Quality in agile environments

How to build and establish agile processes while increasing quality.

Our CEO, Peter Pedross has been elected as member of the board within Swiss Association of Quality (SAQ). Peter will take over this new role in addition to his existing role as president of the board for computer science at SAQ. In his inaugural speech at the Swiss Quality Day, he gave an overview on quality and scaled agility within regulated environments. The main event and the election was headed by Ruedi Lustenberger, president of the board at SAQ and former president of the Swiss National Counsel in 2014 of the Swiss parlament.

Please find here some highlights and the used slide deck of the presentation.

Context

Processes as a competitive advantage

With the raise of new players on the market the competitive pressure is even more increased. This asks even more for high innovation levels and high efficiency, while maintaining a low time-to-market.

While Industry 4.0 is pushed especially in Germany, Lean Start up, Agile and Cyber-physical systems the inter-system dependency and complexity increases dramatically.

To make this job for companies even harder, the regulatory and organisational environment is becoming ever more demanding.

Therefore, processes and environments must ensure that all the relevant regulations are complied with.

Processes in an Agile Environment?

Source: European Foundation for Quality Management, The EFQM Excellence Model

Do we need to re-invent the wheel again?

To achieve sustained success, an organization needs strong leadership and clear strategic direction. They need to develop and improve their people, partnerships and processes to deliver value-adding products and services to their customers.  In the EFQM Excellence Model, these are called the Enablers.  If the right Enablers are effectively implemented, an organization will achieve the Results they, and their stakeholders, expect.

-> No, there is no contradiction!

Why processes in an agile environment?

• People will leave and join your company
  People in their role need to be able to contribute to the value chain as soon as possible; as a company you are responsible to avoid knowledge drain.
• Organizational learning and Innovation
  A company need to learn as a system, not as individuals. This can be also achieved with the help of defined metrics  and proven best practices. Best practices help to share available knowledge.
• Respect for people and culture
  Defined roles and responsibilities foster transparency and enable people to excel at their best level. Avoid useless discussions about already defined topics e.g. how to perform KANBAN.
• Flow within compliance boundaries
  Allow assisted tailoring of processes to level-specific needs and achieve highest efficiency and compliance.
• Relentless Improvement
  Ensure that knowledge doesn’t get lost and inspire people to question the status quo. Ensure feedback cycles and structured improvement of PAL.

Below some impressions on the Swiss Day of Quality 2016, as it was held on May 10th in Bern, Switzerland. To receive the complete slide deck, just write an email to processmanagement@pedco.eu