In my experience supporting implementations of ISO 9001 Quality Systems, I have noticed that the objectives of these are defined in a very poor way, making it difficult to achieve the proposed goal many times.
In this article I propose a series of steps, aligned to the well-known SMART methodology (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-based), which could help you when you are defining the quality objectives of your organization.
Defining Quality Objectives
1. Aligned to the quality policy
As stated in the standard, the quality objectives must be consistent with the quality policy. If the organization's commitment is "to provide a timely service ", then the objectives must be such that they help fulfill that commitment.
At this point I would like to add that the quality policy, and therefore the quality objectives, must be aligned with the mission and vision of the organization. If the organization wishes to “Be the most recognized and prestigious”, then the commitments found within the quality policy must be such that they help achieve that vision.
In general, I always find myself with objectives such as: "Maintain a Quality System", "Maintain a customer satisfaction index of x%". These are the types of objectives that make an organization remain stagnant, without achieving better results over time.
Let's reflect, if you graduate from college, your goal will be: Maintaining your career? or go even further? Goals should help you grow, improve and the only way to achieve this is to do different things. As Einstein said well: " If you want different results you must do different things ".
In this sense, if you want to " increase revenue ", gain more prestige "then it is not possible to achieve this by" maintaining a delivery time of 5 days "or" maintaining a Customer Satisfaction Index of 85% ". These "stagnant objectives" mentioned above would be, rather, values or parameters of the processes that must be maintained at a certain level to achieve consistency in the result being obtained, regardless of whether the result is good or bad.
To avoid the definition of "stagnant targets", try to use words such as: "increase", "decrease", "optimize".
3.….but also be realistic
Although it is necessary to be ambitious when defining quality objectives, you must also be realistic. The quality objectives must be such that they can be met according to the resources assigned in terms of: time, budget, workload, etc.
The idea here is not to go to the limits. If you are overly ambitious then possibly the only thing you can do is get your staff frustrated as the proposed goals are unlikely to be achieved, but if you are over-ambitious then your organization will remain stagnant with the same results over and over again.
4. Make them specific
Quality objectives must be defined so that they are clear and precise, so that you can know exactly what you are trying to achieve.
As a general rule, consider using, on average, no more than 25 words in the definition of goals. This will help you write them in a concise way so that everyone quickly understands where you want to go.
5. Don't confuse goals with strategies
Another point I commonly find is that organizations generally confuse strategies with objectives. Strategies are the means to achieve a goal, and a goal is a goal where you want to reach.
For example, implementing a Quality Management System, is it an objective or a strategy? Many organizations define this as an objective, however the implementation of a Quality Management System is a strategy to achieve objectives such as:
Increase customer satisfaction, increase market share, decrease costs, decrease complaints, etc.
You can use as a rule that if a goal cannot be defined using the words "Increase", "Decrease", "Optimize", then this definition is very likely to be more of a strategy.
6. If you define objectives, also define strategies
In practice, it is very common to find matrices where the objectives are defined with their goal to be achieved, those responsible and the deadline to achieve them. However, the strategies to achieve these objectives are rarely defined, that is, the What, When and Who are defined, but the “How we are going to achieve it” is not defined.
I consider that strategies are the most difficult to define and perhaps that is why they are often overlooked. However, if we do not define the strategies then we assume that "by doing the same we will achieve something different".
When defining strategies, actions and activities must be established that change, in a certain way, the way of operating some things within the organization. I go back and reiterate the aforementioned "To achieve different results, you must do different things."
When defining objectives and strategies, it may be useful to carry out process capacity studies, since through this analysis it is possible to know if the potential capacity of a process has already been reached. In this sense, it avoids falling into the typical case of "requiring employees to do it faster", when in reality the process operates at its maximum capacity and the way of carrying it out must be changed in order to continue improving it.
7. Goals must be Measurable
In defining the objectives, we must make sure to establish the goal and the indicator to be used to measure it. The source from which the data will be obtained must also be established, where the analysis of these data will be reported and who is responsible for these activities.
Sometimes it is not possible to set a goal because there is little information to know where the organization is. In this case, measurements must first be carried out to determine "where we are" and thus be able to establish "where we are going". It is recommended for this to have at least three consecutive measurements.
In conclusion, the process of defining quality objectives can be summarized in a matrix such as the following:
