own.

In this discussion, we will become familiar with conducting an “After Action Review.” This process and tool can be used individually, but it’s also a foundation for debriefing with your team and creating a system for process improvement that's easy and effective. Our speakers explores the power it brings to the “S” of PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act). Using an After Action Review process, you’ll be more effective in how you learn from the past and focus yourself and your team moving forward and harnessing change.

Join us to hear about, and see live demonstrations, of what it takes to develop the talent and perseverance needed to become a professional performing artist. Jamey Leverett, Artistic Director at Rochester’s Draper Center for Dance Education, is joined by several of her current and former students to discuss and demonstrate the education and training process for aspiring dancers.

A dedicated, creative team at Gorbel achieved a manufacturing miracle - from ground zero to manufacturing startup in six months. Franklin Allen tells the story of how they did it.

Agile software development stands at the forefront of methodologies for creating software. In this session, our speakers lay the groundwork with a brief overview of Agile software development. From there, they delve into best practices, tooling, and real-world examples from Paychex that seamlessly integrate quality into their processes. The iterative nature and philosophies of Agile not only drive software development, but also foster a culture of quality, offering valuable insights to individuals and organizations dedicated to pursuing excellence.

Over the last few years, computer processing power and data availability has exploded, which has led to quantum leap advancements in data analytics and the vast world of Artificial Intelligence. This has opened up numerous opportunities and challenges to Quality professionals, Data Scientists, Market Research, and Business professionals as organizations strive to turn that data into information and ultimately, competitive advantage.

Anurag Khare, Head of Data Analytics at UCB and Mike Caceci, Business Professor at Rochester Institute of Technology discuss specific real life cases in how qualitative data and quantitative data are being used to tell a story.

Since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, interest in – and trepidation about – generative artificial intelligence (AI) has exploded in the business and technology press. In this program, we will discuss the latest advances in practical AI and their implications for such diverse domains as human resource management, marketing, healthcare delivery, and customer service. We will give particular attention to AI’s implications for quality management through developments such as predictive analytics, process mining, and algorithmic decision support. We also explore the ethical considerations confronting leaders as they assess possible applications of these tools in their organizations.

Organizations from all sectors have had to adapt to change in the wake of the pandemic, but nowhere has this been more true than in healthcare. Add in economic and regulatory pressures, as well as an ongoing drive to achieve improvement in patient outcomes, and it becomes clear that continuous evolution of organizational culture within the healthcare sector is a must.

Multidisciplinary leaders responsible for driving culture change within Rochester’s leading healthcare providers will share details of their initiatives to drive and manage culture change within their organizations. Hear about best practices in this critical area, as well as a vision of what the future might hold. Read the meeting transcript and view the video.

Matt Conyer, CEO of Rochester-based start-up DraughtLab, describes the science of Sensory Analysis and how food and beverage manufacturers are using it to ensure the flavor and quality of their products

Shannon Ryan shares her experiences in leading three Lean Six Sigma projects at Hillside. Hear about the tools, the processes, and the impact of these three LSS projects.

In today's environment, where organizations are facing record levels of turnover, having a robust succession plan is more critical than ever. Two executives from Excellus BCBS share the best practices embedded in their program, Enterprise Succession.

The George Hansen Exemplar award is the highest honor given at the GRQC Performance Excellence Awards. In 2022, ESL Federal Credit Union won this award for Organizational Excellence. Ken Wezelis tells about the processes that merited this award, in a structured and engaging presentation that will provide you food for thought as you evaluate your own organization.

Long-time Rochester Red Wings General Manager Dan Mason shares the practices that have led to the stability and success of the Red Wings franchise during decades of change in Organized Baseball.

Gaining buy-in within an organization big or small can be challenging.  When it comes to Quality Initiatives, gaining buy-in is a key component of making any initiative successful. 

Follow Hillside's journey in establishing an extensive Lean Six Sigma program, and hear about some examples of successful LSS programs.

Securing and retaining an excellent workforce has never been more challenging. In this panel discussion, three local HR professionals share best practices that have worked for them.

This panel discussion features four local experts in job search, career change and networking sharing their experience about what has worked for their clients. Let it work for you too!

This session reviews the necessary components of people, process, and technology, and how their interactions create greater efficiencies and are critical to an organization’s future. We learn how to incorporate them into strategic and tactical plans while being fluent with continuous improvement.

Lean Positive combines traditional quality tools and processes with Positive Psychology to create people processes that improve employee value and morale.

