What Gets Measured Gets Improved
Total Quality Management (TQM) is a management approach to long–term success through customer satisfaction. It involves a set of management practices to help companies increase their quality and productivity.TQM was very popular in American management circles in the ‘90s. It was later overshadow by Six Sigma, a newer concept that focuses on reducing defects by minimizing variation in processes.
I believe that the best thing to come out of the TQM approach is the simple principle: “What gets measured gets improved.”
This deceptively straightforward idea contains an incredible amount of wisdom and opportunity. If you want to improve something, measure the current situation or outcome.
Measuring gives you an accurate assessment of how things currently are, which does not always match how you think they are. Measuring focuses your time and attention on the subject – something you may not have previously done. You begin to see patterns and weak links that can be changed or improved.
“Our simple changes saved our company the cost of many non-billable repairs. We also saved our clients from numerous billable repairs and setbacks to their schedule. Everyone benefited…”
You may ask, “How does this apply to home building?” Let me tell you how we used this principle in our own company.
In the mid-2000s when we were constructing over 500 foundations per year, we found that we were doing a lot of repairs. These were situations where we would have to send men out to do something on a foundation that we’d already constructed.
Some of these repairs were billable. For example, if a builder told us to put a sewer sleeve in the wrong location while constructing the basement, then they would pay us to come back and put another one in. Some of these repairs were non-billable. If we put the sewer sleeve in the wrong place, or didn’t put one in at all, then we did the repair and didn’t charge for it.
We began tracking and measuring these repairs and reviewing them monthly. Two things popped out at us immediately. The first thing we found was that the amount of repairs performed was actually a very small percentage of our overall work. It just seemed like a lot of repairs because we were constructing so many foundations.
The second thing we found was that the majority of repairs were the same two or three items – repeated across many foundations. Most of them involved the sewer sleeves that I’ve already mentioned.
We implemented simple changes to our existing system of collecting and documenting the sewer sleeve locations. These modifications resulted in a drastic reduction in our repair work. Our simple changes saved our company the cost of many non-billable repairs. We also saved our clients from numerous billable repairs and setbacks to their schedule. Everyone benefited as a result of us measuring the number and type of repairs we performed.
Now, some of you may be saying, “I don’t have time to learn and implement a management technique when I’m just one guy trying to build a house.” Rest assured, this principle can have big payoffs for anyone.
Are there always too many things to do in your day? Or, have you ever wondered where the day went? Begin measuring exactly what you do throughout the day (I use the Eternity Time Log time tracking app on my iPhone). You’ll quickly see where you spend your time each day. Then, you can make changes that allow you to spend more time on the important things.
Do your projects keep going over the budget you established? Start measuring where they are going over. You may find one or two areas that are always the culprit. Then, you can begin to make changes to correct and improve those specific areas.
Any sticking point in your company can be improved by measuring it. By the way, this measurement principle is not just for work. It can be used for sticking points at home, too.
Take care,
