Define a Problem and Select a Project
Before you can improve, you'll have to identify some problems and inefficiencies in your
organization. You can start by using surveys, evaluation forms, questionnaires, and
suggestion boxes to gather information from your employees and customers.
A Survey created with SmartDraw
Using SmartDraw to Help Define a Problem and Select a Project
SmartDraw provides a number of ready-made forms for taking surveys and suggestions.
You can customize these forms for your business, or create your own from scratch
using SmartDraw's ready-made form elements.
Translate Customer Comments into Specific Requirements
After gathering feedback from customers, you'll want to consolidate it into a list
of specific problems and concrete requirements for solving them. For example, if
customers complain of poor service, it's not sufficient to set a broad goal such
as "Improve Service." The Business Process Management strategy requires tangible,
measurable goals, such as replying to e-mails within 24 hours.
Using SmartDraw
SmartDraw provides a number of templates including Requirement Worksheets and
Critical-to-Quality Trees (CQT) to help you categorize quality requirements
based on surveys and customer feedback.
Requirement Worksheet
A Requirement Worksheet is a table divided into three columns. In the first column, you
should list customer comments. In the second column, you distill the comments into a
list of general problems or issues and, in the last column, state the quality requirements
that will address the problem.
A Requirement Worksheet Created With SmartDraw
Analyze Requirements and Features
Next, you can analyze the relationship between customer requirements and the features
of your product or service. The Requirement Feature Matrix can help you
reveal how specific product or service features contribute to a customer requirement.
What features of your product affect price? Which ones affect safety? What features
make your product seem reliable?
A Requirement Matrix Created with SmartDraw
In the left column of the matrix, list the known customer requirements. Then list the
features of your product or service across the top. At the intersection of each
requirement and feature, mark the strength of the relationship using a three-level
scale: strong (high), moderate (medium), and weak (low).
House of Quality Matrix
You can take the Requirement Feature Matrix one step further by also analyzing the
correlation between the features of the product, the features of competitive services
or products, the relative importance of any requirement to the customer, the sales
importance of any requirement, and the organizational difficulty involved in changing
any of the product or service features.
The House of Quality Matrix is often used in Quality Function Deployment (QFD) as a
way to translate the voice of the customer into the voice of the engineer for better,
customer-oriented product development. This matrix can provide you with even greater
insight on how customer requirements might correspond to product features and internal
processes as well as your competitive environment and marketing strategy.
A House of Quality Matrix Created with SmartDraw