Roll Quality Roll: Strategic Quality
Planning at
The University of Alabama
The University of Alabama has embarked on a journey to utilize
the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award as a
yardstick for continuous improvement. As one part of this effort, the
University is raising the bar in its expectations for strategic quality
plans to provide guidance for improvements within colleges, academic
departments, and staff organizations.
The drive for quality improvement is led by Dr. Andrew Sorensen,
President of the University, whose efforts are supported by a Quality Council and a Quality Advisory Board. The Quality Council is chaired by the Provost of the University, Dr. Nancy Barrett, and includes Deans, faculty, students, and staff. The Advisory Board consists of quality managers from several corporations who have won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, including Milliken, Boeing, and Federal Express.
The leadership at UA has come to recognize that the quality issue in
higher education is about building a management system that drives continuous
improvement of all processes, based on data from stakeholder groups. The
development of strategic quality plans through a consensus process is one
of the vital elements of the overall quality initiative.
Building Consensus
Consensus plays a more important role in higher education than in
almost any other organizational setting. Achieving consensus on strategy and decision making is highly valued in part because of the collegial nature of faculty and tradition of faculty governance. The higher education environment is designed to engender debate and discussion.
Managers in corporate and government settings may not appreciate how
much the university culture differs on the issue of consensus. The university is one of the few institutions where leaders, such as the Deans, are formally evaluated by their employees, the faculty. The university is a rare institution where the faculty has a representative senate, that expresses the faculty's
confidence in the university's leadership, and expects its voice to be heard in
a consensus building process. For these reasons, strategic quality planning in higher education will be more democratic than may commonly be found in business and within governmental agencies.
Consensus building tools, such as nominal group technique, are very
important in the planning process.(1) Every faculty member expects their
voice to be heard when a department is deciding its direction, so it is
important that strategies are based on consensus, not majority rule or management fiat.
Mission
The mission of the University of Alabama is to add value to the people
of Alabama through teaching, research, and outreach. The basic components
of this mission were established in 1831 and are inscribed in stone on the main
entrances to the campus. Known as "The Capstone" of higher education in the
state, UA is Alabama's flagship university that has traditionally educated
generations of Alabama's leaders and professionals. Over time, the University has developed several areas of special emphasis. One specialty consists of teaching, research and outreach for rural communities within Alabama. Many university programs address rural issues and prepare professionals for work in rural and small town settings. Activities that support economic growth in the state, particularly in the rapidly expanding automotive industry and in materials sciences, are another area of strategic emphasis for UA. The University also has a long history of excellence in distance education and provides academic programs that reach out across the state.
The challenge for each academic unit and administrative organization is to
align itself with the mission. This has led to innovative research into issues
that directly affect the quality of life in rural communities, such as healthcare, freshwater studies, education, social services, and business. Mission alignment
stimulates the colleges in collaborative efforts to meet engineering, business,
quality, and environmental management challenges for industry and has led
the University to create the Southeastern Automotive College to better serve
the research and advanced educational needs of automotive firms.
Stakeholders
The University of Alabama has already benefited from using the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award Criteria as a yardstick for self-measurement in the area of understanding stakeholders. The President and senior staff of the University have identified fifteen distinct stakeholder groups whose needs and interests must be addressed in various ways. In some cases, such as campus safety,
these various stakeholder interests may overlap, while in others, such as allocation of funding, the stakeholders' interests may be at odds with one another.
The fifteen stakeholder groups are:
Students (18-22 years of age) who come to the University for
a residential educational setting.
Adult students who come to the University for undergraduate
and graduate education.
Parents of the 18-22 year old students.
Faculty
Staff
Employers who hire our graduates.
Local businesses that serve the campus community.
High Schools and Community Colleges that encourage their
students to attend the University.
Elected and appointed officials of the State of Alabama.
Foundations, Agencies. and Corporations that fund research at the
University, and provide endowments and gifts.
Alumni
Citizens of Alabama that support 1/3 of the University's
budget through their taxes.
Retirees of the University
Friends of the University who support cultural programs, athletic
events, and medical and social services.
An international community that utilizes our German language
and Japanese language schools for their families.
Having this many stakeholder groups heightens the need for a
strategic quality planning process that encourages a consensus across
the diverse dimensions of the campus community.
University level SQP
The strategic quality planning process at The University of Alabama
is led by the Provost, who is also Vice-President for Academic Affairs. The Provost's role in guiding the process is to listen, to consult, to identify major
themes and opportunities, and to prepare a guideline for planning at the
college level that will set high expectations for performance and continuous improvement.
Alabama's Provost invests considerable time with the Deans of the University's eleven colleges, and with faculty groups to develop and update
The White Paper, which serves as a guiding document for strategy formulation.
This document identifies major themes that each college should address in its planning process, such as establishing collaborative Centers for Excellence in graduate studies, re-designing the undergraduate educational experience, upgrading administrative and educational technology, and an emphasis on improving internal services through Continuous Quality Improvement.
