It has been said that the Baldrige framework is highly complex, which is the reason some leaders give for not using it to optimize their organization’s resources and improve outcomes.  But at last month’s Minnesota Quality Award event (slides and video from 14 high performing organizations here), I offered a quote from Harry Hertz, director of the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program that translates Baldrige into three very simple, yet powerful, questions.  They are:

1) Is your organization any good?

2) Is it getting better?  and

3) How do you know?

If you can answer those three questions definitively, your organization would be well on the way to achieving higher performance and sustaining superior outcomes…

We’ll delve into each question, but first, I need to offer some quick commentary on the Baldrige framework itself.  Created by law in 1987, the Baldrige program exists to help organizations improve results and achieve performance excellence.  The “Criteria for Performance Excellence” are revised every two years by studying high performing organizations in all industries to determine what they are doing to reach superior levels of performance, and those practices become future years’ Criteria.  As such, the Criteria represent what’s been referred to as the “leading edge of validated management practices” – a collection of best practices against which any organization can gauge its own performance, make adjustments, and focus their resources on the highest leverage improvement opportunities.  And many do.  The Minnesota Council for Quality offers three assessment processes – from our “Cadillac” Minnesota Quality Award (which is the most comprehensive, thorough evaluation of an organization’s operating system) to two “short cut” assessment processes that are entry level evaluations that help leaders identify and prioritize improvement opportunities.  But more on our assessment resources later (and in Article 4 below).

Let’s look at those three simple questions and see how they translate the leading edge of validated management practice.

1) Is your organization any good?

This question implies that continuous improvement requires data: leaders need measures and information to determine if strategies are being effectively executed, if offerings are satisfying customer/stakeholder requirements, if employees are competent and engaged, and if systems and processes are delivering value to stakeholders.  In fact, in high performing organizations, most decisions are fact-based: rather than relying intuition and gut (which will lead to inconsistent decision making and unsustainable performance), high performing organizations use data to diagnose problems, make decisions, adjust resources, and improve processes. 

However, it’s amazing to me how many organizations have not taken the time to determine what is important to its overall success!  By selecting, collecting, aligning, and integrating data and information to track daily operations AND overall organizational performance, then – and really only then – will leaders have a handle on whether the organization is any good.  Performance measures should reflect a balanced perspective of different organizational and stakeholder needs.  Tools like the balanced scorecard helps leaders to identify metrics that represent success along many different dimensions, including financial/budgetary and market performance; customer-focused outcomes; workforce-focused outcomes; leadership, governance, and strategic outcomes; product, service, program outcomes; and process, operations measures.  Pick measures that reflect organizational priorities and key stakeholder expectations.  And once you have those measures, organizations should us them!  You should:

A) Review them regularly and systematically and across all levels of the organizations (which requires making them accessible and available to anyone that needs them).  Analyze performance to assess organizational success, competitive performance, financial health, progress relative to strategic objectives and action plans, and the organization’s ability to respond rapidly to changing organizational needs and challenges in your operating environment.  In short, data should be the foundation of leadership meetings, staff meetings, board discussions, and anywhere else where key decisions are being made.

B) Take action!  Use the organizational review findings to develop priorities for improvement and opportunities for innovation.  Deploy improvement efforts across work groups and functional-level operations throughout the organization (and to suppliers and partners, as appropriate).  Share lessons learned and best practices across units and work processes.  Measures are only useful if they inform decision making, and decisions are only useful if they are acted upon. 

It’s true that many organizations take action to improve performance, but many do so using a great deal of intuition and speculation.  By simply using metrics to determine what to improve and then monitoring progress and making adjustments as you go, you will begin to create a culture focused on innovation, fact-based improvement, accountability, and transparency.  You’ll also be creating a true learning organization, in which key decisions are made based on data…and in which improvements, adjustments, and action are rooted in measurement and analysis rather than conjecture and guesswork.

2) Is your organization getting better? 

Once you have your metrics in place, and as part of the analysis an organization regularly conducts, the Baldrige Criteria suggest that leaders should consider levels of performance for each of your key metrics, as well as trends of those metrics – which are performance levels over time.  If trends are favorable, you can determine how to sustain (or accelerate) performance.  However, if trends are unfavorable, you can determine how to adjust processes and/or resources to reverse the unfavorable trend or change the trajectory.  Without trend information, leaders really cannot determine how performance looks over time, and therefore may make decisions inconsistent with the direction and speed of desired change. 

