Quality Fables Competition 2020

 A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Qutuhal was a well-planned goal with defined strategies and rubrics. Introduced in the year 2018 in collaboration with external service providers which later was taken up by team GIIS introducing more sustainable hands on learning experiences, critical thinking opportunities and ideation of real time challenges. Under the concept of Design Thinking, the whole idea was developed and deployed through various stages. 

The entire journey of Qutuhal started by empathizing the problems faced to achieve the 21st century skills. The challenge was deeply learned to understand the scenario and possibilities that can be introduced to overcome the situation in the best possible way. This was initiated by our Senior Director Operations by brainstorming the ideas with the Principal, Management, and the Academic Supervisors collaboratively and collectively. Each ideas were discussed with the pros and cons to invent the unique and smart solution for the challenge. Qutuhal was generated from the best solutions as a prototype which was agreed by the school management, Senior Leadership Team, GCIE (Global Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship), a visionary venture of the Global School Foundation along with the staff of the institution.

The launching of Qutuhal was taken forward in the initial days as weekend activities that developed into a more sustainable and continuous activities both within and outside the school hours. This was focused on each and every student of GIIS irrespective of the financial background.

Qutuhal became backbone of school with products that met the next generation necessities like Robot making, Automated task completion, coding development, Flying drones along with the entry towards the International competition MAKE X and the UAE’s most famous educational fare the MAKER FARE. The product played a vital role in reaching the minds of the parents and engraving in the responsibility list of teachers as its derivation from the most ancient language Sanskrit which means Curiosity.

The year 2019 marked Qutuhal with a Big Bang by winning the MAKE X trophy of the year, which created a high demand in the course and extended the skill development workshops within the school hours to reach the services to maximum number of students. Apart from the student benefits, the product started to focus on the skill development of the educators. School gave an opportunity for teachers to avail training free of cost this helped teachers to incorporate the activities into academic and classroom learning in school. One particular result has been a noticeable improvement in participation of girls in the program which is against the trend worldwide. Inculcating the program within the curriculum has helped GIIS Campuses in UAE to ensure that no child is left out of this program.

Taking a glance to the financial development of the product Qutuhal  has helped in capital enhancement as it focus on paid after school and weekend activities for GIIS and Non GIIS students under the ADEK approval. The customers were financially satisfied with the selling price of the product as we have been successful in convincing the product advantages and worth of it. Marketing of the product was carried out in a wide range through various social networks such as hubs spot, Facebook, Instagram, My GIIS both by the institution and collaborated organization. This has made the publicity of the institution in well renowned manner. The enrolment of the students has increased to more than 50 % compared to 2018. Qutuhal has also demonstrated a remarkable increase in the academic admissions. The product has satisfied the school legacy and the brand enhancement through high quality learning experiences that exhilarated the 21st century skills.

Neela, was a freshwater fish, who lived with her family in a small well, near the Titan Jewellery factory in Hosur, an industrial town in Tamil Nadu. She spent her childhood days swimming around in the well with her circle of friends, enjoying the outside view. She would swim near the water surface racing with the darting birds above. She gazed upon the endless trees and loved observing the humans working in the fields and listening to them singing songs and sharing tales with each other, while they grazed their cattle.

The humans would fetch water from the well, to satiate their thirst. Neela felt proud and privileged, that even the powerful humans, who harnessed nature to construct enormous structures and tamed mighty beasts, depended on their humble well for satiating their thirst, whereas she could enjoy it indefinitely. She would realize soon that her world would be turned upside down.

Some years back the water table started falling drastically, and Neela could no longer see the surroundings or hear people talk. Neela missed this a lot and resigned herself to watching the birds in the sky who were her only reminder of the outside world. She wondered what the humans would be up to and whether they could have caused the dropping water levels in the well.

