Andrew et al_2014 CoQ Qualcon

Improving a global organisation’s
Culture of Quality via an on-line
course series and associated initiatives
Andrew, MH; Janka, R; Mehlon, R; Rangaraj, R
URS Corporation
BIOGRAPHY
IMPROVING A GLOBAL ORGANISATION’S CULTURE OF QUALITY VIA AN ONLINE COURSE SERIES AND ASSOCIATED INITIATIVES
Dr Martin ANDREW1; Bob JANKA2; Randy MEHLON3; Dr Raj RANGARAJ4
1
URS IE Division Asia-Pacific Group Quality Director, Level 4, 70 Light Square, Adelaide SA
5000 Australia. Tel: +61414500988, Fax: +618 8366 1001, martin.andrew@urs.com
2
URS IE Division Training Department, 8181 East Tufts Avenue, Denver CO 80237-2579
USA. Tel: +1303 796 4703, bob.janka@urs.com
3
URS Oil & Gas Division, Operations Manager, 7389 Florida Boulevard, Suite 300, Baton
Rouge LA 70806-4657 USA. Tel: +1225 935-2936, randy.mehlon@urs.com
4
URS IE Division, Vice President, Quality Management, Performance Excellence Value
Center, 2020 East First Street, Suite 400, Santa Ana CA 92705-4032 USA. Tel: +1714 433
7706, raj.rangaraj@urs.com
Dr Martin Andrew (Adelaide, S Australia) is the current lead Subject Matter Expert developing
these courses; he took over from Randy Mehlon (Baton Rouge, LA, USA) who pioneered their
development. Dr Raj Rangaraj (Santa Ana, CA, USA) is the global VP-Quality Management for
URS's Infrastructure and Environment Division (IE) and sponsor of the Culture of Quality
courses and related initiatives. Bob Janka (Denver, CO, USA) is the instructional designer in
URS IE's Training Department who has also contributed ideas and brought the courses to
reality.
Martin is an environmental management expert (research, academia and consulting) who has
worked across vegetation ecology, sustainable grazing systems, vegetation carbon sinks, R&D
program management, regional NRM planning, environmental impact assessment, Program
evaluation, and performance measurement of green buildings. He is URS Certified Project
Manager. He moved into Quality Management some 5 years ago and is now URS IE Division's
Asia-Pacific Group Quality Director and member of the global Performance Excellence Value
Centre. Martin is currently President of the Australian Organisation for Quality Inc. and
program convener for Qualcon 2014.
Bob Janka is an Instructional Design expert who has created training programs (on-line and
instructor-led) for engineering, professional services, manufacturing, customer support
organizations. He joined URS eight years ago and provides training programs for Quality,
Project Management, Safety, and Client Account Management staff.
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Randy is a process and quality engineer. He has more than 35 years’ experience in the fields of
quality, training, and project management. Randy specialises in project management, quality
work process, team development, satisfaction improvement process and implementing value
enhancing practices including facilitating process simplification and value engineering. He is
URS Certified Project Manager and a Certified value engineering specialist by the Society of
American Value Engineers.
Martin Andrew
Bob Janka
Randy Mehlon
Raj Rangaraj
ABSTRACT
URS’s Infrastructure and Environment Division (IE) is a global engineering design and
consulting organisation, comprising nearly 20,000 staff. In 2009 Quality Management tasked a
small team to develop an annual Culture of Quality (CoQ) on-line course for all IE employees to
enhance our quality culture and performance.
Culture – the “personality” of the organization guiding how employees think and act – is central
to performance excellence.
The team recognised that a multi-year global Culture of Quality Improvement campaign,
centred on an annual on-line course and reinforced with annual initiatives, was needed to bring
about CoQ improvements globally. Each year’s course builds upon the messages of its
predecessors and adds innovations such as: the 7 Quality Principles and 6 Leadership
Behaviours; a Quality Improvement Plan for each office; and workshops of office staff, led by
the Office Manager, to identify quality and business improvement opportunities. This paper
describes that journey.
The Learning Management System (LMS) courses and deliverables supporting the initiatives
have high utilization by IE staff. Each year, employees are required to complete that year’s
course. In 2013 the course had nearly 18,000 completions, 97% of eligible staff.
The Culture of Quality Improvement Campaign – LMS courses and initiatives – have embedded
good quality practices and reinforced desired thinking/behaviour within IE’s ongoing business
operations. The campaign is driving culture changes needed to improve quality and business