3) How do you know? 

I believe the last question relates to two very important concepts.  First, your performance data needs to be framed in the context of your key stakeholders.  Organizational “goodness” really only can defined by your stakeholders: your customers (students, patients, citizens, clients, stakeholders, etc.), your workforce, and your partners.  And you’ll never know if you’re any good unless stakeholders tell you that you are.  So the first insight regarding the “How do you know” question is: you have to ask your stakeholders how you’re doing.  Use surveys, focus groups, one-on-one meetings (systematically captured and aggregated) to determine satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty – to get feedback on how you are doing to respond to stakeholder needs.  Asking your stakeholders allows you to definitively answer the question “How do you know?”

The second insight embedded in this question, I believe, is the notion that all of your key metrics should have comparative data associated with it.  In order for leaders to determine the organization’s relative performance, performance for similar activities and processes – inside or outside an organization’s industry – should be collected and used to determine competitive gaps and to set goals (rather than setting arbitrary performance targets, why not use the top quartile or best-in-class as a stretch goal?).  Comparative data allow organizations to understand current dimensions of “world class” performance – to see what’s possible and to encourage discontinuous or “breakthrough” performance. 

Here’s a simple example of how comparative data can be powerful, from a Minnesota manufacturer I visited a couple of months ago.  The company was extremely proud of the fact that they had reduced a certain type of production error by 10% the last six months.  This type of error has a direct and meaningful impact on their gross margin and presumably their customer satisfaction, so any reduction should be rightfully celebrated.  But I asked them how their error rate now compared to the industry, simply wondering if they could determine if they’ve reduced it enough.  They really had no answer…they had no idea how their performance compared in the marketplace.

A few weeks went by and their VP of Operations gave me a call and thanked me for my question.  They did some digging in the market, and – through their sales force and other sources – determined that their 93.5% accuracy rate lagged their competitors.  The best performance was 99.2% (from a company that had much higher market share – coincidence?), and the industry average was 94.5%.  So, while they were proud of their 10% improvement, their performance was, well, average. 

Having this simple comparative data allowed them to understand what was possible in their industry.  Rather than being content with modest improvement trends, they set a new goal of 95% accuracy within a year, 97% within two years, and a stretch goal of 99.5% within three years to beat their competition.  Furthermore, they are now researching the connection between accuracy rates and customer satisfaction, and believe they have found a fairly tight correlation.  Their ability to answer the simple question “How do you know” (if they are any good) will positively impact customer satisfaction and profitability. 

The Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence may indeed be a little complex and sometimes difficult to interpret.  But I think there’s wisdom in boiling it down to its central core by asking yourself three easy questions: is your organization any good, is it getting better, and how do you know?  If you can’t answer any of them – or if you can’t answer them consistently throughout the organization – you probably have room to improve.  And now there are ways to ask yourself those questions without having to invest a lot of time and money.

As previously mentioned, the Council now has two “short cut” assessment processes available to any organization wanting the benefit of the proven Baldrige Criteria, but not the rigor of a full-blown Award assessment.  One is consultant-facilitated (a Baldrige expert, jointly selected by the Council and the organization) and involves a series of three diagnostic discussions with senior leaders to identify improvement priorities.  The other is a self-assessment that uses a survey-based instrument (Baldrige Express) to aggregate and segment the perspective of your workforce on the enterprise’s performance.  This process takes about two hours to complete and outlines your improvement opportunities through the collective lens of those who operate the organization’s processes: its workforce.  One of our Council members commented on the value of the self-assessment: “this was the easiest and most useful check-up my organization could receive.  We found several key areas to improve, and are taking action to impact results.  I’d recommend this to any organization.”  More information on both short-cut assessment processes is below, in Article 4. 

So is your organization any good?  Is it getting better?  And how do YOU know?

Want to participate in a discussion on this topic??  Visit our new blog to post a comment!

