Last updated: April 13, 2009
Home
Statement of Purpose
Associates
Research Interests
Services
Publications
Bibliography
 
Links
SWQN Page
Search This Site

Southwest Quality Network
The mission of the Southwest Quality Network is to facilitate communication and learning between people who are focused on making quality a business strategy. Click each item for more information:

Information about the 20th annual meeting of the Southwest Quality Network (SWQN) will be forthcoming.

Ideas for Presentations

If you have something to share and a story to tell, please contact Cliff Norman at:

cnorman@apiweb.org

You can also contact Cliff at 512-731-8922 if you have questions or need some clarification.

The meeting will be in either September or October of 2009

 

Mission

The Southwest Quality Network exists to facilitate communication and learning between people who are focused on making quality a business strategy.

Operating Principles

Deming’s System of Profound Knowledge (theories of variation, systems, knowledge and psychology) guides Network members in studying, creating, and integrating knowledge for improvement.

The Network is open to all types of organizations, including industry, healthcare, government and education institutions and non-profits.

The use of methods and materials from Associates in Process Improvement (API) will be the focus of the Network, but this does not preclude the use of outside speakers and innovative concepts.
 
Objectives

Learn from Each Other

Everyone here has substantial knowledge of the topics being discussed. Your participation will contribute greatly to the value of this Network. Everybody learns, everybody teaches.

SWQN creates a learning environment.  Members are expected to contribute to learning and should:

·        Advocate their ideas, approaches, and personal learning experiences.

·        Provide data, information, or theory to support their ideas.

·        Explain why their data, information or theories support their advocated idea.

·        Invite inquiry from fellow SWQN collaborators about the quality of their advocacy, data, and explanations.

We must be able to examine our thinking, strategies and methods. A spirit of inquiry and reflection should be part of our communication.

 Share Successes, Obstacles and Failures

Improvement requires great effort. The journey is filled with learning from success and failure. Failure is a natural part of making improvements. Describe the journey and help others learn from the roadblock, failure and successes.

No sales pitches. Just the journey and the results.

Create Networks of Communication

Get to know each other. Gaining information and help from people actually causing quality to become a business strategy can be a great resource for your own organization.

The purpose of this Network is not to grow as an organization, but to learn from all sections of society.

 © 2006 Associates in Process Improvement