Then surprisingly in the last few months, the water level in the well started increasing, even though there was not much rainfall to cause such a change. It was now possible for Neela to peek at the surroundings and listen to faint human voices. She was impressed with a lot of new buildings, that had come up but saddened with the fact now few farmers were coming to graze their cattle near her well. Nevertheless, Neela was curious to know the reason for rising water levels and she hoped to get some answers soon. She started paying more attention to conversations between humans from then on.

On a calm night, Neela heard Thangadurai, a local resident, talking to Ravi, an employee of the Titan jewellery factory. Ravi was sharing the need for steps by the residents of Hosur to conserve water so as to increase the water table. He then shared the various steps taken by Titan to reduce water consumption and also replace the use of fresh water with wastewater in their operations, which has led to the water table rising in their locality. Ravi explained that only by conserving groundwater and recharging water bodies will they be able to improve the ecological health of Hosur. Neela was amazed to learn about the work being done by Titan to improve the health of local water bodies by reducing groundwater exploitation by themselves and the public.

Ravi particularly quoted one example, of how they as a team, had taken a challenge to reduce water consumption by 50% in their department, which was five times the target, set by their management. Ravi further explained that this team had not only met this ambitious target, through various innovative methods, but went ahead to achieve a final reduction of 86% of their water usage. Neela was thus happy to learn that soon the well would be brimming with clean water and high levels, like she experienced during her childhood.

The morning prayer starts with ‘Asatoma Sadgamaya’ at Global Indian International School (GIIS), Whitefield. This is a daily ritual to calm the mind and breathe in peace as every student starts the day with positive thoughts. Most students follow this, but then Tarun, studying in Grade 7 often comes late, intending to miss the call for mindfulness and is quite happy about it.

One day, the respected Principal of GIIS Whitefield, Mr. Dev Rao makes his popular surprise visits to the classes, and discovers some thought-provoking observations calling for immediate attention. He notices that in many classes, some students are maintaining peace merely during the two minutes of prayer. As the classes start and the day advances, few students including Tarun, show signs of behavioural issues - lack of interest in the class, bullying, feeling lethargic, eating disorders, arguing with classmates for no reason and lack of agility being the most common. The same day Mr. Rao calls for an immediate meeting with all department heads to identify how best they can amend the situation.

arun is an average student managing to score only 46% in academics. He is hyperactive and an annoying attention seeker that makes him a misfit in the class. But his class teacher Ms. Deeksha knows he is capable of better work, if he focuses. He loves physical education classes and football. His teachers are very patient and adjust to his mood swings. His parents, Mr. Anil and Mrs. Padma, cannot stop worrying about him. They say, ‘We belong to the suburbs and want to see our only son score good marks in class.’ Like Tarun, a survey shows signs of behavioral issues in many other students. In another meeting the stakeholders discuss and arrive at a proposed solution. The management approves the initiative stating that the project is well detailed and finalizes at rolling it out as CAP (Child Assessment by Parents) project.

Tarun’s class teacher Ms. Deeksha gives him the CAP form to be filled by his parents. He submits it the very next day. Based on responses provided in the CAP form, Ms. Deeksha now analyses the causes and identifies the patterns. Post analysis, she appreciates Tarun’s good behavior and strikes a friendly conversation with him to choose the right path of counseling and conditioning for him.

These CAP forms are distributed among students and help to diagnose and remediate problems. They enable students to change habits and excel in academics and evolve as better and smarter individuals. This remarkable initiative in GIIS Whitefield under the leadership and continuous guidance of Mr. Dev Rao is helping to strengthen the bond of students with their teachers, parent(s), and fellow students. Students show a positive personality with increase in confidence, better concentration in studies and a pleasant nature.

Tarun receives the ‘Best Student of the Month’ award in his class from Mr. Rao and his parents and teacher are very happy. A total of 10 students are honoured for their achievements based on CAP results. They all recite ‘Asatoma Sadhgamaya’ and this is definitely a proud moment for Mr. Rao and all teachers of GIIS Whitefield.

When the Master Craftsman (MC), Mr. Rao was promoted to be the Plant Head of India’s leading Automotive Company, it was well-received by the organization’s employees. The fact that he had risen to the position of MC fairly rapidly through the ranks, was also cited as proof of his competence.