Yours in Improvement,

Brian S. Lassiter

President, Minnesota Council for Quality

Last fall, the Minnesota Council for Quality launched a valuable new service for leaders dedicated to improvement and performance excellence: peer Roundtables.  These facilitated problem solving sessions provide a unique way for leaders and professionals to share insights, ideas, and best practices that help you address the actual challenges in your organization, your career, and potentially your personal life.  Roundtables are private cohorts that become your own board of advisors, such that you can tap the collective expertise of your peers, accelerating your improvement efforts and realizing your professional/organizational goals.

Feedback from the first cohort has been so positive, the Council is launching at least two more in 2011!  We’d like to invite you to experience the power of this concept firsthand by attending a Roundtable “simulation” this summer – an actual session that imitates how the concept works.  We will offer the following free-of-charge simulations:

July 20 in Duluth (10:30-1:00); lunch will be served

August 12 in Rochester (10:30-1:00); lunch will be served

Fall date TBD in the Twin Cities

These two-hour sessions will simulate what an actual Roundtable format feels like (actual Roundtables are six facilitated four-hour problem solving sessions a year plus one or two expert workshops plus one pure social networking session a year).

The purpose of the Roundtable is to accelerate performance and improvement within participants’ organizations and to facilitate professional and personal growth in a safe, open, confidential environment.  Specifically, the goals of these roundtables are to:

• Share ideas, solutions across organizations
• Solve real business problems in a collaborative format
• Explore best practices from regional and national experts
• Enhance leadership skills and build long-term relationships with like-minded individuals
• Promote value beyond your investment of time/money: provide a measurable ROI

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to announce that the next Lean Six Sigma Forum will be Tuesday, August 9, and will hosted by the Mayo Clinic in Rochester.  Offered in partnership with the Joseph M. Juran Quality Leadership Center at the Carlson School of Management, the Lean Six Sigma Forum provides a means for leaders and practitioners from organizations using Lean, Six Sigma, and/or other techniques to share knowledge and best practices on successfully using process improvement methods.

The August 9 Forum will start with a discussion of how Mayo Clinic is using Lean Six Sigma and other improvement methods to improve the quality of care and support processes throughout the enterprise.  The discussion will feature Dr. Steve Swensen, Chair of the Quality Office at Mayo Clinic, as well as three other practitioners involved with Mayo’s LSS efforts.  

After Mayo’s presentation, we will hear from three other organizations on how they are using LSS.  The morning will conclude with a panel discussion of the three organizations plus Mayo, in a highly interactive and transparent conversation about best practices in deploying LSS.

The session will be from 8:00 AM to -12:00 PM at Mayo Clinic Rochester.  An agenda and more information are at http://www.councilforquality.com/specialevent8.cfm.  Cost is $125 for members of the Council (or $250 for non-members).

The need to improve your organization’s performance has perhaps never been greater.  The difficult economy over the last few years has created a renewed need for improvement and systemic change within all organizations: customers (or stakeholders) expect more, competent workers are growing scarce, and competition is intensifying.  But – with the complexity of organizations – where does one start?  How do you know on which processes to focus – which will provide the most leverage in improving and sustaining better outcomes over time?

The MN Council for Quality’s primary product is a comprehensive organizational assessment that helps organizational leaders better understand and prioritize key strengths and improvement opportunities, upon which action plans can be created.  This assessment, much like an annual health physical, helps managers understand what is working well in their organizations, and on what they should be focusing their attention.  The foundation of the assessment is a set of validated criteria that have been shown to produce superior organizational results in high performing organizations.  The focus of an assessment is organizational learning, resource optimization, and improvement in results.

Why consider an assessment?

The value of an assessment is its ability to improve performance – to improve outcomes and drive tangible organizational results.  There is growing evidence of the value of systemic organizational assessments.  Consider the data from one study1.  Organizations that use our framework for excellence compared to a control group show superior performance:

• operating profit margins of 46.8% versus 2.7%,
• return on assets of 10.3% versus -5.5%, and

• return on equity of 18.7% versus -5.9%.

In another similar study2, organizations using this framework show tremendous growth over a control group of similar organizations:

• 58% faster growth in stock price appreciation,
• 116% faster growth in sales,
• 114% faster growth in total assets, and
• 229% growth in employees.

In fact, organizations that use this process show high levels and improvement trends in a variety of indicators – financial, customer (or student, patient, stakeholder), employee, and operations.

