QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN
For Seaport Enhanced
Strategic Insight is committed to quality and conforming with ISO 9001 quality procedures to seek quality improvements and ensure client satisfaction. Strategic Insight enjoys a well-deserved reputation for delivering quality products and services in a timely manner, which is a direct result of the company’s emphasis on quality as an essential element of client satisfaction and a proactive quality system, which monitors quality assurance and continuously seeks improvements in products or service.
As a small business, Strategic Insight retains a flat organization structured around cases that are related to individual clients. A case implies a company client relationship based on the work being performed. Within Strategic Insight, the director of Case Management is the Corporate Officer responsible for the execution of client work, including the quality of services and products. The Director of Case Management creates cases (work packages and budgets) based on client tasking, and when warranted, assigns a case leader as the principal point-of-contact to the client.
Strategic Insight’s quality process has three key elements: the right people on the job, a good understanding of the product or service to be provided and good processes that tie the two together. The professional staff at Strategic Insight is comprised of experienced individuals, including many who have enjoyed successful Navy careers. In most cases they have a sound understanding of the product or service needed based on these previous careers. Through our process of aligning people with the proper knowledge and skills to case needs, a better product can be produced in a shorter period of time, providing efficiencies that can lead to cost savings.
Case leaders lead highly responsive and experienced teams capable of fulfilling client requirements. These teams are comprised of motivated self-starters capable of operating in a dynamic environment and able to get the job right the first time. The key for these teams are their agility, experience, technical expertise and ability to deal with high-level decision makers. This will be achieved by providing an outstanding experienced technical staff, operating within a flexible agile management structure and having keen insight into the important interactions/interrelationships between our clients and their stakeholder communities.
Quality Expectations: The case leader is responsible for identifying the quality expectations of clients, including the quality and timeliness of services and products delivered under their direction, and assuring adequate resources are planned and made available. The measure of quality of work delivered is not only how well the services and products delivered meet the client’s needs and expectations, but how well they represent the capabilities and standards of Strategic Insight.
There are conditions when the product or services, or
the specifics of what is to be delivered, are not clearly understood. This is particularly true when multiple
organizations are stakeholders in the outcome.
Case leaders apply techniques developed by Strategic Insight, such as
Warroom or
Additionally, the size of the company and our flat organization facilitate the sharing of in-house experts for a fresh look at issues and problems, usually on very short notice. Their input can provide different perspectives, alternative approaches, or more complete solutions. For example, a top-down functional look at a problem that is being worked from the bottom up, or vice versa. This access to experts also helps to maximize the quality of our products and services.
Quality Assurance: Quality of services and products are assured through a bottom up process beginning with the professional integrity of the Strategic Insight staff. Under Strategic Insight’s quality assurance plans, case leaders, as a minimum, conduct internal monthly quality reviews. The results of these reviews are discussed with clients and reported in progress reports. In addition, Strategic Insight works interactively with its clients and stakeholders using a variety of methods such as the war room process to develop information and products. This allows real time feedback on product status and content.
The most effective way to promote responsiveness and quality of services and products is to co-locate and, where possible, share facilities. Strategic Insight has offices throughout Seaport Enhanced Zones Two, Three and Four to serve our clients. All offices are configured, equipped, and routinely used as workspaces for government personnel and their support teams. We are committed to co-location and will maintain offices in response to the demands of Seaport Enhanced.
The Director of Case Management participates in the development of quality management plans, and reviews all cases on a monthly basis. Upon request, the Director of Case Management participates in stakeholder reviews and makes available resources beyond those available to the case leader to support peer reviews of services and products.
Case Files: Case leaders are responsible for creating and maintaining a case file that captures artifacts relevant to the performance of client work. These include the results of services performed and product deliverables. From a product integrity perspective, all significant versions are archived, initially to serve as a back-up to work in progress and eventually to provide a historical record. Case files have proven to be extremely important to clients to ensure consistency, particularly in complex multi-year efforts when personnel changes occur.
Problem Resolution: Problems are generally resolved through
leadership, free and open communications, and administering corrective
action. Strategic Insight’s approach is
to resolve problems expeditiously and at the lowest possible level. A benefit of the small experienced team
approach is that the likelihood of problems occurring is small in the first
place. Problems that develop during case
execution such as late or partial delivery of products or services are first
dealt with by the case leader. It is the
case leader’s responsibility to keep the client informed of progress through
frequent communications and to inform the client immediately when a problem
occurs. In addition, formal progress
reports will be required to identify potential problems. It is also the case leader’s responsibility
to propose solutions and to get the client’s concurrence on the recommended
course of action.
In the event a problem cannot be resolved by the case leader and his/her government counterpart or is beyond the case leader’s authority (i.e., if it involves personnel, funding limits, or contractual terms and conditions), the problem will be referred to the Director of Case Management, who has full authority to make the changes necessary to resolve the problem.
The same communications flow and collaborative approach applies to the Strategic Insight’s Corrective Action Plans. Problems are identified and resolved through government consultation, resulting action plans and management follow-up.
Any problem or improvement opportunity identified results in a corrective action plan that identifies the problem or improvement opportunity, includes government consultation, with a workable action plan, and management follow-up. The plan includes the assignment of motivators, which reward quality improvements. Strategic Insight’s policy of quality awareness, proactive quality system, and commitment to continuous quality improvement results in improved performance in support of our clients.
In summary, Strategic Insight has always been committed to providing superior products and services at best value to our clients. This Quality Management Plan implements a proven approach based on over 20 years of experience and continuous process improvement. Using small groups in a streamlined organization that is interactive, and when possible collocated with, client and stakeholder organizations. This direct approach to quality management will ensure value to our clients in an efficient and responsive manner.