Strategic Planning

Strategic Planning as a Total Quality Management Critical Success

Factor

Pamela Staggs
Regent University

This paper examines strategic planning as a critical success factor when

implementing TQM. Many organizations attempt to implement TQM, but the success rate
is poor and the integration of TQM into the organization’s standard practices seldom
occurs. By linking TQM to strategic planning, the resulting synergy can enhance the
probability of successfully implementing both initiatives and integrating them into an
organization’s culture and practices. Public sector organizations are facing a changing
environment with growing citizen expectation, and limited budgets. By linking TQM with
strategic planning, the probability of accomplishing the organization’s mission in a more
effective and efficient manner increases.

Total Quality Management (TQM) “is For most organizations,

a strategy which is concerned with implementing these changes will have a
changing the fundamental beliefs, far reaching effect, including changes to
values and culture of a company, the following: culture, leadership,
harnessing the enthusiasm and organizational structure and processes
participation of everyone” (Atkinson & (Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994). The
Naden, 1989). TQM combines overall quality of organizational change
simplicity with a revolutionary will be a reflection of the quality of the
approach to change (Cohen & Eimicke, organization’s strategic plan and the
1994). “Total means applying to every plans implementation (Dervitsiotis,
aspect of work, from identifying 1998b). It is important to remember
customer needs to aggressively that the ultimate measure of a
evaluating whether the customer is successful TQM implementation will be
satisfied. Quality means meeting and how well the customers’ needs are met
exceeding customer expectation. (Gustafson & Hundt, 1995) .
Management means developing and
maintaining the organizational capacity Cultural Change
to constantly improve quality” (Cohen &
Eimicke, 1994, p. 450). Although Part of the cultural change is that
modern TQM is based on Deming’s the behaviors which previously resulted
work, he never used the term TQM; in an employee’s success must be
TQM also incorporates other current exchanged for new behaviors (Cyr,
quality techniques such as 1992). Organizational change cannot
benchmarking, quality circles, and occur without personal change (Rago,
other process improvement tools 1996). Public and private sector
(Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996). organizations struggle to change the

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JOL Journal of Organizational Leadership
1999, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 5-17
organizational culture, but the culture
may be more deeply ingrained in
government organizations because of
the longevity of the organization
(Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994).
Introducing cultural change as a pilot
in sub-groups of the organization, and
then developing a template for other
groups in the organization, may assist
in the transition (Ehrenberg & Stupak,
1994). Regardless of the chosen
approach, the leadership must drive
this fundamental shift in an
organization’s cultural. The cultural
change must be embraced by upper
and middle managers, or the
management staff may negate all efforts
of the leadership to change the
organization’s culture (Dobbs, 1994),
because, in essence, the corporate
culture is a reflection of the leadership
values (Benson, 1993).
If the leadership of the organization
does not change the manner in which
they conceptualize and approach work,
it is unlikely that there will be a
successful cultural change in the
organization (Rago, 1996). When the
cultural change has been
accomplished, TQM permeates the
organization and is incorporated into
the organization’s standard operating
procedures (Cohen & Eimicke, 1994).
Hirschfelder (1997) defines the
fundamental change as beginning with
peoples' thinking and developing two
new behaviors: 1) the ability to respond
to new challenges quickly and flexibly;
2) learn from mistakes.
The organizational leader should not
take it for granted that the leadership
team is in agreement with the TQM
philosophy; careful consensus building
is essential to develop the needed share
vision and singleness of purpose
(Donovan, 1994). “Leadership,
planning, and understanding the
culture are vital to successful change
6
and to TQM implementation”
(Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994).
TQM as a Management Philosophy
“TQM is a management philosophy
which should be a part of – if not the
heart of – a business strategy”
(Hendricks & Triplett, 1989, p. 42). Top
management support is the most
frequently sited factor for a successful
implementation of TQM (e.g., Atkinson
& Naden, 1989; van der Wiele & Brown,
1998). The support must be real, and
affirmed by actions such as providing
the necessary resources and granting
the authority needed to further the
TQM implementation (Atkinson &
Naden, 1989; Bowman & Hellein,
1998). Planning is required for the new
philosophy to take hold in an
organization (Ehrenberg & Stupak,
1994). This is especially critical in
government organizations. Leadership
in government organizations must not
only support the TQM efforts, but the
organization must be able to sustain
momentum in spite of a change of
person in the leadership position due to
election, appointment, or rotating
assignment (Doherty et al., 1994).
Accomplishing this requires more then
commitment; the infrastructure must
be built, and TQM must be integrated
into the organization’s culture (Doherty
et al., 1994). “If the ‘talk is walked,’
then a critical mass should develop to
nurture quality wide and deep in
agency operations” (Bowman & Hellein,
1998).
TQM and Government
The public sector, including
government, is experiencing
fundamental change as a result of a
changing environment consisting of: an
increasingly hostile public, a growing