The assessment evaluates processes such as leadership; strategic planning; customer and market focus; measurement, analysis, and knowledge management; workforce focus; operations; and results.  The assessment evaluates organizational approaches (processes), the extent to which they are deployed, evaluated/improved, aligned, and integrated throughout the organization, and their effectiveness at driving organizational results. 

The assessment is based on criteria3 that change every two years to reflect the leading edge of validated management practices.  As such, they represent a set of best practices against which any organization can gauge their performance, identify opportunities for improvement, and focus on the vital few gaps that can improve performance.  

Assessment Options

The Council now offers three performance excellence assessment options:

• Our Minnesota Quality Award, which is the “Cadillac” of enterprise assessments.  It is the deepest, more thorough evaluation of your organization and produces the richest, most valuable learning as well as the most accurate feedback.  The process takes about 3-4 months, leverages the collective expertise of a volunteer team of Evaluators (each giving 100+ hours of input), and culminates in a three-day site visit to verify findings.  It also is eligible for public recognition through our Award.
• Our Alternative Assessment, which is a consultant-led approach that leverages the expertise of an expert in organizational excellence.  This process involves a series of three facilitated discussions with senior leaders: a half-day to discuss the environment in which the organization operates, a full-day “mini” site visit to verify findings, and a half-day Improvement Planning Session to report findings and prioritize improvement opportunities.
• Our Self Assessment, which leverages a 40-question behaviorally anchored survey (“Baldrige Express”) that is given to up to 25 employees to gain a perspective of organizational strengths and potential improvement opportunities.  The Council offers one hour up front to discuss the framework for excellence and set up the survey and one hour at the end to help the organization interpret the results and find opportunities against which to take action.  The process takes about 4-6 weeks.

Special Member Promotion

The new Self Assessment was piloted the last 10 months and has been well-received by a variety of organizations (manufacturing, service, small business, K-12, higher education, and nonprofit).  Going forward, the cost for members is $500 (or $1000 for non-members).  And the first time a member organization conducts the assessment, we will waive the fee.  YES – there is no charge for your first self assessment!  All you need to do is become a member (or renew your membership), and we will offer this powerful assessment for free. 

This process helps leaders identify and prioritize organizational improvement opportunities by systematically gathering the perspectives of your workforce.  It informs your improvement efforts, is ideal as input in annual planning to help you allocate resources on highest leverage areas, and is based on the validated Baldrige “Criteria for Performance Excellence” (see President’s column in this month’s newsletter).

If your organization (or department, unit, division) is interested in learning more about the self assessment process – or the MN Quality Award or Alternative Assessment – please email brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org.  We look forward to supporting your improvement efforts and partnering with you on your journey to excellence.

Notes:

1 Mark Wrolstad and Thomas Krueger, “Study Shows that Quality Pays Winners,” Summer 2001.

2 Kevin B. Hendricks and Vinod R. Singhal,  “Don’t Count TQM Out,” Quality Progress, April 1999

3 Based on the Criteria for Performance Excellence of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Are you interested in learning more about what makes organizations successful?  Are you interested in helping other organizations -- such as schools, hospitals, non-profits, and businesses -- around the state improve their performance?  Would you be interested in networking, learning, and sharing with others who feel the same way?

The Minnesota Council for Quality is seeking candidates for the 2011 Minnesota Quality Award Board of Evaluators.  The final of three training sessions in 2011 is October 4-6 in the Twin Cities.

There are many benefits to becoming an Evaluator, such as:

• strengthening your understanding of what drives organizational excellence (the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence represent a validated set of best practices for organizational excellence, and can be useful for improving any organization’s performance).  The 2011 Criteria has increased emphasis on 1) dealing with complexity in enterprise leadership and management, and 2) customer engagement.
• networking with influential leaders and professionals (this year’s Board of Evaluators will include about 150 leaders from around the state – executives, middle managers, surgeons and physicians, superintendents and school teachers, non-profit and public sector leaders, quality professionals, and consultants);
• seeing “best practices” deployed within another organization – knowledge that you could use back at your organization and/or in your career, helping organizations throughout the state – many of them schools, health care providers, non-profits, public sector agencies, and certainly businesses – improve their performance…simply get better at what they do; and
• developing a set of other professional skills that may help you advance your career – skills such as consensus- and team-building, written communication, verbal communication and interpersonal skills, interviewing, analysis, and systems thinking.