results. URS's IE Division rates highly against global criteria for a well-developed quality
culture, in large measure to the foregoing initiatives.
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INTRODUCTION
Culture – the “personality” of the organization guiding how employees think and act (Desson &
Clouthier 2010) – is central to performance excellence. Hence the emphasis on improving
quality culture to bring about sustainable improvements in Quality and business performance. A
recent example is the Forbes Insights/ASQ (2014) report “Culture of Quality: Accelerating
Growth and Performance in the Enterprise”.
Indeed, a high Quality culture is essential for an organisation to be trusted by all its stakeholders
(Forbes Insight/ASQ 2014); without trust, it is difficult to conduct business efficiently.
URS is a global engineering, environmental and professional services company (NYSE:URS,
$11bn annual revenue, 50,000 employees). (As of 17th October, 2014, URS is part of AECOM).
The Infrastructure and Environment Division (IE) within URS is a global engineering design
and consulting organisation. The nature of its work conducted is one-off consulting
assignments, for public and private sector clients. IE comprises nearly 20,000 staff in three
management organisation geographies: the Americas, Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Europe,
Middle-East and India (EMI). Henceforth in this paper, we use ‘URS’ to refer to the ‘IE
Division’.
Prior to 2010, each of these geographies had their own Quality programs, managed separately.
In the years before 2009, the Americas Quality program existed as hard-copy manuals and had
fallen into neglect. Under Dr Raj Rangaraj’s leadership, URS reinvigorated and relaunched its
Americas QMS in 2009 and made it accessible via the intranet. The QMS contained this
aspirational Quality Statement, signed by the URS President:
“We are committed to serving our Clients, Shareholders and Employees by:
 Providing superior value and quality work products and services, on time – the
first time;
 Implementing a Quality Management System that is employee empowered and
management driven; and
 Continually improving our quality management processes”
This Statement recognises that:
 The principle drivers for Quality in URS are to meet customers’ needs and to reduce the
cost of poor quality,
 That delivering quality performance (and raising the Culture of Quality) involves both top
down and bottom up engagement, and
 Quality performance is a journey of continual improvement.
In 2010, Dr Martin Andrew was appointed Quality program leader in APAC, with a brief to
incorporate the Americas QMS into APAC. That instigated dialogue between Raj, Martin and
the EMI Quality lead which has led to a global Quality program organisation, and the
development and recent deployment of the URS’ Global QMS.
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However, merely having a good QMS is not enough. Like its counterpart technical service
companies, IE’s professional staff are engineers and scientists who are inherently more oriented
to the excellence of the technical aspects of consulting assignments than to the project
management, quality management and consulting management (sensu Block 2011) processes
that enable these assignments to be conducted so as to meet the business needs of both URS and
our clients. To truly thrive, URS’ culture needs to evolve.
In 2009, to reinforce the newly launched Americas QMS, Dr Raj Rangaraj tasked a small team
to develop an annual Culture of Quality (CoQ) on-line course, intended for all URS employees,
to enhance our quality culture and performance. The team was led by Randy Mehlon (Subject
Matter Expert [SME]) with Bob Janka as instructional designer.
The team recognised that a multi-year global Culture of Quality Improvement Campaign was
needed to bring about CoQ improvements globally, centred on an annual on-line course and
reinforced with annual initiatives. This has been realised via informally assessing the current
state of culture and determining the best next initiative consistent with the overall strategy; i.e.
an unfolding ‘walk a mile, see a mile’ journey. Thus each year’s course builds on prior
messages of its predecessors and adds innovations to reinforce them. This paper describes the
journey of the CoQ Improvement Campaign.
THE CULTURE OF QUALITY JOURNEY
Table 1 summarises the journey of the ‘Culture of Quality’ courses.
Table 1: Sequence of ‘Culture of Quality’ courses
Year
Title
2010 Culture of Quality
(CoQ)
2011
CoQ – Walking the
Talk
2012
CoQ – Continual
Improvement
2013
CoQ – Good to Great
2014
CoQ – Speak up



















