Care for Quality Workshop

Taking care of quality through quality assurance training

Quality, cost and safety are all extremely important, as well as interrelated: if you get quality right, then you influence cost and, most importantly, safety. Unfortunately, people often pay more attention to safety and cost while shortchanging efforts to address quality. However, when we recognize the importance of assuring quality at each project stage and even in everyday tasks, we create teams that excel in every area.

Our quality assurance workshop addresses the skills necessary to achieve this type of all-around excellence. It is especially suited for the hourly worker but benefits anyone concerned with maintaining high quality standards.
The workshop is designed around recognized principles of quality assurance and addresses the underlying psychological concepts and human factors that influence it. This approach ensures participant engagement which translates into concrete improvements in quality performance when it comes to your projects and goals.
In addition, as safety experts, we are aware of how quality impacts safety and bring this aspect of quality assurance to the forefront in our workshop. Our quality improvement program consists of 3 workshops that last 4 hours each.

Your Benefits

The key objectives of the quality assurance workshop include:
Situational awareness
  • Understanding the importance of checklists in assuring quality
  • Learning how situation awareness affects people's ability to "get it right first time"
Decision Making
  • How legacy thinking can make people more efficient
  • How our decision making style helps us avoid creating, accepting or passing on poor quality issues.
Quality Assurance
  • How common biases affect our judgement
  • How stress, fatigue and poor communication impact quality

Our Workshop Structure

Day 1
What is a Defect?Practical session: looking for a defect in a piece of equipment using the right checklists/tools.
Situation AwarenessHigh levels of situation awareness allow you to spot a defect earlier, which leads to good decisions.
Quality BlindnessHow we can be easily distracted, which means we end up passing on, accepting or even creating poor quality.
PerceptionWe discuss how we enhance our perception.
ExampleWe look at examples of when NASA failed to get quality right and why.
Legacy ThinkingWe look at what legacy you would like to leave behind in your job and how ensuring good quality work allows you to do that.
Decision MakingAnalytical and intuitive decision making. When do we make our own decisions about quality and when do we refer to expertise?
Day 2
Quality AssuranceWhat is quality assurance? The gurus of quality and how quality assurance was born. How we compromise quality through poor habits.
ExampleAnother NASA example of compromised quality. Toyota – leading experts in quality and what they do, and where in the past they have made mistakes.
Situation AwarenessA look at how stress and fatigue can influence quality. How strong our biases are that prevent us from seeing quality issues
Teamwork ExerciseTeamwork exercise to highlight that you need to be a part of a team to achieve great quality.
Day 3
Continuous ImprovementWe discuss Marginal Gains
ExamplesOlympic cycling team and Team Sky
Power of BeliefsWe look at the difference between fixed mindsets and growth mindsets
ImprovementsReview type improvements to achieve goals, eight ways to help focus attention, different forms of root cause analysis
Team Building ExerciseShowing how marginal gains can make an overall positive quality improvement

Why DEKRA?

  • We are a behavioral change consultancy striving for a sustainable improvement in safety outcomes.
  • We influence the safety culture of an organization with the aim of 'making a difference for the better'.
  • We specialize in delivering the skills, methods, and motivation to change leadership attitudes, behaviors and decision making among employees.