Each college is expected to develop a quality centered strategic plan that
addresses the specific interests of the college's stakeholders and the major
themes of the White Paper. Colleges, academic departments, and support
groups utilize well established processes for strategic quality planning. (2)
College level SQP
The College of Community Health Sciences provides a good example of
strategic planning at the college level. The college has a special mission to
prepare physicians to work in rural settings. The Dean of the College, Dr. William Curry, organized a planning process that included the chairs of all
of the major departments within the college. In preparation, the team reviewed
a wide range of performance indicators related to the college's students, faculty,
and the people in the community who utilize the college's clinic. In the planning
sessions, the team identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats,
and paid special attention to the interests of the college's stakeholders. The team
employed a visioning process to build a consensus about what they would like to see the college become in the future, and then identified the major activities
that would need to occur to make the vision a reality. Through a nominal group
technique, the department chairs agreed upon four key areas that the college needs to address in order to create a desired future that will meet the needs of its
diverse stakeholders. The planning team identified three standing committees that could address three of the major action areas, and created a fourth, cross-functional team to take on one initiative.
The planning session was followed closely by meetings with the Dean and
all faculty and staff to share the results of the planning session. Background
information, along with the planning process, was shared with the faculty in order to help everyone understand the evolution of the plan. This facilitated a broad acceptance of the plan within the College.
One of the most important features of the strategic quality plan for
this college is the Dean's commitment to employ the major categories of
the plan as a mantra within the college. All major meetings invest time
in reviewing the progress on the key issues.
Other colleges have likewise embarked on strategic quality planning activities
that center on the needs of diverse stakeholder groups and the broad improvements in core processes called for in the White Paper.
Department level SQP
While it was important for all departments to be represented when
the College of Community Health Sciences formed their plan, it was
essential that all members of the faculty participate in the planning process
for the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
The Department Head, Dr. Stan Jones, saw a clear need for the faculty
to develop a consensus about strategic issues. In the past, faculty would focus
on discussion of research issues and funding, without much attention to
the needs of a vital stakeholder group, the students. Dr. Jones organized a
planning process that all of the Physics and Astronomy faculty attended. They developed a vision of the student-centered department they wanted to become.
Faculty members, by their training and profession, are inclined to question and debate, so it was a lively discussion. It was necessary to employ a nominal group technique to establish the areas where there was broad consensus about direction. The result was a set of actions that the Department Chair set in motion to improve the academic setting for the undergraduate and graduate students.
SQP for Support Functions
Support organizations have also employed the strategic quality
planning process to drive continuous improvement. Nicole Mitchell, Director of The University of Alabama Press, saw a need to involve all members of the press
in a strategic quality planning process in order to build consensus and commitment for change. In a series of meetings, the staff reviewed their
performance data, assessed what competitors were doing, and reached a consensus about changes that would be necessary in order to better meet the needs of their stakeholders.
This planning process led the staff to conduct in-depth review of
process flow diagrams in order to reduce cycle times. Members of the press
were willing to undertake this type of self-examination when they saw how
important it could be to one of their key stakeholder groups, their authors.
Other support organizations are becoming involved in similar use of strategic
quality planning methods to drive continuous improvement.
Improving the Process
As The University of Alabama makes progress in the seven categories of
the Baldrige criteria, the strategic quality planning process will be improved.
The University has initiated a project to collect data from many of its key stakeholder groups, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents. Over time, this data will be used to identify more opportunities for continuous improvement and will feed the strategic quality planning process.
The University is also developing a balanced score card to provide performance feedback that will fold into the planning process. While universities are rich in data, Alabama has found benefits in developing a systematic approach to defining key operational performance indicators.
The Provost has launched several initiatives aimed at improving core
processes in undergraduate and graduate programs. Major projects are
in place to integrate math and science concepts, along with a dynamic new
foundations program for teaching engineering. Improvement of core
processes is an effective combination of the concepts of quality improvement
and the rich tradition of action research in education.
Support organizations, such as enrollment, university recreation, and
student health services are conducting quality improvement initiatives.
Strategic quality planning and continuous improvement initiatives are
being supported by a training effort that provides faculty and staff with an
understanding of quality improvement tools and methods, along with consensus
and teambuilding tools. A workshop on Leading Participative Meetings has
received favorable feedback from Deans and Department Heads in academic
units. Workshops on facilitation skills, consensus based decision making,
teambuilding, and planning skills are now offered each semester to build
the university's capacity for continuous improvement.
Better Benchmarking
One of the results of the quality initiative at the University has been a new understanding of the concept of benchmarking. In higher education, benchmarking has often come to mean determining how your university
compares to others, with the emphasis on finding comfort in being similar
to other schools. A new concept of benchmarking has been imported through
study of the Baldrige Criteria. Benchmarking now means finding the few
schools with exceptional performance in a specific area and learning what
they have done so it can be introduced on our campus.