Most Evaluators consider the experience to be among the most valuable of their careers.  In fact, many have claimed that the experience and knowledge gained from this process rivals getting an MBA or advanced business degree.

Furthermore, Evaluators can earn college (undergrad and post-grad) credit for participating in training.  For interested Evaluators, the University of Minnesota and the University of Wisconsin-Stout both offer three (3) hours of credit in partnership with the Minnesota Council for Quality.

Applications for new Evaluators are due September 9.  Applications for returning Evaluators (which only require updates from your most recent application) are due September 22.

In addition to the full training Oct 4-6, new Evaluators are also required to attend a one-day orientation (either Sept 15, 20, or 21 – you choose, and all in the Twin Cities).

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to announce a special conference this fall: “Best Practices in Leadership and Workforce Engagement.”  The main conference will be Thursday, November 10 (a pre-conference may be held November 9).  Save the date!

For the past two years, Anoka County has made intensive use of Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube -- as well as traditional marketing strategies -- to grow usage of the County’s Bunker Beach Water Park. Their experience shows that social media can help organizations build relationships and grow.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Jennifer Fink and Paul Burtness, both of Anoka County, to our August 4 PIN: "Social Media: How to Win Friends and Grow Your Organization."

Jennifer and Paul will offer insights into how the County has used Facebook advertising, online deals, and promotional events to keep customers engaged and provide a high level of customer service. They will show how Facebook’s analytical tools help measure and guide performance, and they will share what they've learned about creating social media policies and guidelines for the organization.

You will:

• Learn about attracting and keeping the right kind of friends for your social media efforts.
• See how to blend the traditional marketing strategies with the new and unique tools of social media.
• Be proactive in developing policies and guidelines for your organization’s efforts in social media.

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on August 4 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at Minneapolis Community & Technical College, 1501 Hennepin Ave, downtown Minneapolis.

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Space is limited so register today by emailing brian.lassiter@councilforquality.org.

The Minnesota Council for Quality and Rochester Area Quality Council is now offering a self-assessment to any organizational member. This process gathers perspectives of an organization's workforce about how the enterprise is performing. Strengths and improvement opportunities are aggregated and opinions of different groups of employees are captured, allowing organizational leadership to see where their biggest opportunities for improvement might lie.

The Rochester Area Quality Council, an affiliate of the Minnesota Council for Quality, is pleased to welcome Wendy Shannon, Superintendent, and Jennifer Walsh, Business Manager, both of Byron Public Schools, to our July 12 program, "Bryon Public School's Journey to Excellence.

The Byron School District administered the Baldrige Express survey in February 2011. Twenty-five administrators, teachers, and support staff, instructional and operational, took the survey. Results will be shared along with the process used to prioritize their top three opportunities for improvement and work groups.

The session is July 12 from 7:30-9:30 AM at RCTC.

There will not be any Twin Ports Performance Excellence Network sessions this summer.  The next public session will be Wednesday, September 21.  Topic/speaker to be announced mid-summer.

The MNODN, an affiliate partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce a special Community of Practice Meeting July 13: “Writing Effective Resumes.”  The session will be facilitated by Irene Rossman, M.A., Director of Career Transition Service of Career Partners International Twin Cities (formerly Personnel Decisions International).

The resume is a key marketing tool for any professional whether or not he or she is seeking a job. It needs to be continually updated and carefully crafted to be effective.  Irene Rossman will present an overview of the resume process, current resume trends, do’s and don’ts of resume writing, branded resumes, and will answer your resume related questions.

Most of us are not born minglers. Practice and preparation, however, will help you develop the skills it takes to be effective – whether at an Employer Info Session, a Career Fair, or other serendipitous opportunities. As difficult or awkward as it may feel at first, the ability to meet and make a positive, professional impression on people will become ever more important as your career advances and develops.

The Minnesota Chapter of Project Management Institute (PMI), an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce its next breakfast session: “Harvesting IT Applications: Project Management Challenges.”  The session will be held June 14, and will be facilitated by Ron Miller, an Education Coordinator, Lead Developer for 3M.