Engaging customers is more complicated than ever before. How can organizations do a better job of being less intrusive and more helpful? The first step in becoming more helpful is to better understand the customer experience by mapping their decision journey. Told from the perspective of an advertising agency veteran, this event is for any organization seeking ways to better connect with their customers through an improved experience.

All organizations have felt the effects of COVID-19 and have needed to make critical decisions during this unprecedented time. Nowhere else have the decisions been as critical as in the healthcare sector. This Zoom webinar will feature rapid-fire style insights from healthcare leaders across the community, including the Monroe County Department of Public Health, Rochester Regional Health, UR Medicine, and others who will share how they addressed key decisions related to the pandemic.

The nursing profession has adopted outcomes measures to guide the pursuit of excellence in both education and practice. This program provides an overview of the outcome measures that drive continuous quality improvement and workforce development in the profession

Over half of all strategic plans fail. Golisano Children’s Hospital (GCH) at University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) applied quality improvement to strategic planning and beat the odds to advance priorities for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

The strategic plan at GCH is now a nationally-published model. In this session, Dr. Jan Schriefer, Director of Quality and Patient Safety at GCH at URMC, will share this model with Rochester area organizations. Attendees will leave ready to test this dynamic strategic improvement process in their own workplace.

Strategic Plans and Employee Surveys are nothing new, but proactively using the data from these surveys to influence the plans and their implementation improved engagement and satisfaction among staff members. at Children's Institute.

Digital technologies have changed the world for journalism. To survive, former competitors have become collaborators. Karen Magnuson, long-time Executive Editor of the Rochester D&C, shares the values and practices that enabled this transition - ones that are applicable in many organizations.

Would you let your volunteers build airplanes? Like employees, volunteers can be challenging, but they also are the life force of organizations. In Aerospace, like all industries, people have a huge effect on the quality and safety of products. Can quality and safety standards from the Aerospace industry be applied to improve the management and satisfaction of volunteers at your organization?
In this talk, W. Frazier Pruitt shared real examples of how standards from the Aerospace industry influenced the improvements during the 2020 GRQC Day of Quality at ROCovery Fitness.

Those working directly or closely with public sector funds are familiar with this phrase. While funding may be cut, reduced, or eliminated, the standards for the work seldom are. In fields with constant belt tightening applying the statistical and analytical approach of Lean Six Sigma to change not only helps maintain financial fidelity, but facilitates participant buy in. This webinar, led by Andrew DeSantis from Hillside, examined an example of a project that dealt with program de-funding using an analytical approach to re-assign tasks, change policy, and maintain adaptability in the face of further change.

We make decisions all the time. In Part 1 of this two-part webinar series, we demonstrated the benefits of "statistical thinking" in decision making, and how its absence can lead you to making poor decisions. Part 2 includes the introduction of a tool to help you distinguish common cause from special cause variation (called a "control chart"). A simple template is provided that you can take away and use in your workplace.

Care-a-lot operates seven childcare centers in the Rochester area, and has been able to maintain operations all through the pandemic. This presentation shows how Care-a-lot created, implemented and monitored policies and protocols to effectively manage the spread of COVID-19 in its childcare facilities, and the role that company culture played in the success of these efforts. It also includes data related to the effectiveness of the policies in controlling the spread across multiple centers and various age groups

We make decisions all the time. Some as casual as deciding whether to agree or disagree that it doesn’t snow in Rochester like it used to! Others of more significance. In Part 1 of this two-part webinar series, we demonstrated the benefits of "statistical thinking" in decision making, and how its absence can lead you to making poor decisions.

The GRQC Day of Quality is an annual event modeled after the United Way Day of Caring. Hear about what a local organization, ROCovery Fitness, was able to accomplish in a single day, and the positive impact it will have on their operations.

During the pandemic, Excellus BCBS has continued to practice Kaizens, but is doing them virtually. This file describes their process from planning to conclusion.

An overview of the medical marijuana industry - the regulatory environment and the processes that ensure the quality and safety of the product.

Geared for nonprofit leaders, but applicable across sectors, this presentation reveals three tips for how to make your job easier. They revolve around the concepts of waste, variation and flow. The content could be a strong overview of how to use Lean and Six Sigma principles for any business or organization that wants some introductory benefits around the benefits of Lean Six Sigma. GRQC and our partners offer classes to train leaders as well as practitioners on the power of these tools.

How NextCorps helps support early stage business growth, and how deployment of quality best practices is a key part of the path to success. • Who is NextCorps • How NextCorps fits with other startup groups in the community • Views on quality from our clients