Every Monday, I receive some great tips from People Alchemy and I thought I'd share this one with you from Paul Matthews....
Beauty, we are told, is in the eye of the beholder.
Quality is the same. "Good quality does not necessarily mean high quality. It means a predictable degree of uniformity and dependability with a quality suited to the market." W Edwards Deming
Do you deliver anything where quality is a factor? Of course, we all do most of the time, from a report for your boss to giving a friend a ride home.
Do you try to deliver the best (in your opinion) quality, or do you ask your 'customers' what level of quality they want, and then deliver it?
What does quality look like in the eye of your customer?
Here are some helpful ways to think about quality.
So what do you think about quality in the eye of the beholder?
- In your L&D function, who are your customers and what does quality mean to them? How do you know?
- What tips have you got for making sure we deliver the quality our L&D customers expect?
P.S. Did you know, as a community member, you can try out People Alchemy's online performance support toolkit free? It's for managers and personal development, accessible online and provides advice and tips on every area of workplace learning. Check out this and other member offers in the DPG Partners and Offers section here on the DPG Community.
Replies
Great post and you're spot on with what you're saying Nicole. We all want to deliver the best possible service in all that we do, there are of course internal and external factors that will influence the outcome. That said as you have highlighted asking the right questions first and establishing the need and desired outcome is critical to enabling this to be met. It's the same in any customer facing role where they are your internal or external customers but it can often we a key area missed as some times we're guilty of making assumptions and cutting corners.
My tip would be understanding how L&D products and services align to supporting organisational objectives and how they can demonstrate that knowledge, skills or behaviours are positively impacted. If what we do doesn't align and support the organisation then irrelevant of the quality it will be pretty pointless and ineffective in the grand scheme of things.
Bob.