AD-00025

Meetingworks lends itself to Quality assessments such as Baldrige.  Groups can use the tools to assess themselves in many ways.

Some groups have as a first step in the process a wide-open brainstorming to get input on the various topics in the assessment.  Action plans can be created to address areas that need improvement.

For the actual assessment, a topic is presented and the group uses Evaluate to rate the items within the topic.  After each topic has been evaluated, the results from all of the Evaluate steps are brought into an Excel spreadsheet designed to place the appropriate weight scores for each Baldrige category.

###

A computer company that produces relational database software held a customer satisfaction workshop with nine of their largest customers.  Each customer sent two representatives from their organization, one was from management, who were responsible for the planning, acquisition, installation, and maintenance of their databases.  The purpose of the session was to identify and understand the factors that affect customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

A two topic Generate step was used to allow each customer (both representatives at one workstation) to give their input on "the things they were the most satisfied with", and "the things they were the least satisfied with".  There were no other limitations put in the questions since the computer company was looking for the widest possible range of factors.

After the designated timeframe, all of the responses were viewed in an Organize step, with the satisfied comments being quickly reviewed first and then that part of the outline was collapsed (closed, so only the top level item could be seen on the screen).

From this point on there was a facilitator working with the group and the chauffeur was working the software.  For the dissatisfied comments the first task was to go through the list and remove exact duplicates.  Then people scanned the list and named categories for which the chauffeur set up separate windows.  The items on the main list were moved into the appropriate category windows.  Any remaining items were put into an "other" category window.  The group chose a category to work on and the chauffeur maximized that window.  Each item on the list was discussed to clarify it or merge it with another similar comment.  This was done for all of the windows and each window was saved to its own file.  All information was either printed or emailed for distribution to the computer company management and developers who would join the customers on the second day.  This ended the first day of the meeting.

On the second day of the meeting, product, marketing, and customer service managers from the computer company along with the product developers were in the meeting room with the customers.  The chauffeur opened the first category window (all windows were opened in the order the group originally worked on them the first day), and the computer company personnel responded to each item or asked the customers for more information or discussion.  The facilitator made sure that the essence of the responses or discussion was reiterated, and the chauffeur captured that and added it to each comment on the list, as a sub-item to the comment.

After all of the categories were handled in this manner the computer company management gave an overview of what their next steps would be to prepare action plans to handle the comments and thanked the customers for their participation.  The chauffeur then opened up an Evaluate step with items about the two day meeting.  The customers were given the opportunity to rate each item on a scale of 1 to 5 for how they felt each item contributed to the success of the meeting.  Comments were definitely encouraged.  Responses from the customers indicated that they were more committed than ever to the relationship with the company and to using the company’s products.  That it was wonderful that the company was communicating openly about their product strategies.  As well, when negative issues (or dissatisfiers) were addressed, they were handled in a positive way and that most customers seemed to feel that they would have an input on transforming and resolving those issues.  They also really liked using the meeting software to gather the comments quickly and then have more time to work through understanding and dealing with them with the company management and developers.

###

The Defect Prevention Process (DPP) was established to help people clearly define defects (in either products or processes), determine their cause(s), and create appropriate actions to preclude the occurrence or reoccurrence of the defects.  The following DPP meetings, with a team of software documentation specialists, were held on two separate days.  The first day was a four hour meeting and the second day was a full day.  This was the first DPP meeting for the team and they looked at business processes they were responsible for handling.  Before the work started on the first meeting day, the group facilitator took the team through an hour long tutorial on the defect prevention process.

The team leader had given the Meetingworks chauffeur a list of 22 processes which were input, before the meeting, into an Organize step.  The team viewed the list and determined it was okay as written, with a few minor word changes to clarify some items.  The list was then used as topics for a Generate step and participants brainstormed defects (if any) for each business process topic.

After the time designated for listing defects had passed the whole outline of topics (business processes) with their sub-items (defects) was reviewed in a new Organize step.  The group facilitator took the team through the review with clarification of items while the chauffeur scribed any changes or additions.  As each defect was reviewed and clarified it was given a code to identify which business process it was tied to and was copied into a new window, creating a list of just the defects.  When all defects were in the new window the original outline window was closed and saved.  This was the end of the first (four hour) day.

The next day the chauffeur started an Organize step with the list of defects.  The facilitator and the team looked at the list to determine if there were any duplicates, which were removed from the list.  The list of defects was then used as topics in another Generate step and participants brainstormed causes for each defect.  After the time designated for listing causes had passed the whole outline of topics (defects) with their sub-items (causes) was reviewed in a new Organize step.  The group facilitator took the team through the review with clarification of items while the chauffeur scribed any changes or additions.  After all of the causes were clarified the team looked at the whole list.  Defects, with their causes, were grouped together and copied into new windows according to how much overlap the defects and/or causes had with each other.  The original outline of defects and causes was closed and saved.  The team then broke into subgroups to work on preparing action plans to handle the causes.  The chauffeur sent the file for the appropriate window of defects and causes to the subgroup who would be working on the action plans for those causes.  One person was designated from each subgroup to add the action plans to their outlines.  After the time designated for creating action plans had passed the chauffeur collected the files back to the chauffeur workstation and opened them, one at a time, while each subgroup presented their action plan(s) to the whole team.  The facilitator and the team reviewed and clarified the action plans while the chauffeur scribed any changes or additions.  The action plans were given start and end dates along with the names of people who would be responsible for implementing the action plans by the end dates.

The team then gave feedback about the meeting, with comments for changes or improvements, in an Evaluate step.  They rated a list of meeting components on a scale of 1 to 5 for how well those components worked.  The majority of the comments were favorable and the team was looking forward to future DPP meetings.  The facilitator and team leader reviewed the evaluations with the team and any changes needed were made before the next DPP meeting was held.