Key Concepts and Initiatives
Impact of Quality
Personal role in our CoQ
Seven Quality Principles
Resources to learn about Quality
Six Leadership Behaviours aligned with the Quality
Principles
Role models for Quality
Quality Improvement Process
Quality Improvement Plan
Baseline survey of staff’s Culture of Quality
Good vs Great concept
CoQ Survey Results
Actions to Enhance our Quality and CoQ
‘Good to Great’ presentations by Office Manager (with
supporting collaterals)
Summary of the Good to Great exercise data
Speaking up becomes expected
Speak up for help, to praise, to correct behaviour
‘Speak up’ card for each staff member includes seven
Quality Principles and six Leadership Behaviours
Speak up Poster
Improved ‘Speak up’ Office Manager Presentation (with
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2015
CoQ – Making a
Difference



supporting collaterals)
Individual ‘Work Smart Plans’
Personal improvement goals captured for analysis to
identify improvement opportunities
Leadership practices to engage/encourage, guide, and
reward staff for working smarter
The CoQ journey elaborated
2010: “Culture of Quality (CoQ)”
The process began by brainstorming ideas to include in the course, based on the assessment by
the SME and his colleagues of what the key Quality challenges were in the Americas
operations, and coupling this with a review of the literature for methods to enhance CoQ. From
this a rolling multi-year strategy was drafted.
The key messages conveyed in the course were the impact of poor Quality on our ability to meet
both our clients’ and URS’ needs; the personal role that each staff member has in affecting our
quality culture, and the resources available for staff to learn how to embrace the Quality
program in their daily work. The course launched the seven Quality Principles to guide staff in
their daily work (Table 2). These have underpinned all subsequent CoQ courses and much else
that we do to promote the Quality messages.
The Quality Principles apply to everybody. They contain the essence of the QMS; staff who
interpret and apply the Quality Principles for everything they do comply with the spirit of the
QMS. And whilst the Principles especially apply to those involved in client-facing project work,
they apply equally well to support staff in the Value Centres (IT, HR etc).
The importance of these messages was reinforced by a message from top management to
introduce the course, from 2013.
2011: “CoQ – Walking the Talk”
This course developed further the theme of the personal role that each staff member has in
affecting our quality culture. It introduced the six Leadership Behaviours required to create a
supportive environment where the Quality Principles can flourish (Table 2).
Table 2: URS’ Quality Principles & Leadership Behaviours
#
Quality Principle
1 Focus on the Customer
2 Plan Your Work
3 Collaborate with Others
4 Follow
Established
Procedures
5 Manage Documentation
6 Check Your Work
#
Leadership Behaviour
1 Measure Quality Performance
2 Allocate Resources to QMS Activities
3 Integrate the QMS into Work Methods and
Procedures
4 Promote Quality
5 Mentor Usage of the Quality Principles
6 Use Appropriate Consequences to
Behaviour
Influence
7 Improve Continually
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The Leadership Behaviours apply to those in leadership roles in whatever level. Applied in the
spirit intended, they create the environment that facilitates staff applying the Quality Principles.
2012: “CoQ – Continual Improvement”
CoQ – Continual Improvement personalised quality behaviour into a continual improvement
process resulting in improved quality and business results that deliver benefits for our
customers, URS, and our staff (Figure 1).
Figure 1: The continual improvement concept
Importantly, this course extended the continual improvement idea to the work of offices
throughout URS. In URS it is generally the physical Office locations that are the focus of
management, via the Office Manager who is responsible for the staff and budget performance.
The Quality Improvement Plan (QIP) was introduced whereby each office identifies
improvement actions based on its current performance and sets out a plan to achieve them. The
QIP also sets out the Office’s target values for the global Quality KPIs, and summarises
arrangements for business continuity.
This course invited staff to participate in a baseline survey of each staff member’s assessment of
their individual performance against the seven Quality Principles & six Leadership Behaviours,
and that of their colleagues in their work area, on a 4-point scale: 1 (seldom effectively), 2
