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VCQ NEWS
2008 Business/Non-Profit Criteria Available
The most significant changes in the Criteria booklet for 2008 are summarized as follows:
- The order of information in the Criteria booklet has been changed to put the Criteria at
- The Scoring System description and Scoring Guidelines have been revised, with significant
- Two new diagrams have been added to illustrate:
-- the role of Core Values and Concepts in underpinning the Criteria and
-- maturity levels in organizational learning.
- “Strategic Advantages” has been added to the Glossary of Key Terms.
Some wording improvements have been made in the Core Values and Concepts, in the Criteria Response Guidelines, and throughout the Criteria booklet.
To download a copy of the Criteria click here.
2008 VCQ Recognition and Award Ceremony
Tentatively set for March 27, 2008
SAVE THE DATE!
More details will be available soon.
Welcome New VCQ Members
Organizational Members:
Rhino Foods
School of Business Administration, UVM
Vermont Energy Investment Corporation
Vermont Precision Tools, Inc.
Individual Member:
Michael Lane, Instrumentation & Technical Services, UVM
As a VCQ member, you can take advantage of all the member benefits we offer – organizational assessments at a special member price, discounts on all of our education and training classes, advanced notice and reduced rates for all of our sponsored conferences and events, and much more!
For more information, visit our Membership section of our website.
Thank you to all for your support of the Vermont Program!
Planning for 2008, Let's Do It Right
Article by Mark Alpert, National Council for Performance Excellence
It’s that time of the year, time do the annual business planning, time to define next year’s goals and objectives. It’s also the time when you ask yourself what happened to last year’s finely crafted plan? We got off on the right foot at the beginning of the year, didn’t we? We had all the right intentions, how did we get away from the plan and at what point in the year did it happen?
Getting away from the business plan is an easy trap to fall into. Lots of new opportunities, new priorities and new expectations crop up during the year that pull and tug on the organization's direction. It’s a matter of critical path. Every business, regardless of size, maturity or industry sector, should define their critical path. It’s the organization's goals and objectives in measurable terms, supporting action plans, metrics to measure progress, and most importantly the focus and discipline to stay on the path.
You want to stay on the critical path next year? How about this for a New Years resolution? “Stop living in denial.” Ensure that next year’s goals and objectives will be based on facts and reality. Stop rendering excuses, placing blame elsewhere and passing the buck. Spend the time to really find out what your customer's expect, how capable your processes are, what the organizations strengths and weaknesses are and what are the areas in most need of improvement.
The role model, top performing companies have mastered the ability to define and stay on their critical path. Those companies know how to ask tough business questions, listen to the answers and implement actions that deliver. They are able to translate the internal and external feedback into effective improvement initiatives that result in tangible performance results - performance results that correlate with and demonstrate that what was planned was achieved.
Give your Executives, Directors, Managers and Front Line workers the tools to ask the right questions, collect the right data and make fact based decisions about the high leverage improvement areas that will drive performance improvement and customer satisfaction within your company.
As part of your planning for next year, define the critical path and instill the discipline to stay focused all year long. You will avoid many of the common pitfalls and start to see the same improvements the top performing companies see in using data to make decisions, focusing on the future, stopping the fire fighting, gaining a deeper understanding of the organization strengths and weaknesses and best of all - employee ownership of the tasks that drive long term business success.
To learn more about how you can get started on the pathway to excellence, contact the National Council for Performance Excellence at 802-655-1922 or visit the website at www.PerformanceExcellence.com.
--Mark Alpert, President, National Council for Performance Excellence
Consultant Referral Network
Looking for a Lean consultant?
A performance improvement expert?
A leadership coach?
A diversity trainer?
A strategic planning facilitator?
Sometimes locating an organizational improvement expert is difficult. There are many out there, but unless you already know who they are – or you get lucky through word of mouth – it is often times challenging to find them.
The Minnesota Council for Quality, in partnership with:
- Vermont Council for Quality
- Delaware Alliance for Excellence
- Kansas Center for Performance Excellence
- Michigan Quality Council
- Ohio Award of Excellence
- Washington State Quality Award
- Wisconsin Forward Award
Located at www.consultantreferralnetwork.org, the Consultant Referral Network is a dynamic, web-enabled search tool that connects organizational improvement experts to client organizations seeking them. This service allows clients to outline their needs in terms of subject matter expertise sought, type of assistance desired (consulting, training, coaching, speaking, or facilitating), sector/industry expertise required, size of consulting firm desired, desired location of consulting firm, and years of experience preferred. The client can also weight the relative importance of each variable. The tool will then identify up to five consultants or firms that best match the client’s needs.
Organizations can also peruse a directory of all consultants, sorted by subject matter expertise, location, and other factors.
The Consultant Referral Network averages over 1000 views a month. Over 400 searches have been completed using the tool, and seven consulting engagements have resulted from relationships established from this service. For more information or to use the Network, visit www.consultantreferralnetwork.org.
If you are a consultant wanting to get listed on this service, please contact Vermont Council for Quality at 802-655-1910 to learn more or review the site for more details.
The 11 Core Values to Achieve Performance Excellence
This month's Core Value is "Focus on the Future"
- Visionary Leadership
- Customer-Driven Excellence/Learning-Centered Education/Patient-Focused Excellence
- Organizational and Personal Learning
- Valuing Employees/Faculty/Staff and Partners
- Agility
- Focus on the Future
- Manage for Innovation
- Management by Fact
- Public Responsibility and Citizenship
- Focus on Results and Creating Value
- Systems Perspective
Focus on the Future
(Excerpt from the 2007 Criteria for Performance Excellence book)
In today’s competitive environment, creating a sustainable organization requires understanding the short- and longer-term factors that affect your organization and marketplace. Pursuit of sustainable growth and market leadership requires a strong future orientation and a willingness to make long-term commitments to key stakeholders—your customers, workforce, suppliers, partners, stockholders, the public, and your community.
Your organization’s planning should anticipate many factors, such as customers’ expectations, new business and partnering opportunities, workforce development and hiring needs, the increasingly global marketplace, technological developments, the evolving e-business environment, changes in customer and market segments, evolving regulatory requirements, changes in community and societal expectations and needs, and strategic moves by competitors. Strategic objectives and resource allocations need to accommodate these influences. A focus on the future includes developing your workforce and suppliers, accomplishing effective succession planning, creating opportunities for innovation, and anticipating public responsibilities and concerns.
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