number of mandates, reduced funding,
and conflicting goals and desires of
various stakeholders (van Wart, 1996).
The changing environment calls for new
approaches to meeting
organization’s mission. Strategic
management could help to address
these challenges, but although it is
often employed in the private sector, it
is seldom used in the public sector
(Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996). This is the
result of the difficulty of translating the
process from private to public sector
and a lack of consensus of what it
means to public sector agencies
(Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996). In spite of
this, where implemented, “strategic
management has been found … to
provide direction and manage political
dependencies” (Vinzant & Vinzant,
1996, p. 204)
In the public sector, there is a
scarcity of almost every resource, and
yet the employee’s knowledge and
creativity is virtually untapped (Cohen
& Eimicke, 1994). Consequently, TQM
is one of the tools government
organizations are embracing to meet
the growing demands in a changing
environment (Dobbs, 1994), but it must
be modified to meet the unique
requirement of government
organizations (Swiss, 1992) . Without
care, TQM only results in more
bureaucracy (Levin & Helper, 1995) .
Another threat to implementing TQM
in the public sector is that the political
leadership may become discouraged as
the realization hits that TQM requires a
long-term commitment (Bowman &
Hellein, 1998). Similarly, another risk
is that political support may wane as
one crisis is superseded by another
(Bowman & Hellein, 1998).
Strategic Planning
Government Challenges
One of the challenges that
government faces when implementing
the TQM is that while cost savings are
important, there is not a clear budget
linkage to profit as there is in the
private sector(Patton & Daley, 1998).
Furthermore, the leadership has few
incentives to implement TQM; frequent
elections, and annual budgets make it
difficult to establish and commit to
long-term priorities (Ehrenberg &
Stupak, 1994). Moreover, the
incentives that do exist often only
support meeting minimal legal
requirement and make it difficult to
initiate processes that improve long-
term quality (Swiss, 1992). Meeting
minimal standards is a TQM weakness
that Harari (1997) identifies. A
government setting that focuses on
meeting minimal legal requirements
may exacerbate this weakness in TQM.
Regardless of the challenges faced,
the more important focus in the public
sector is on accomplishing the mission
(Patton & Daley, 1998). Consequently,
“a department may reach its
quantitative goals, but quality of service
or department effectiveness may
actually decrease. For this reason
priorities of the local government
council … need to be reducing
complaints and devising acceptable
levels of citizen satisfaction” (Patton &
Daley, 1998, p. 118). Selecting a
project that can easily be implemented
with immediate improvements provides
an early success which will encourage
the use of TQM (Cohen & Eimicke,
1994) and builds supervisors’
understanding that TQM helps and
does not hinder getting the job done
and accomplishing the mission (Hequet,
1995).
“The monopolistic nature of
government seemed to protect it from
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JOL Journal of Organizational Leadership
1999, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 5-17
the problems that stimulated concern
for quality in private enterprise”
(Bowman & Hellein, 1998, p. 114).
While it would appear that public sector
organizations, such as government
agencies, have a captive client base, in
reality that is not true. Delivery of
some services, even essential service,
lends itself to alternative forms of
service deliver such as privatization
(Patton & Daley, 1998). Other
alternatives also exist for the delivery of
services, and the provisioning of
programs, although no longer directly
delivered by the government entity, they
may continue to be centrally managed
by them (Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994).
Moreover, “potential customers – both
businesses and individual citizens –
may choose another city in which to
relocate” (Patton & Daley, 1998, p.
120). “Quality is recognized as a
strategic advantage by most executives”
(Barclay, 1993, p. 92). Furthermore,
customer satisfaction provides
substantial competitive advantage
(Donovan, 1994) and just as private
sector agencies are seeking this
advantage, public sector agencies need
it as well.
Applying TQM to a service
organization, requires special
consideration because the service is
typically produced and consumed at
the same time (Swiss, 1992) . In the
1990s, the private sector service
industry, represented by
telecommunication, banking, insurance
among others, began to espouse TQM
(End of the road for TQM, 1997). Many
of these industries had public sector
counterparts which then began to
examine TQM more closely as a viable
method to improve their service delivery
(Dobbs, 1994). At the federal level, the
Nation Performance Review endorsed
the TQM approach (End of the road for
TQM, 1997).
In the past, quality was defined by
Congress or the government
bureaucracy, not the citizen customer
(Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994).
“Customers want shorter leadtimes, on-
time performance, unsurpassable
quality and a good price to round out
the value equation” (Donovan, 1994).
As in the private sector, this is true in
the public sector. A frustrated public is
demanding an improved quality of
services, and a higher level of
participation in the process of defining
quality services (Ehrenberg & Stupak,
1994). This becomes an increasingly
complex task, because while the public
is demanding improved quality of
services, they are simultaneously
protesting any increase in the tax
burden (Dobbs, 1994). This dichotomy
often occurs because the client desiring
the service, may be different then the
customer paying for the service (Swiss,
1992). Nevertheless, government
a organizations must somehow strike a
balance between these two, frequently
conflicting, requirements (Swiss, 1992).
The task if further complicate
because, in a government setting, a
successful implementation of TQM that
only considers the direct client, without
considering the desires of the general
public, the taxpayer, may actually do
more harm than good (Swiss, 1992).
Public sector organizations have limited
autonomy over their direction; the
political process often determines which
initiatives and goals a public sector
organization pursues (Vinzant &
Vinzant, 1996) . One of the strengths
that TQM brings to a government entity
is that customers and desired outcomes
are defined (Levin & Helper, 1995).
Clearly understood desired outcomes
can aid in avoiding unexpected negative
consequences in regard to achieving
improved customer satisfaction while
missing the mark on organizational
goals as defined by the organization’s
8