(sometimes effectively), 3 (Often effectively), 4 (frequently and effectively), plus five openended questions e.g. ‘What can we improve?’ Some 7000 staff undertook the survey, of whom
some 750 provided free text comments.
On average, staff scored the achievement of the seven Quality Principles in the range 3.0 – 3.5
(i.e. ‘often effectively’ or better) with ‘Collaborate with others’ and ‘Check your work’ the
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highest (Figure 2). The six Leadership Behaviours were scored slightly lower (2.8 – 3.4);
however for junior staff these are not so personally relevant. Interestingly, staff individually
considered themselves to have a higher Quality performance than their colleagues.
Overall staff thought that 90% of their colleagues had CoQ performance that was at least ‘good’
(Figure 3).
Of the 750 free text responses, the more frequent areas for personal Quality improvement were:
1. Communicate effectively to address problems
2. Self-check my work
3. Plan for checks and reviews
4. Periodically evaluate improvement opportunities
5. Follow procedures as designed
Figure 2: Staff's assessment of their level of achievement of the Quality Principles and
Leadership Behaviours and that of colleagues in their work area. Notes: The Y axis is the
mean survey score (4 point scale). ‘Work Area’ refers to the group of colleagues that the staff
member regularly works with.
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Figure 3: Staff’s assessment of their Work Area colleagues’ Culture of Quality i.e. their
level of achievement of the Quality Principles and Leadership Behaviours. Note: The Yaxis frequency of responses.
2013: “CoQ – Good to Great”
This course used Jim Collins’ (2001) ‘Good to Great’ concept to discuss the concept of
improving the Culture of Quality.
We considered that URS had a ‘Good’ Quality performance (i.e. our CoQ is about on par
overall with our industry peers). The opportunity is to become ‘Great’ – to move the Quality
Statement from aspiration to actuality by “providing superior value and quality work products
and services, on time – the first time”, and to have the QMS fully embedded throughout the
organisation, so that URS becomes recognised in the market for the quality of its services.
Achieving ‘Great’ness will set URS apart in the market and provide a real competitive edge. For
example, in ca. 2010 the Australia-New Zealand Beaton Survey of consulting engineering
companies showed that attributes like timeliness, responsiveness, understanding client’s needs,
and quality of documentation were poorly exhibited by consulting engineering firms in
Australia; these define a ‘vacant niche’ i.e. one not occupied by any engineering consulting
company. The report commented that this therefore represents a great opportunity for any
company that can achieve this.
This course set out actions that staff can take to enhance our CoQ and Quality performance.
Recognizing that Office Manager leadership and support was vital to strengthen our CoQ, we
asked Office Mangers to give Office-wide presentations as a 2013 initiative. To assist, the team
created user-friendly, customizable, presentation materials, and other resources to assist with
presenting and coordinating the meeting. The materials also included a summary of the CoQ
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baseline survey results. The Office Manager presented the Office’s quality performance and
business results, examined how well the previous year’s QIP improvement projects had been
achieved (in many cases this was the first time that staff learned there was an Office QIP), and
invited staff to identify, via break-out sessions, additional Quality improvement ideas for
consideration in the next year’s QIP.
There was good uptake of this initiative – presentations were held in 86% of Offices across the
Americas and APAC. Figure 4 summarises the process for injecting the staff’s ideas from the
break-out sessions into the subsequent year’s QIP.
Figure 4: The process for incorporating improvement ideas generated by
staff in the Office Manager Presentation break-out sessions into the
subsequent year’s Quality Improvement Plan process
About 340 individual improvement ideas were identified across Americas and APAC in the
Good to Great exercise – i.e. behaviours that if we started doing them, quality would improve.
Interestingly, most (84%) of these ideas were about existing requirements of the QMS! (Figure
5, categories #1 and #2).
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Figure 5: Classifying the improvement ideas identified in the staff breakout sessions in the
