Quality Managers deal with ensuring the quality of the product/service they are tasked with. They play a crucial role in ensuring the quality remains the same in an organization. Further, they ensure that these products/services are legally compliant and satisfy experience. The most successful managers are skillful in their trade. They lead their team effectively in producing tremendous results under the set regulations. Moreover, all these managers are efficient in upskilling periodically in leading their team in the best way possible. So, if you want to take a new path in your career, get Lean IT Foundation certified. The Lean IT certification ensures advanced proficiency in professionals, which helps them apply lean principles in an IT environment. This blog will discuss the top 10 skills of a Quality Manager that will help ensure the best quality product/service that an organization drives out.
Before moving to the in-depth topic, will first discuss what quality management is.
Introduction to Quality Management
Quality Management is all about managing and maintaining the good quality of a product/service that an organization brings out. It ensures that the activities and tasks outlined are performed per the original plan in offering the best product to maintain a desired level of excellence.
It starts with determining the quality policy to rely on. Then, creating robust quality planning and implementation, quality assurance, control, and improvising. Quality Management is another name for Total Quality Management (TQM).
Quality Management eyes long-term goals by implementing short-term initiatives. As a result, some businesses are successful because they understand that long-term success in any market is possible only through customer satisfaction and loyalty. Thus Total Quality Management brings together all stakeholders in improving the products/services. And eventually, the company culture itself maintains its desired level of excellence.
The importance of Quality Management couldn’t be better explained by the Japanese product flip in quality back in the 1960s. Before the 1960s, Japanese products were poor in quality, as they didn’t incorporate quality control and management. Paving the way for inefficient production processes.
But the bigger businesses in Japan, like Toyota, took responsibility and started this movement of quality-driven production that ultimately flipped the quality levels of Japanese products. In addition, these products went on to gain tremendous fame worldwide and in Japan in the late 60s. Started to be known for building the best quality products globally that one can rely on.
About Quality Manager
The Quality Manager is tasked with ensuring that all company products/services meet the desired quality standards before they hit the market. Moreover, they understand customer expectations and needs, outline quality standards, and help develop quality control processes.
A defective product or inconsistent service could cost a fortune for businesses in today’s cutthroat competitive digital economy. That’s why companies employ Quality Managers who look deep at the existing quality processes with attention to detail.
These Quality Managers are also known as Quality Assurance Managers. They monitor and evaluate the internal production process, examine it, interact and engage with customers, and gather reliable feedback while also performing their core duties.
The section will talk about Quality Manager skills
Top 10 skills of a Quality Manager
As we mentioned earlier, the efficient manager is keen on upskilling themselves in effectively leading a team to ensure the desired standards and quality are met. Below, we will be discussing the top 10 skills of a Quality Manager that will help professionals aspiring for the role advance their career path and keep track of their progress.
Leadership
It’s probably the most sought-after skill for a Quality Manager business are looking for. They need someone with solid leadership skills who can lead the team in ensuring that the team functions like a well-oiled machine. In addition, the leadership qualities of a manager must incorporate team & relationship-building qualities, work delegation, result-orientedness, negotiation skills, conflict management, decision-making, and adaptability to changing times and technologies.
Organizational and planning
It’s not about achieving a goal or about short-term initiatives; the Quality Manager must be able to understand and comprehend the long-term objectives of the enterprise. For the plans to be real, the Quality Manager must spend his time planning appropriately. They must take into account all the scenarios before finalizing the planning.
Organizational skill is an essential skill that involves setting up goals, planning execution strategies, ensuring proper implementation, and finally reviewing outcomes to identify areas of improvement. This mix of skills helps managers ensure the team is on track in attaining the set objectives.
Communication
You don’t need to be a radio jockey (RJ) to be a fit for the Quality Manager role within an enterprise. It’s just that you must effectively convey information to the team members and the business stakeholders. Good communication skills in the Quality Manager help reduce conflicts between team members. Paving the way for better negotiation and helping build good relationships within the organization.
Statistical Analysis
This skill revolves around collecting, exploring, and presenting a large volume of data to discover hidden patterns and trends. For example, in Quality Management, there are much data generated from internal auditing and testing, which helps enhance the quality of the product/service.
Problem-solving
Problem-Solving skills in a Quality Manager will help you determine the why and what of an issue and resolve it objectively, helping the entire process ensure Total Quality Management. In addition, problem-solving skill helps identify bottleneck issues, generate solutions that will fix them, implement them, and eventually gauge the effectiveness of fixing the problem.
Industry-specific Technical Knowledge
Technical knowledge varies with industries and domains. The knowledge you possess from an industry won’t matter in another industry. Each domain employs a unique set of programs, tools, and processes to complete tasks. If you aspire to become a Quality Manager, then check out the job description from different companies to know the technology tools used in their line of work.
Ability to Understand, Interpret, and Communicate With Data
As we advance, modern-day technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Blockchain, the Internet of Things (IoT), Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), and many more are changing the tech space in this digital era. All these technologies are combinedly to influence Quality Management. In addition, all these technologies run on data, which is today’s oil-driving home technological advancements across the world changing our lives forever.
Quality assurance has already shown how important data and statistics can be. Using one or more of these modern technologies could dramatically change Total Quality Management. Therefore, Quality Managers must efficiently interpret these data and explain them to even those professionals from a non-tech background. In addition, all forms of processes, even communication, must be data-driven to enhance quality standards.
Increased Project Management Skills
Project Management skill is an ever-growing skill that influences Quality Management. Project Management impacts Quality Assurance within a company enabling it to adapt to newer processes and protocols. Moreover, Quality Managers must be proficient in Six Sigma Certifications and Quality Management Courses, Project Management certification Courses to incorporate changes to the supply chain efficiently. If you find that you lack Project Management skills, then you must take up certifications or training.
Domain Expertise
As we discussed earlier, the importance of technical expertise or tool knowledge of the industry you are working on. The domain expertise is crucial to your success in the Quality Management career path. The importance of domain expertise comes when, if a sub-standard product/service is made in a scenario. Moreover, extensive knowledge in the domain will help you locate the problem to suggest solutions or make a quick decision.
Gaining knowledge or upskilling is the only way for Quality Managers and other team members to be relevant in the face of mass automation approaching quickly with modern-day technologies like IoT or RFID sensors with AI. Therefore, its imperative for a Quality Manager to understand each step along the supply chain/manufacturing process; Only then will they be able to identify weaknesses, resolve problems, and improve the entire process using these data-backed technologies. In addition, these skills help you increase your value offerings to your organizations rather than only relying on completing tasks.
Human Literacy
What we mean here by “Human Literacy” is that Quality Managers must have compassion towards the end-user to improve the quality standards. Only if they understand how the product/service they designed or manufactured will impact will they be able to understand the importance of quality in the product.
Data-backed technologies will only help get things or tasks completed efficiently. Still, they cannot think like humans or ask the right question, etc., which will prove to be a differentiating factor in Quality Management practices. So it’s an underrated skill that every aspiring Quality Manager must possess within themselves.
Conclusion
In conclusion, according to industry insiders, these are the top-rated skills that will help a professional advance in their career path to becoming a Quality Manager.
Check out the Six Sigma Certifications and Quality Management Courses such as Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certification, Green Belt Training, Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Online, Six Sigma Awareness Certification, Minitab Essentials Certifications, and many more to help you acquire these listed skills to have an advantage over your peers. Feel free to ask questions or pass on your doubts in the comment section. Happy Learning!