For a Technician to become a Master Craftsman was uncommon, especially since only the very best made the cut. In any given year, not more than two – out of 20 or more finalists, chosen from a cohort of eligible candidates -would ever become MCs.

A few months into his role as an MC, word began to get around that Mr. Rao was somewhat impatient with his subordinates; as also with his peers from other departments. If any of his colleagues had a different perspective than that of Mr. Rao, he would raise his voice and usually get his way.

As Plant Head, Mr. Rao had meetings at 8:00 am every morning. This was in an era when video calls and meetings on-line were unavailable, so every person who reported into the Plant Head, had to be physically present in the large conference room. The morning meetings were anything but amicable. Mr. Rao demanded instantaneous answers to why problems had occurred at all. If his subordinates were unable to provide answers that he liked, they were asked to call their deputies and to get the answers before the end of the meeting. Increasingly, less and less information was shared with Mr. Rao.

Mr. Rao was becoming more imperious with each passing day, and seemed to have an opinion on anything and everything! His colleagues started to avoid him, and the junior associates – who bore the brunt of his fury every morning – would make excuses to avoid the morning meetings. Many senior managers were now used to getting a dressing down in front of all the other officers and managers in the room.

By now the General Manager sensed that something was grossly wrong. He called the Head of Industrial Engineering and asked him to conduct a root-cause analysis of why the plant wasn’t functioning well, and why employee morale too was down. When the analysis was submitted, there were three causes that were spelled out: 1. Fear of Mr. Rao was hindering free and open communications with all concerned. 2. There was a hurry to 'whitewash' and gloss-over plant problems, with no concern about rectifying what was wrong, to avoid a recurrence; and 3. The front-line technicians and engineers felt disempowered since they were given none of the resources they needed for their work.

The General Manager read the Analysis and decided to act. He relieved Mr. Rao of his duties as Plant Head and transferred him to the Engineering Research and Development Division.

Then he went about straightening out the lapses that had occurred.

Amar was driving Quality and Excellence in a manufacturing company in Pimpri-Chinchwad and was concerned that the number of ideas that were being generated were neither enough nor the  standard needed to make an incremental or fundamental difference.

Amar discussed this issue with a Qualitist.

Scene 1: Ground zero

Amar: The staff are not giving any ideas despite teaching them brainstorming

Qualitist: What have you done with those ideas?

Amar: We have a committee to evaluate them!

Qualitist:  Hmm. Why don't we train leadership teams on how to drive innovation and excellence first? How about starting with six thinking hats and lateral thinking as interventions.

Amar: Tell me more.

Amar started this intervention with the CEO and direct reports and got their commitment for cascading these innovation tools. He started with a tracker on people trained, challenges, ideas generated and implemented.

Scene 2- after 3 months

Amar: We now have leadership readiness and clear target areas, what should  we do now?

Qualitist: Let's have CFT / FAT- CATS and assign challenges to them BUT with targets and R & R process across the organization

Amar: Great! let me get HR buy-in first

The company trained over 1000 staff on the tools  and implemented CFT's to come up with ideas. Most teams set a quota of 1001 ideas on a single challenge statement and exceeded it!

Teams presentations had the CEO and the direct reportees as an audience and instant commendation certificates issued to all.

Scene 3- after 6 months

Amar: Lets have some tools for the shop floor

Qualitist: Try 40 principles of TRIZ

TRIZ tools were used at the plant level for technical contradictions and ideas generated.

Scene 4- after 9 months

Amar: We need more ideas from the shop floor. Suggestions systems are not working.

Qualitist: Why don't we train the blue collar workers on ideation?

Amar: But some don't understand English

Qualitist: Why don't we do it in Marathi?

Amar : We don't have time on the shop floor!

Qualitist: Hmm, why can't we find some other time?

