CROSBY’S MATURITY GRID (CROWN AS KING)
Use to understand the stages you and your team need to go through to establish a quality programme.
In Quality is Free, Phil Crosby discussed the costs, in terms of warranty claims and poor public relations, to organisations of providing poor-quality goods. He argued that an organisation that established a quality programme would make savings that would more than cover the cost of any such programme.
Underpinning Crosby’s belief was the principle of ‘do it right the first time’, which he felt was only achieved when an organisation reached a level of operational maturity. To achieve maturity organisations/individuals go through five stages.
Source: Adapted from Crosby, P. B., Quality is Free: The Art of Making Quality Certain (McGraw-Hill, 1978).
HOW TO USE IT
- Build alliances with other managers who are interested in improving quality.
- Take stock of where you are and get as many people as possible in your team/organisation to complete the Maturity Grid in Quality is Free or online.
- Don’t be surprised if the general view is that you are in the early stages of maturity. Moving from unconscious incompetence (doing things wrong and not knowing it) to conscious incompetence (still doing things wrong but knowing it) is the first step that you and your staff need to take. The second and third steps are to accept that most things don’t work as they are supposed to and that problems breed problems. It is only when everyone accepts the reality of the situation that you can deal with the problem.
- Before you can eradicate any problem it’s essential that you accurately identify the cause of the problem (see Theory 81). It only takes one bit of bad data to compromise the integrity of the whole procedure, so check and verify all data as you receive it.
- Don’t rely on just statistical data in your analysis. Find out how people feel about the problem.
- Only when you fully understand the problem, and have the resources to solve it, should you take action.
- Define your customer’s requirements, agree performance standards in advance and then let nothing stand in your way as you deliver them.
- Once the new system is installed, monitor the level of complaints and adjust the system as required.
QUESTIONS TO ASK
- Does my team see quality improvement as a significant issue?
- Does my team see quality improvement as a one-off task or a continuous process?