2013 Office Manager presentations.
2014: “CoQ – Speak up”
This course established ‘Speaking up’ as expected behaviour:
 Speaking up for help whenever unsure what to do
 Speaking up to praise someone exemplifying good Quality behaviour
 Speaking up to correct someone who is about to do something that will lower URS’
Quality culture or performance.
The team considered that if we could get Speaking up to be common place, it would
significantly raise the Quality culture. This idea was reinforced by the fact that the most
common personal improvement idea identified in the 2012 CoQ baseline survey was
“Communicate effectively to address problems” and that 72% of the improvement ideas
identified in the 2013 Office Manager presentation sessions were in fact existing QMS
requirements (Figure 5).
The Speak up message was reinforced by a plastic Speak up card to remind and empower staff
to Speak up. Each staff member was given one on completion of the course. The card contained
the ‘Speak up’ message and the seven Quality Principles and six Leadership Behaviours (Figure
6).
Whilst the focus of this initiative was improving CoQ, ‘Speak up’ applies generally to all that
URS does, including safety and ethics.
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Figure 6: The two-sided plastic Speak up card, suitable for clipping to a lanyard
The Office Manager presentations continued with improved support materials and focused on
the Speak up message. Coverage was extended to include the Europe, Middle-East and India
(EMI) Group, making this initiative truly global.
2015:” CoQ – Making a Difference”
The 2015 CoQ course has just been completed (October 2014). ‘Making a Difference’ builds on
the idea in the ‘Fred Factor’ book (Sanborn 2004) that anyone can make a difference, whatever
their role and position. This extends the idea of ‘Speaking up’. It presents the idea of improving
personal effectiveness by working smarter – by identifying areas for improvement by reflecting
on how well your personal work habits exhibit the Quality Principles.
The course presents a simple template for a personal Work Smart Plan (Fig 7), and encourages
the staff member to commence this by identify three personal improvement goals. We plan to
capture these anonymously to identify topics for future training effort.
Figure 7: Template for Work Smart Plan, with exemplar entry for guidance
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The underlying idea is that the collective effect of individuals working smarter will generate a
momentum of quality improvement, as illustrated in Figure 8.
Figure 8. The collective and cumulative impact of everyone working smarter
Focusing on the customer
The team viewed IE’s staff as our customers. This was helped by the fact that three of the team
work professionally and closely with URS technical operations staff.
The platform used to deliver the on-line training automatically invites staff to provide feedback
immediately they have completed a course. Approximately 5% of staff do this, at least via
simple questionnaire scaling if not by free text comments.
The team reviewed course feedback each year and reflected on it in preparing the next year’s
course. Indeed the senior author was invited to join the CoQ team from the second year as the
result of the feedback he provided on the first (2010) CoQ course. Bill Corbett, V-P of URS’
Dow Business Unit, also became involved in developing the ‘Good to Great’ and ‘Speak up’
course as a result of feedback he volunteered. Global Quality team members provided feedback
on drafts of the courses.
One message conveyed consistently by staff was that they prefer learning about behaviours and
tools they can apply practically, not about theoretical models of human behaviour. Going
forward, we incorporated realistic scenarios to illustrate the messages, realistic behaviours and
practical tools.
In 2014 the CoQ – Speak up course was translated into seven languages, to accommodate
geographies that has recently come within the ambit of the QMS where many staff are not
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strong in English (e.g. India, China, Poland). Previous versions had been available in English
only.
Innovation through best practices
Team members sought the best methods for making CoQ campaign effective. We reviewed
literature and talked with others inside and outside the company. Promising methods in their
“raw form” were usually not workable for effecting change, so the team adapted them to make
them more relatable to IE’s diverse, global workforce. Examples of the team’s creative and
original work include:

The Quality Principles and Leadership Behaviours (introduced in 2010/2011) were derived
from research on the characteristics of high performance teams and behaviours expected in
the Quality Management System.

The Quality Improvement Process and Quality Improvement Plan (2012) were adapted from
change management best practices.
Associated innovations to reinforce the ‘Culture of Quality’ journey
There were a number of other innovations introduced that complemented the messages in the
CoQ course. We list them here in without discussion:
 Quality medallions and other Quality recognition awards (from 2009)
 Quality Metrics that include the number of Quality recognitions and completion of the
annual CoQ course (from 2010)
 Quality Moments used at the start of meetings (from 2011)
 Quality Induction courses include “CoQ – Walking the Talk” (from 2012)
 Yammer (URS’ internal social network) – active contribution of ideas and discussion
among the Quality Management group (from 2012)
 Global Online Client Survey System (OCSS) for gathering, storing and analysing customer
feedback (implemented in parts of URS since 2007 and globally from 2013)
 Individual quality performance was explicitly included in the tool used for annual staff
performance evaluations (from 2013).
RESULTS
What impact has this made?
The CoQ courses and deliverables supporting the initiatives have high utilization by IE staff.
Each year, employees are required to complete that year’s course. In 2013 the course had nearly
18,000 completions, 97% of eligible staff.
The team believes that the Culture of Quality Improvement Campaign – i.e. the CoQ courses
and associated initiatives – have embedded good quality practices and reinforced desired
thinking/behaviour within URS’ ongoing business operations. The campaign is driving culture
changes needed to improve quality and business results. The CoQ Improvement Campaign has
significantly impacted URS’ CoQ, although it’s difficult to quantify. The Campaign helps
employees understand and focus on the values, attitudes, decisions, and best practice behaviours
that lead to increased quality and better business results.
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The URS’ quality cultural enhancements can be identified by comparing behaviours and
artefacts produced, under the headings below. Impact about our CoQ campaign is shown
beneath each table.
Values that Guide Decision-making and Behaviour
Before CoQ Courses
and Initiatives
After CoQ Courses and Initiatives
No articulated quality
principles and
leadership
behaviours.
Quality Principles and Leadership Behaviours are clearly defined,
communicated and reinforced. For example:
 Stated on the Quality Management page on the Sourse, and in the
Quality Policy.
 Reinforced in the annual LMS courses, and since 2013, with the
Office Manager presentations.
 Reinforced in posters, Quality Moments, Quality recognition and
quality presentations throughout the Division’s Offices, and now on
the Speak up card (developed in 2013).
Impact
The Quality Principles and Leadership Behaviours are now part of the Division’s fabric due to
the initiatives above. Quality team members draw on these in presentations to staff, and cite
them in Quality awards. Furthermore, Value Centre leaders are beginning to draw on these, such
as in Accounting where, for invoicing, ‘Focus on the customer’ and ‘Check your work’ are
especially applicable.
Focus and Management Style of Senior Managers
Before CoQ Courses and Initiatives



Office Managers convey ad hoc and
inconsistent messages about the important
of quality
Staff hesitant to make comments about
quality performance
Office Quality Improvement Plans
generally not shared with employees
After CoQ Courses and Initiatives



Office Managers deliver consistent Quality
messages during Office Manager
Presentations.
Staff encouraged to Speak up about quality
issues.
Office Managers solicit staff’s input into
Quality Improvement Planning, and share
the results.
Impact
The Office Quality Improvement Plan is entrenched across the Division. The plan describes the
Office’s Quality KPIs and Target values, and improvement projects to address the Office’s
Quality weaknesses. The KPIs are tracked quarterly and reported globally.
The CoQ Office Manager presentations, introduced in 2013, are now an annual, Division-wide
occurrence. Having Office Managers stand up and declare their commitment to Quality, and
having staff participate in small group exercises to identify solutions to quality challenges, is
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quite impactful. The 2013 Good to Great Office Manager Presentations were a great success.
We received very positive feedback – especially from Office Managers themselves; e.g.:
 “Attendees participated actively and spoke honestly about real issues”
 “The entire presentation was well received by the staff. Very good participation.”
 “The exercise generated enthusiastic participation and yielded insight into the barriers to
Great Quality behaviour.”
 “The example of the PM with tight budget electing to perform Detail Checks and
Independent Technical Reviews was an effective way to link CoQ to business success in a
big picture way … rework costs us more than a reduced effective multiplier.”
 “Staff participation was enthusiastic.”
 “Management expressed commitment to act upon ideas and suggestions from the
participation and Good-to-Great Exercise.”
 “We believe that ‘Speak up’ will, in time, prove very impactful as it becomes embedded
behaviour across the Division.”
Annual Training
Before CoQ Courses
and Initiatives
No training to improve
our Culture of Quality
After CoQ Courses and Initiatives