And then the inventor in the qualitist appeared. The idea was to use the staff BUS  on its travel time of 45 minutes from Pune railway station to factory which was currently used  for gossip, company politics, nap or playing cards!

The BUS was proposed to be used for ideation in a  stress free environment !

Thinking pads were designed for use on the bus and a champion was assigned to each  bus especially on the inward journey. The champion would spell out the daily challenge  i.e "How to reduce machine wastage"  and the passengers in the bus who were all blue collar workers would pen down ideas. As the bus reached the main gate, the champion would collect the ideas!

They achieved the highest number of ideas using this innovation as nobody had thought of travel time in the staff bus as an opportunity to generate ideas!

This  unit of the MNC became a global centre of excellence and reliability.

As we hear about the spread of COVID-19 in India on every passing day,it is important to assess not only the physical and health ramifications of the pandemic but to anticipate the subsequent emotional impact it will have on the overall wellbeing of individuals.
Humans are naturally oriented toward other humans and are inherently built for social connection.Socialisation plays a key role in both, individual and societal learning,development and even survival.In times like these when we are forced to stay at home or work with restricted manpower,observe social distancing,wear face mask and hand sanitise frequently,the new normal triggers anxiety and emotional isolation for many.Under the changed scenario,it became imperative for organisations to prioritize the health and safety of its employees during these testing times.We understood the need to rebuild the lost trust of management with our workers Unions BMS & INTUC because of their 25 days long illegal strike during Nov-Dec 2019.As a Head of Plant HR we immediately swung into action and organised meetings with key people of the Unions to evolve a fruitful strategy to involve other union representatives and workers in various COVID specific activities to protect our workmen and their families from any possible attack of this virus.We, in consultation with representative Unions formed dedicated teams which was deployed in our workers residential colonies for door to door thermal screening, hand sanitisation,support to our Medical Team for health Check-Ups,meal distribution for stranded migrant workers prepared by pool of workers and their families.Unions also served meals from late evening till mid-night for in-transit common people passing through Maihar town. Apart, the teams kept a close watch on any foreign entry in-to their residential colonies.

As a result, anybody who came from surrounding districts, states or from Red/Orange Zone is immediately identified, checked and home quarantined for next 14-days.The Team also kept a close watch on the adjoining slum having population of around 1800 families & approx. 8000 residents wherein More than 40% of our contractual workforce resides and many workers young children who were working in metro cities were returning back to their homes during the lock down.In a special awareness drive on Covid-19,SDM,Tehsildar and HR Team led by VP-HR took rounds of on-the-spot awareness session in this slum, as a result no case was reported till date.Team also kept an eye on local market activities and support management and local administration. Unions ensured tight control on local shopkeepers & vendors during ongoing lockdown.
The ultimate objective of all these activities was to keep our workforce, their families healthy and safe enough to pass through this phase of difficult times and stand stronger physically/mentally.We closely worked with our unions,stakeholders & govt. machinery and have been successful in our mission of ensuring safety of our workers,their families & surrounding population as well as smooth resumption of full plant operations with almost 50% workforce deployment.

Once upon a time in the kitchen of ABC Hospital, there occurred a shift in department,which formed an indispensable ingredient in preparing an “Ultimate recipe of customer delight” .

The hospital facilitated in-house catering unit serving all inpatients,relatives and staffs. The departmental wagon was multi-wheeled requiring active interventions from multi-departments for running its core activities.This involved internal team;operations,dietetics and supply-chain management and outsourced team of kitchen and utility staff.

Sunil,the protagonist,acted as liaising between both the internal and outsourced team to generate best outcomes - fortifying the health- of patients and organization.Crucial support services are outsourced to unburden from the cumbersome task to third-party enabling administrators to concentrate more on their organization’s core business.This was adopted and staffs were externalized.

But, to Mr.Sunil’s surprise, outsourcing the staff offered no respite!

He summoned his subordinate Sakshi to dwell deeper for the root causes.

