Beyond Redlines: Creating a Practice-Based Quality Management Program

This arcticle was orginally pubished in the Summer 2007 issue of Practice Management Digest.

In creating a sustainable and continually improving quality program, a firm should create a feedback loop that measures and corrects processes. In the 2007 AIA National Convention workshop Beyond Redlines; Creating a Practice-Based Quality Management Program, I discussed how the architecture firm can use a RISMI feedback cycle to create a self-improving quality management program.

RISMI stands for review, identify, standardize/stabilize, measure, and improve.

Review Current Processes

This step includes identifying the project checklist or checklists and reviewing the project’s required deliverables with the team. Ensure that all team members understand the project requirements and deliverables. Then, using the same checklists, the team should review the deliverables (drawings, specifications, cost estimates) for compliance at the end of each phase, or at the times the deliverables are submitted. (Note: Although a separate review team provides a new set of eyes; avoid taking away the project team’s responsibility for its own checklists and checking. Shigeo Shingo of Toyota instituted a self and successive inspection program where workers inspect their work before passing it along to the next worker when it is inspected again. This process reduced assembly-line process errors to near zero.) The review process should detect the differences between compliance and deficiency and make the previous team member aware what is needed for correction (e.g., correction of the deliverables and the processes that led up to the deliverables).

Identify Process Weaknesses or Deficiencies

Use results from the review of current processes to determine areas that need improvement, such as
• Information capture and dissemination
• Project requirements
• Consultant coordination

Once the weaknesses have been identified, the firm should take actions necessary to prevent and correct them. Such actions may include further training, additional standardization of work, more explicit instructions, and additional identifiable delivery milestones.

Standardize and Stabilize Workflow

Pareto theory states that at least 80 percent of every project consists of standard work involving drawings or processes. Identify that work and processes (partition, door, and opening schedules, abbreviations, ADA mounting heights and clearances, even details such as window and door heads). Standardizing and sharing this information through forms and standardized drawing sheets can free up time and fee in order to spend the remaining unique 20 percent of the project requirements. Listing process and product standards can mitigate the risk of showing wrong or incomplete information. For example, the project documents can list and draw UL partitions and assemblies, Wood Institute standards for casework, ADA manuals and references for clearances, and contractor and manufacturer trade references for constructability issues.

Standardization shouldn’t stop at drawings. All business processes should be standard or have significant components that can be standardized, such as
• Organizing CAD files and layering
• Invoicing
• Conducting office meetings
• Training

Once quality variation has been removed from processes through prevention, the processes should be stabilized. This can be achieved by the use of root cause analysis tools such as value stream mapping (VSM). VSM is another tool created through Toyota’s Lean processes, is similar to process mapping or flow-charting, except that it identifies the process’s customer and value to that customer.

Does the client care about CAD line number or colors? Yes—if it needs to match their system. No—if they are only interested in hard-copy deliverables. In one variance-prone issue-tracking construction administration process, the team found that a number of issues were being forgotten and unresolved. The VSM process uncovered and corrected handling issues. A spreadsheet and flowchart were developed for team members to track, answer, and route the construction administration issues. Additional improvements were also identified which, in turn, made the system more efficient and stable

Measure Performance

Quality cannot be improved without measurement; however, measurement is one of the most overlooked quality steps. Even simple metrics such as registering on-time drawing delivery or error-free client invoices can be an important and successful differentiator for the architecture firm.

Once a system is stabilized, the use of metrics can promote and improve its stability. The firm should establish and track metrics incorporating people, processes, project participants, and finance. Additionally, lagging indicators (e.g., orders filled, training hours spent, and customer retention and referral percentage) should be combined with leading indicators (e.g., orders in process or booked work, and staff enrollment in training) to provide the most accurate measures. Tracking both lagging and leading measures helps ensure that the team and firm have control over their processes and are planning for the future. Auditing is critical to validate everyone’s involvement in the program. The audit process identifies problem areas as well as areas of success. An audit program measures and reports against the policy requirements. Examples of quality management (QM) audits include performance reviews, design audits and reviews, postoccupancy evaluations, and client satisfaction surveys.

Improve Quality Continuously

As noted earlier, QM is as much about quality improvement as it is about quality maintenance. Once a team or firm has validated that QM policy and program requirements have been met, it strives to further improve the QM functions and processes. Improvements may include such things as faster turnaround times, additional standardized work, and pre-completed drawing sheets. It may also include identifying and revamping processes that aren’t adequate for particular clients or projects.

To be successful, quality improvement can’t just address processes that management has determined are important. Improvement also calls for creating QM initiatives that build on the ideas of employees. Fostering an innovative firm will help nourish a more effective QM program. Rather than pushing improvement onto project teams, make improvement ideas a feature (if not a requirement) of staff and project meetings. Simple questions, such as “how can we improve this process?” or “what are the operational constraints in finishing this task?” can identify frustrating hurdles that the frontline staff deals with everyday of which management may be unaware.

Keep in mind that small, front-line ideas are the primary means for organizational learning and improvement. Small ideas are also an excellent source for larger ideas, to leverage team, project, and organizational improvement. Creating a QM program, which integrates idea generation as a problem-solving and improvement tool acknowledges the ability of frontline staff to leverage small improvements into a creative and evolving organization.

Once embedded in the organization, the RISMI feedback loop can benefit from its own RISMI review. For example, augment RCA techniques with a Six Sigma project, or take the RISMI program to your contractor or client. In the words of Peter Drucker, “It is not necessary for an organization to grow bigger; however, it must grow better.”

For more related listening, download this AIA podcast by Cliff Moser:

Train, Retain and Transfer Project Knowledge
Cliff S. Moser, AIA, MSQA, Principal/Healthcare Los Angeles Studio, RTKL Associates Inc., and Practice Management Advisory Group member explains how to train, retain and transfer project skills and knowledge using concepts from the WWII program, Training Within Industry. Also detailed is the use of Lean Enterprise Strategies in architecture.

Cliff S. Moser, AIA, MSQA, is the Vice President of Project Experience at CADFORCE, and serves on the AIA Practice Management Knowledge Community Advisory Group.