Annual LMS courses delivered that present key quality messages
and build upon the previous messages.
These messages reinforced in the other components of the
Campaign and by various communications from the Quality team
(Quality Moments, posters, World Quality Month messages,
Quality Awards)
LMS course translated into seven different languages (Spanish,
French, Polish, Italian, German, Hindi, and Chinese) to further
disseminate quality message
The phrase ‘Culture of Quality’ is part of the Division’s everyday
language.
Impact
CoQ Course feedback is strongly positive overall. Here are some examples of positive
comments received for the ‘Speak up’ course developed in 2013, feedback received after
delivery in 2014, Q1:
 “By far the best Quality course we've had.”
 “Excellent approach for a training session.”
 “I really liked the theme of ‘speak up for quality’. This will help promote URS addressing
quality issues in our project work and client issues - as well as office behaviour.”
 “The message – to ask for help, praise good practice and challenge bad practice – is exactly
right.”
 “This training has changed my outlook [on Speaking up].”
 “Real life examples were helpful to get the message across.”
 “I really liked some of the recommended language and responses to some of the situations,
since sometimes it's difficult to respond appropriately. So, I appreciated the segue into
interpersonal communications.”
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
“As a manager, I'm very glad that our teams are required to take this training.”
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The Forbes Insight/ASQ Culture of Quality report (2014) concludes with this list of components
that indicate a well-developed culture of quality; we have indicated our subjective assessment of
the situation in URS (Table 3).
Table 3 Status of Culture of Quality Attributes in URS
CoQ Component
Clearly visible, engaged and unwavering
senior management support for quality
initiatives
URS
Achievement

Clearly articulated vision and values
Active and ongoing engagement with
customers to continually identify and
address current and evolving needs
Examples







Clearly stated Quality goals



Performance
expectations
for
all
individuals throughout the company that
clearly link to quality goals


Appropriate incentives – which can
favour monetary or recognition based
rewards, depending on individual
circumstances




Top manager message in
annual CoQ course
Annual Office Manager
presentations
Quality Statement widely
promulgated and reinforced
Global QMS has reinforced
this
Global customer feedback
tool and database, and
reporting
7 Quality Principles
Global Quality metrics;
performance reported to staff
Annual CoQ course is
mandatory
Annual Performance review
and planning tool explicitly
examines Quality
performance
Global Quality Awards /
recognition; URS Pyramid
Awards
Negligible financial
incentives
Much of this CoQ achievement has been directly the result of the CoQ Improvement Campaign.
Individual effort does make a difference and can improve our quality and business results.
Sharing improvement ideas with others can lead to many more people implementing these ideas.
Getting everyone involved in making quality improvements leads to the business success and
staff enthusiasm necessary to reach ‘greatness’. There is still a way to go; indeed Quality
improvement is an ongoing journey. We envisage this Culture of Quality Campaign continuing
into the foreseeable future via the evolving annual CoQ course and associated initiatives.
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QUALCON 2014
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Quality colleagues globally for reviewing drafts of each year’s course
Bill Travis (former member of the Quality team) for analysing the CoQ baseline survey data
Bill Corbett, V-P of URS’ Dow Business Unit, for his significant guidance from time to time
REFERENCES
Collins, J (2001) ‘Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't’
Block, P (2011) ‘Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used’. John Wiley &
Sons
Desson, K and Clouthier, J (2010) ‘Organizational Culture – Why Does It Matter?’ Symposium
on International Safeguards, International Atomic Energy Agency, International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA-CN-184/315)
Forbes Insights & American Society for Quality (2014) ‘Culture of Quality. Accelerating
Growth and Performance in the Enterprise’
Sanborn, M (2004) ‘The Fred Factor’ Random House
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