“Sir,there are issues in handling the negative feedback of the patients and lack of variety by visitor’s and staff regarding the meals served. Here, shared accountability is a concern.” Sunil contemplated the shift-Food was no longer a part of medicine.It became part of overall experience further adding to the customer delight factor highlighting the term: Value-based healthcare.Sakshi added  “There are other trials related with managing the daily-wage outsourced workers,containing wastage due to returned plates and adequate inventory management that involved risk of pilferage.” 

On further probing it was found that these invisible costs coalesced alarmingly into the shortest horror story ever-Cost of Poor Quality-amounting to approximately five lakhs a month.

Sunil saw himself intertwined in the input processes;monitoring and policing the outcomes took a back-seat. This was meant to be fixed!

The idea that changed everyone’s lives was to shift the focus from input to output model by completely externalizing the department to an “expert” vendor.There was resistance from the higher management,the risk was due.Sunil,unfazed in his pursuit, proposed the plan for expanding the scope involving newer alliance with the upcoming party and gaining profits through cafeteria royalty.

A planned risk backed-up with adequate change-management initiative was undertaken.Sunil now focused on the outputs and insisted on laid service level agreements (SLAs).The invoicing was based on number of plates served. Delegating and managing “manpower” and “materials” the two villains of any cost-saving tale, was out of the picture.Also, it drastically reduced the COPQ and increased the revenue through royalty received from the cafeteria. Positive testimonials did rounds due to increased variety in meals.Truly a win-win situation leading to yummier-word-of-mouth that resonated with the taste-buds.

The number of returned plates and wastage of meals dropped exponentially, a baby-step towards bettering the environment.

However,newer challenges followed with the new party;

There is more to be served on table but that will call for yet another quality fable!

The best part of being an assessor is the wonderful learning and often the paradigm shift in thinking out of experiences. In 2014, I was assigned to lead a team for assessment of a large multispecialty hospital at Hyderabad.  I completed the rooftop, fire drill, interviewed staff and moved to floors. The waiting area of the medical ICU had many relatives, congested, chaotic and dirty. Security was having a tough time managing the crowd. The situation inside the ICU was unbelievable with three relatives every patient. Nurses and Doctors were struggling.

The next day in management review meeting I raised my concerns to MD about visitors in the ICU and the lack of discipline in the most sensitive area of the hospital. He was apologetic and expressed his inability in handling local customs, sentiments and the lack of awareness of public about infection control and prevention. I wished him well and ended the management review with some lighter conversation and a cup of tea.

Two years later, I was allotted the same hospital and was eagerly waiting to visit the hospital. Among other memories of excellent Hyderabadi biriyani and Karachi biscuits, the scene inside and outside the medical ICU were vivid in my recollection!

After facility assessment my immediate thought steered me to visit ICU. I was pleasantly surprised to see minimal crowd outside and only one visitor with the patient with personal protective attire in ICU. Doctors and nurses were less stressed though the ICU was full.

I waited to meet the MD and my immediate response on seeing him was appreciation to the clean and disciplined ICU. We shook hands and he handed over a pack and told me that was the secret. I opened the pack and found a disposable cap, foot covers, a mask and an apron and was puzzled as to how that was the solution. He smiled and narrated how he decided to allow relatives into ICU without any number restrictions provided they were willing to buy the pack with Personal Protective Equipment(PPE) for Rs. 300, wear it and then enter, so that patient safety was not compromised.

He said the results were remarkable and since each visitor had to spend Rs. 300 and hassle of wearing all those, the numbers dropped.  He suddenly noticed a jump in visitor entry after a month and noticed one relative coming out with the PPE, removing them and handing over to the next relative, who donned and went into the ICU. He said, “I became smarter”, and I put a bin adjacent to the security and instructed him strictly that visitors must Doff and throw the PPE in the bin as soon as they move out of the ICU. He sounded very happy and proud that he was able to restrict entry and claimed that his intensivists and nurses are extremely happy that they don’t need to answer queries of multiple visitors. I realized that problem solving is an art and needed innovation, lateral thinking.