How do you include quality assurance in your goal setting?

1 Why QA matters

QA is not just a compliance requirement or a formality; it is a strategic tool that can help you achieve your practice goals and enhance your competitive edge. QA can help you deliver consistent and high-quality services that satisfy clients, identify and address any gaps, weaknesses, or problems in processes, systems, or staff skills, streamline workflows and reduce waste and inefficiencies, foster a culture of continuous improvement and learning among staff, and demonstrate professionalism, credibility, and accountability to regulators, partners, and peers. In doing so, corrective and preventive actions can be implemented to optimize resources and costs while encouraging engagement and feedback from staff to comply with ethical and legal standards.

2 How to set QA goals

To set QA goals, you should conduct a SWOT analysis to assess your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to QA. Based on this analysis, as well as client feedback, regulatory requirements, industry benchmarks, and best practices, identify your QA priorities and focus areas. Then define your QA objectives for each priority and focus area, ensuring they are SMART, clear, and realistic. Assign roles and responsibilities for each QA objective, and specify the resources, tools, and methods needed to achieve them. Establish indicators and criteria to measure and evaluate your progress and performance against your QA objectives, setting up a system for collecting and analyzing data. Finally, review and update your QA goals regularly to celebrate your achievements and learn from your challenges.

3 How to implement QA goals

Setting QA goals is not enough. You also need to implement them effectively and monitor them continuously. To do this, you should communicate your QA goals to staff, clients, and stakeholders, and explain why they are important and how they will benefit them. Provide training, coaching, and support to help them understand and apply the QA standards, procedures, and tools. Involve them in your QA processes and solicit their feedback. Furthermore, conduct regular audits, inspections, and reviews to check the quality of services, processes, and systems. Document and report your findings, results, and actions to share with staff, clients, and stakeholders. Lastly, implement corrective and preventive actions to address any QA issues or risks and follow up on their effectiveness.

4 How to improve QA goals

QA is not a one-time event or a static state; rather, it is an ongoing process that requires constant evaluation and improvement. To better your QA goals, you can compare your results to your objectives and criteria, analyze the root causes of successes and failures, seek feedback from staff, clients, and stakeholders, research and adopt the latest QA trends and technologies, and revise and refine your goals based on your findings. Doing so will help you determine your strengths, learn from your experiences, incorporate new ideas and perspectives, enhance your QA practices and outcomes, improve quality and efficiency, set new or higher standards and targets.

5 How to reward QA goals

QA is not only a responsibility, but also an opportunity and a reward. You can recognize and reward your QA goals and achievements in various ways, such as celebrating milestones and successes with staff, clients, and stakeholders, providing incentives for performance and improvement, sharing stories and best practices with peers, partners, and regulators, seeking external recognition for your QA standards and results, and investing in QA infrastructure and capacity. Acknowledging contributions and efforts, giving public praise, showcasing quality and excellence, obtaining certifications, ratings, or awards, upgrading equipment or software, or providing training are just some of the ways to recognize and reward QA.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?