The University of Alabama has an active process for studying both
large and small universities. Pioneers in quality, such as Samford University
and Belmont University have been gracious in sharing their experiences,
along with faculty and staff from Pennsylvania State University and the
University of Wisconsin - Madison.
New Thoughts About Quality
All of this activity has led to new questions to be explored in the
quality literature. Universities consist of a complicated collaboration of
stakeholders who utilize thousands of processes to achieve their mission.
Quality cannot be inspected into education through more testing, just as
it cannot be inspected into a product in a manufacturing setting. Quality must
be built into the process by listening to the stakeholders, collecting data, and
involving the stakeholders in the improvement of processes, one project at
a time. Universities are communities with very special cultures. The
Baldrige Criteria provide useful and practical questions that compel members
of the campus community to ask significant questions and to seek new levels
of excellence.
Of course some of the questions might be a bit more light hearted. In the
campus community we might ask, "what color is quality?" In Alabama, the answer is Crimson and White, where the quality tide is rising.
References
(1) Donald C. Mosley. "Nominal Grouping as an Organizational
Development
Intervention Technique." Training
and Development
Journal. (March): 30-37, 1974.
(2) John R. Dew. Quality Centered Strategic Planning. Quality
Resources Press, New York, N.Y., 1997.
For more information on Continuous Quality Improvement at
The University of Alabama, or to read The White Paper, access the
University's web site at www.ua.edu.
SIDEBARS
The White Paper
In a 1997 address entitled A Vision for The University of Alabama,
President Andrew Sorensen proposed seven major emphasis
areas as focal points for development and planning. Following
considerable campus-wide discussion and further refinements of
these ideas, Provost Nancy Barrett offered a White Paper in 1998 that
provided detailed actions that supported the seven major emphasis
areas. The seven action areas are:
- strengthening undergraduate programs
- strengthening graduate programs
- increasing research support
- increasing international emphasis
- increasing diversity
- improving the technological infrastructure
- creating a sense of community while reaching out to serve others.
The White Paper articulated the overarching goals associated with each
action area and identified a set of strategic objectives to be achieved.
For example, in the area of strengthening undergraduate programs,
the White Paper provided specific objectives, such as conducting a
review and restructure of the University core curriculum, reviewing the
current Honors program, and increasing opportunities for undergraduate
research and creative activity. Faculty and staff teams have pursued
these objectives by focusing on the development of interdisciplinary
courses, obtaining foundation grants for new undergraduate research
programs, and the formation of an International Honors Program.
Teamwork has been the essential ingredient in achieving the strategic
objectives. If an objective falls within the scope of a standing faculty
committee, then the committee takes the lead in addressing that
objective. Many objectives required the creation of cross-functional
teams, bringing together faculty and staff from many colleges in order
to develop new programs and processes. Since the early discussion
stages of the White Paper, sixteen new interdisciplinary centers and
institutes have been established involving over 100 faculty researchers.
This new teamwork also extends to involving students in assessing
the strengths and weaknesses of academic programs and involving
students in process improvement activities.
SWOT Analysis
Developing a quality-centered strategic plan often starts with
some introspection and self-assessment by the planning team.
Participants are asked to reflect on the organization's strengths and
its weaknesses and to spend some time in honest reflection on the
current health of the organization. Participants also look outside of
the organization to recognize issues that pose a threat to the organization's
health and to identify the opportunities that may exist. In some cases,
it is useful for the planners to draw a time line that shows where the
organization has been and what it has accomplished over the last 20
years. This creates a level playing field for old timers and new comers to
both appreciate the changes that have already occurred over time, and
it puts the need for continuous improvement into perspective.
Benchmarking
The academic community often uses the term "benchmarking" in a different
manner from that which quality professionals and managers may expect. In
higher education, the term may mean conducting a study of peer institutions
to assure ourselves that our performance is similar to others. The concept of
benchmarking as a process for identifying the very best in a field, studying
their processes, and adopting those processes, is a new and different definition
of the term. Quality professionals who advocate benchmarking to their
associates in higher education should check to make sure that they have a
common understanding of how that term is actually being used.
The University of Alabama has benchmarked other universities to find
best practices in teaching, administrative processes, curriculum review,
improving graduation rates, and many other areas. Benchmarking has
included visits to other campuses, phone calls and discussions to specific
offices on other campuses, and e-mail requests and discussions on specific
topics. Sometimes the best practices is at a large research university and
sometimes the best practice is at a small university. If it is good for the
stakeholders, UA wants to learn how to do it. There is a genuine
willingness among professionals in higher education to share information in order to help every university improve, but universities must first be unwilling
to stay in the middle of the pack, and must then be willing to look outside
their own walls to find new ideas from other universities and other sectors.
ROLL, QUALITY ROLL was published in the September 2000 edition
of QUALITY PROGRESS MAGAZINE, the official publication of
The American Society for Quality. Vol. 33, Number 9, pp. 49-54.