mission, and the political process (Levin
& Helper, 1995).
Why does TQM Fail?
It is ironic that TQM fails in many
organizations because the TQM
advocate neglects to develop and follow
a process to implement TQM (Rand,
1995). An inadequate implementation
may have its basis on a poor
comprehension of TQM itself, and the
assignment of ill prepared people to
accomplish the implementation
(Maresh, 1993). Illusions
management and quality implementers
can lead them astray; they think that
forming a quality committee and
engaging in quality activities and
programs will cause change to occur
(Crosby, 1996). Unfortunately, very
little change occurs as a result of all of
the effort expended pursuing the
various unfocused activities (Crosby,
1996). Another frequent problem is the
failure of overly ambitions, and overly
promoted TQM programs; the failure
discourages modest efforts that have a
greater probability to succeed (Vinzant
& Vinzant, 1996).
Employee commitment is crucial to
TQM implementation. Poorly planned,
chaotic downsizing undermined TQM
efforts in some organizations (Messmer,
1992). Many employees thought this
was inconsistent with the TQM
philosophy which promised job security
for well trained employees that
contributed to a quality product (End of
the road for TQM, 1997). Employee
morale fell and organization agility did
not improve as expected (Forest, 1997).
“Major newspapers ridiculed each
major layoff or corporate failure by a
TQM champion – such as the
bankruptcy of one Baldridge Award
Strategic Planning
winning firm” (End of the road for TQM,
1997, p. 62).
Often TQM is initiated by the
leadership in an organization with
much enthusiasm, mandated training
from a consultant, followed by
enthusiastic employees returning to
unchanged jobs (Levin & Helper, 1995) .
Consultants appear to be the primary
beneficiary of TQM (End of the road for
TQM, 1997). Focusing on downsizing is
not limited to the private sector. The
Clinton administration’s reinventing
government initiative focuses on “short-
run political and budget pressures [and
of
has] … led the plan to emphasize
employment reduction, sometimes
overpowering the emphasis on
customer- and employee-driven
continuous improvement” (Levin &
Helper, 1995 , p. 36).
Management Style and Leadership
Competencies
Deming (1993) suggests the most
organizations are still following a
modern, pervasive, prison-like
management style that results in long-
range organizational losses. He
proposes that “if business executives
are to successfully respond to the
myriad changes that shake the world,
they will need to undergo
transformation into a new style of
management (1993, p. 4).
Scholtes (1999), elaborating on
Deming’s system of profound
knowledge, developed six leadership
competencies that a leader must have:
1. The ability to think in terms of
systems and knowing how to lead
systems.
2. The ability to understand the
variability of work in planning and
problem-solving.
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JOL Journal of Organizational Leadership
1999, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 5-17
3. Understanding how we learn,
develop and improve, and leading true
learning and improvement.
4. Understanding people and why they
behave as they do.
5. Understanding the interde pendence
and interaction between systems,
variation, learning and human
behavior: knowing how each affect the
others.
6. Giving vision, meaning, direction
and focus to the organization (p. S704-
S705).
Scholtes (1999) thought it was
especially important to shift the focus
from the old management style, which
included management by objectives, to
a leadership role that encompassed his
sixth competency of providing vision for
the organization.
TQM Training and Communication
Managers and line employees need
training in TQM, and its effective
implementation. Dervitsiotis (1998a)
proposes that with proper training
middle managers, and employees will
understand TQM and will be able to use
it effectively to improve organizational
profits. This is a challenging area for
many government agencies that have
limited training budgets and often
perceive training as a luxury which is
often scaled back when finances
become scarce (Hequet, 1995). Change,
though, requires the willing
participation of the individuals and
groups involved in the change
(Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994). Learning
by doing provides small successes and
instills the participants with TQM
lessons learned that are can be applied
to more complex endeavors (Cohen &
Eimicke, 1994). An additional benefit
is that people directly involved in the
10
TQM process are more likely to feel
ownership toward TQM and commit
themselves to its success (Rand, 1995).
A good communication plan explains
both the desired outcomes of a
particular change and the benefits to
the participants (Thomas & Thomas,
1996). Effective communication is
necessary for the success of TQM;
without it the result can be a very
expensive failed TQM implementation
(Cherkasky, 1993) . Understanding the
reason behind change will make
employees more receptive to training
necessary to accomplish the change
(Thomas & Thomas, 1996).
Customizing the training for a service
organization, such as a government or
public sector entity, will improve the
clarity of the concepts for the
participants, and therefore increase the
likelihood of training accomplishing the
desired goals (Dobbs, 1994).
Profitability
When use of TQM principles results
in improved profitability, it is more
likely to be embraced by managers
within the organization (Dervitsiotis,
1998a). However, research results are
discouraging and indicate that only
one-fifth to one-third of organizations
with TQM programs are reaping
significant or even tangible benefits
(Harari, 1997). Harari (1997) argues
that not following TQM is not a
rejection of quality, and reaches the
conclusion that “quality is about
unbending focus, passion, iron
discipline and a way of life for all
hands. TQM is about statistics, jargon,
committees and quality departments”
(p. 38). In a similar vein, Donovan
(1994) cautions that many executives
have an overly optimistic view of the
quality of their products that does not
relate to reality. Self-delusion can

