Quality and Innovation

(Image Credit: Doug Buckley of http://hyperactive.to)

Are you an entry-level Young Quality Professional (YQP) who has participated or led a project that resulted in tangible benefits for your organization or community? Are you a student in high school or college who has worked individually, or with a team, to apply quality tools to solve practical problems in your school, or community, or at home? If so, WE WANT YOU to tell us about it!

On Wednesday, May 23rd, we will be conducting a session at the ASQ World Conference on Quality and Improvement (WCQI) to demonstrate the impact that the newest members of our community – students and entry-level professionals – have had on their organizations, businesses, and communities. This session will consist of vignettes from up to 15 quality or process improvement projects performed by students or entry-level professionals. We’ll be inviting all WCQI attendees to come celebrate the accomplishments of the youngest members of our community, and support them as they progress in their education and in their careers!

HOW TO APPLY: Send an email to Jacob Mayiani Loorimirim (Graduate Assistant, JMU) at loorimjm@dukes.jmu.edu (and cc: simmo2ra@jmu.edu and radziwnm@jmu.edu) with short answers to each of the 6 questions below. Project review started on February 1 and will continue until all slots are filled, or February 29 at the latest.

If your project is selected to be part of the Showcase, we’ll work with you to put together a few slides, audio recordings, and/or video clips that describe the problem you solved, the quality tools and approaches you used, your results, and the impact of your solution on your stakeholders. We plan to spend between 3 and 5 minutes showcasing each project. If you are a student who will be attending the WCQI in person, we would love for you to submit a project that you completed individually or as a team – and talk about it yourself for 2 to 3 minutes during our session!

QUESTIONS:

1. Project completed by: (List your names and ages, and specify whether this was part of a school/university project, for a client, or was done in service to your community; if you had a teacher or faculty advisor, please list them too! Also, let us know if you plan to attend the WCQI in person in Anaheim, CA this May.)

2. Project title:

3. Project start and completion dates:

4. Provide a brief problem statement (1-3 sentences) that summarizes the problem, your stakeholders, and your goals:

5. Provide a brief description of your hands-on performance while completing the project, providing specific examples of the methodologies (e.g. PDSA, DMAIC) and/or tools (e.g. process maps, fishbone diagrams, Pareto charts, affinity diagrams, multivoting/nominal group technique) that you used to solve the problem.

6. In one sentence, describe your project’s RESULTS and the impacts on its stakeholders.

Thank you for your interest! Please forward this announcement by email, Facebook, Twitter, or any other mechanism if you know of a Young Quality Professional (YQP) whose work should be noticed and recognized – or where they might be hanging out.

Sincerely,

Nicole Radziwill, College of Integrated Science & Technology, James Madison University
Rebecca Simmons, College of Business, James Madison University