Quality improvement teams that stall due to poor project selection: an exploration of contributing factors

A corporate culture that supports Total Quality Management (TQM) may take years to build, and sceptics will abound in the early years of an organization's TQM campaign. Organizations that use quality improvement teams (QITs) may suffer damage to the quality initiative when the early teams stall or fail altogether. Teams that stall may convince the sceptics to withhold their support from TQM, thus reducing the momentum of TQM adoption. Stalled teams often result from an inappropriate initial choice of a project. In order to explore the contributing factors in poor project selection, this study collected critical incidents of QITs that stalled because of a poorly chosen project. Analysis of the incidents yields two main categories of factors. The first category is errors of problem definition, including failure to select a process-based problem and failure to identify a project of significant yet manageable scope. The second category is errors in judgement, including failure to identify potential pitfalls and failure to respond to known pitfalls. Illustrative examples of risky projects are presented throughout. This study can benefit those with an interest in selecting viable quality improvement projects, particularly in the early phases of TQM adoption.