This session will offer the following learning objectives: 1) Understand why managing a project that removes applications is a challenge in today’s environment; 2) Understand the negative and positive aspects of harvesting I.T. applications; 3) Understand the types of harvesting and data archiving projects; 4) Understand the reasons for harvesting I.T. applications; 5) Understand the barriers to successful I.T. harvesting; 6) Understand the communication challenges of harvesting I.T. applications; 7) Understand the types of harvest teams and what challenges they present; 8) Understand Tools and Strategies for harvesting applications; and 9) Understand the positive and negative aspects of using consulting companies for harvesting I.T. applications.

Enterprise Minnesota, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce their next upcoming event: “Leveraging ISO Certification to Grow Your Business.”  The session is June 15 in the Twin Cities.

In addition, Enterprise Minnesota will host the following other programs:

Aug 17: GreenLeanSM Equals Business Growth

Sept 21: Lean Products: Get the Right Products to Market Faster

Oct 19: The Value of Your Business: What Expert Buyers Are Looking For

The University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education, an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce their upcoming improvement and business courses.  Council members receive a 10% discount on all CCE courses.

7/19 Principles of Supervision, $995

7/19 Introduction to Human Resource Practices, $395

7/22 Handling People with Tact and Diplomacy, $395

7/29 Project Management Foundations, $395

8/2 Business Acumen for HR Professionals, $395

8/3  Management Essentials for Success, $750

8/5 Foundations in Business Writing, $395

8/5 Project Initiation, $395

8/9 Project Management for HR Professionals, $395

8/9 Delegating to Enhance Job Performance, $395

8/11 Project Planning, $750

8/11 Increasing Power and Influence through Listening, $395

8/18 Fundamentals of Leading Organization Development, $795

8/19 Project Execution, $395

8/23 Principles of Employee Compensation, 395

8/23 Project Management Foundations, $395

8/25 Financial Intelligence, $395

8/26 Project Control and Closure, $395

8/26 Advanced Editing and Proofreading Strategies, $395

8/30 Building Teamwork and Commitment, $395

8/30 Legal Issues in Human Resources and Management, $395

9/9 Project Risk Management $395

9/13 Process Mapping and Analysis $995

9/13 Staffing: Recruitment and Selection $395

9/13 Legal Issues for Supervisors $395

9/13 Project Planning $750

9/14 Developing Leadership Skills $750

9/14 HR Certification Test Prep $1,095

9/14 Introduction to Business Analysis $395

9/15 Foundations of Talent Management $795

9/23 Project Leadership $395

9/23 Business Grammar Update $395

9/26 HR Certification Test Prep $1,095

9/27 Project Management Foundations $395

9/27 Strategic Human Resource Planning $395

9/27 Introduction to Business Analysis $395

9/28 Strategic Planning and Measurement $750

9/28 Managing Business Requirements $750

9/29 How to Deal with Difficult People $395

9/30 Project Negotiation and Conflict Resolution $395

10/3 ONLINE Business Analysis $1,850

10/4 Leading Through Change $395

10/4 Online HR Certification Test Prep $1,095

10/4 Project Initiation $395

10/7 Project Management for IT Professionals $395

10/7 Technical Writing $395

10/7 Performance Management Process $395

10/11 Project Planning $750

10/11 Implementing Process Change $995

10/12 Successful Manager's Leadership Program $2,995

10/12 Data and Process Modeling $750

10/13 Achieving Results Through Personal Power and Leadership $395

10/14 Project Management and Chaos Theory $395

10/18 Managing Business Requirements $750

10/20 Organizational Assessment $795

10/21 High Impact Presentations $395

10/21 Business Acumen for Technical Professionals $395

10/25 Project Execution $395

10/26 Employee and Labor Relations $395

10/26 Business Analysis Planning $395

10/27 Developing Direct Reports and Employees $395

10/28 Career Planning Workshop $495

The University of St. Thomas’ Executive Education and Professional Development, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce the following upcoming programs:

July 11 – 26, 2011 (12 days): Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification

Cost: $8,200

http://exed.stthomas.edu/LeanSixSigmaBlackBeltTrainingMN

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