jeopardize the success of TQM
(Donovan, 1994).
Measurements
A “lack of measurement or erroneous
measurements” is another cause for
TQM failure (Tatikonda & Tatikonda,
1996, p. 8). Organizations often focus
on financial measures over a short time
horizon (Ferris et al., 1998). By
adopting TQM, the implied result
should be to extend the time horizon for
financial success measures (Ferris et
al., 1998). Furthermore, TQM requires
that quality and customer satisfaction
measures should also be included
(Ferris et al., 1998). Organizations
often do not know what to focus on
because they do not ask their
customer, or their employees what
needs improvement (van de Vliet,
1996). Even when the process is
identified, a common mistake it to
confuse “input for output, process for
outcomes, and activities for results”
(Tatikonda & Tatikonda, 1996, p. 8).
Benchmarking is an activity, and is
not an end in itself, but must be a part
of a continuous improvement process to
have value (van de Vliet, 1996). Staff
members involved in the benchmarking
process need to understand the value
associated with it and that value must
be articulated in a meaningful way and
not in meaningless jargon (van de Vliet,
1996). Meaningful measures provide
direction so the employees know what
to focus on, so that the results lead to
quality improvement (Tatikonda &
Tatikonda, 1996) .
Customers
Successful implementation of TQM
requires consideration for both internal
and external customers (Benson, 1993) ;
for the government, external customers
are primarily citizens (Ehrenberg &
11
Strategic Planning
Stupak, 1994). Harari (1997) notes
that TQM often focuses people’s
attention on internal processes without
regard to the external results of the
changed process or to the customer
expectations. He gives an example of
one organization that produced poorly
made products not wanted by their
customers; after TQM, they made
quality products the customer did not
want. In a government organization,
this would be analogous to providing
services or having programs in which
the citizens are not interested.
Strategic Goals
Most organizations skip the first
critical step of defining strategic
business goals, and integrating the
goals into the quality improvement
initiative (Schaffer, 1993) .
Consequently a process may be
improved significantly, and still not
positively effect the health of the
organization. Strategic planning should
be the bridge that connects the
improvement of internal processes with
priorities that support the
organization’s long term success
(Cherkasky, 1993) .
Nevertheless, in spite of all the
problems, TQM has not died. It has
been revitalized. The revitalized TQM is
“driven not by consultants and vendors,
but managers, employees, and unions
who recognized that employee
participation was inextricably linked to
quality goals and objectives” (End of the
road for TQM, 1997, p. 64).
TQM and Strategic Planning
Business strategy excellence is the
most important factor in accomplishing
an organization’s vision, mission, and
goals (Briggs & Keogh, 1999) . A sound
JOL Journal of Organizational Leadership
1999, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 5-17
strategy should be meaningful to both
day-to-day activities and long-term
activities (Schonberger, 1992). It must
also be absorbable into the
organization’s culture (Schonberger,
1992). Examining TQM and strategic
management, including strategic
planning, reveals five shared
perspectives: “1) implicit view of
organizations; 2) primary time
