You’re an inspector. Perhaps you’re an auditor. Maybe you’re a supervisor. Your job title specifies what you do now. What do you want to do in the future? More importantly, who do you want to be in the future? Where do you want the quality profession to take you next? These are all important questions.

ASQ is the global quality knowledge network that links the best ideas, tools, and experts because it has the resources, reputation, and reach to bring together the diverse quality and continuous improvement champions that transform our world.

As Dennis Arter (ASQ Fellow member and 2014 Distinguished Service Medalist) stated in a 2014 interview, “Many organizations make the mistake of lumping policies and procedures together as ‘policiesandprocedures.’” The five years since Arter’s proclamation haven’t changed organizations’ view of the two terms.

Yes, it’s true, teams can be ineffective. But they don’t have to be that way. Well-run teams are creative and innovative. They improve processes, save money, and delight customers (internal and external).

Daniella Picciotti still remembers her first auditing experiences. On a supplier audit with more senior colleagues, it was difficult to determine her role. 

A focus on customers should help any organization improve. Satisfy the customer and success will follow, or so the thinking goes. And it makes sense. Without customers, the best product or service is irrelevant.

Many times, in the world of quality, there are resources available that are unknown to many of our colleagues. One of these resources is the standard ISO 10012: 2003, “Measurement management—Requirements for measurement processes and measuring equipment.”

The ASQ World Conference in Fort Worth, Texas, brought people from around the world together to talk about quality and change. The sessions discussed Quality 4.0, digital disruption, and continuous improvement.

Lean and agile are well recognized in the manufacturing sector and in the quality community. Like many quality methodologies, lean and agile work in tandem and separately, depending on an organization’s needs. Where do these methodologies meet and diverge, what are their driving principles, and how you can add them to your toolbox (or convince others to do so)?

In my younger years, whenever I heard “It is better to give than to receive,” I thought it related to birthday and Christmas presents. Now—because with age comes wisdom—I understand that giving has a much broader meaning.