Quality Objectives - Focus on the Relevant

 “If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” —Andrew Carnegie. 

Good quality objectives (goals) are at the heart of any effective quality management system.  Although they may not always inspire your hopes, they should inspire action and liberate the energy of your organization; a task made easier when the quality objective is so relevant it can’t help but command the thoughts of your organization.   

ISO 9001:2015 Clause 7.3 states that employees shall be made aware of their “relevant quality objectives.” Still, the standard makes no mention of ensuring that quality objectives are relevant to the employees in the first place. In my opinion, the development of quality objectives with relevance amongst employees is one of the most critical and often overlooked roles of management. The ability of management to select quality objectives that are obviously relevant, or to develop relevance from the not so obvious, often is the difference between the effective and noneffective.

If you are developing or reviewing your quality objectives, I suggest putting yourself in the shoes of your employees and from their perspective, ask the question, “why is this objective relevant to me?” If you cannot answer this, and ultimately if your employees cannot answer this, you may want to rethink your approach.

(Note: I am not suggesting that every objective will or should be relevant to everyone in the organization, but that every quality objective should be relevant to someone in the organization.)