Dramatically improve your quality

ECE Astute explains why you need to go beyond your service manager to build quality in your organisation and spread improvement skills. Building improvement and quality capacity, including sustaining quality requires the front lines to do the driving.

As a service, it is important to learn how to work smarter not harder to meet the changing needs of our children and their whānau. ECE services managers are being urged to innovate wherever they can, more often than not there is a need to also overcome pressures to provide more for less without compromising safety, quality or the learning experiences for children and their whānau.

Normally change comes from the top down. Generally a directive is given; to do it this way or do it that way. It amounts to being told. This methodology could be named ‘this way is best’. Instead, could a bottom-up approach work? If we learn to ask anyone in a service these simple questions:

‘Where do you think the problems are?’
Or
“Here’s where we are now, this is where we need to reach, how do you think we could get there?”

What could happen if we applied the bottom-up approach? What would the results be? Could basic tools such as the ability to test a hypothesis or collect data and apply thinking to a problem, or review change implemented by shop floor staff in any ECE service make significant changes to your service and quality? Is there time set aside to solve the service problems or work on potential issues faced by a service in your monthly schedule? Perhaps these two short questions might start an avalanche of change.