orientation; 3) implicit view of
organizational culture; 4) requirements
of leadership; and 5) emphasis on
management control”(Vinzant & the operational ones (Vinzant &
Vinzant, 1996, p. 209).
Implicit View of the Organization
There is a subtle difference between
the implicit view of the organization
from the perspective of TQM and
strategic planning. Strategic planning
is the backbone of strategic
management, which includes strategic
planning, and the implementation of
the strategic plan (Vinzant & Vinzant,
1996). While excellence is a desired
outcome of both strategic planning, and
TQM, excellence in strategic planning
requires the intellectual capacity to
predict the organizational direction for
future success (Briggs & Keogh, 1999) .
TQM focuses on meeting customer
expectations, while strategic planning
focuses on fulfilling the mission of the
organization (Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996) .
Additionally, TQMs attention to
constancy of purpose “implies that
people within an organization know
why the organization exists and in turn
operate within the bounds of the
fundamental mission” (Gustafson &
Hundt, 1995, p. 19). While this is
supportive of a public sector entity
meeting its mission, it acts more as a
constraint rather than as an aim. The
strategic management’s mission focus
is at a higher level and may be more in
tune with government agencies, since
their primary aim is to accomplish their
12
assigned mission (Patton & Daley,
1998).
Primary Time Orientation
While both strategic planning and
TQM hold a future orientation, strategic
planning places the greater emphasis
on the long-term time horizon and TQM
focuses on meeting the customers
current quality and satisfaction needs
(Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996). Ideally, the
strategic initiatives will be linked with
Vinzant, 1996) bringing the best of both
philosophies to bear in meeting the
organizations goals. Both TQM and
strategic management require
considerable time to bring about the
change in an organization; this causes
some difficulty in government
organizations because there is a
frequent change in leadership
(Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994; Swiss,
1992; Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996) .
Impact on Organizational Culture
Both strategic management and TQM
require a profound change in
organizational culture in public and
private sector organizations (Vinzant &
Vinzant, 1996) . Particularly in
traditional government organizations,
revised thinking and values is required
to implement the cultural changes
necessary for TQM and strategic
management (Vinzant & Vinzant,
1996). TQM emphasizes team building,
quality, customer satisfaction, and
continuous improvement (Anderson et
al., 1994; Atkinson & Naden, 1989;
Bowman & Hellein, 1998; van der Wiele
& Brown, 1998; Vinzant & Vinzant,
1996), while “the overriding value of
strategic management is the
preservation of an organization’s
capacity for choice-making” (Vinzant &
Vinzant, 1996, p. 212).

Requirements of Leadership
As with any type of organizational
change, leadership support is critical
for the success of both strategic
management and TQM (Yukl, 1998).
People will focus their attention on
what they enjoy and what they feel is
important; organizational leadership is
important in developing the
organizational vision so that people
understand what activities are
significant to the organization’s success
(Briggs & Keogh, 1999). A clearly
articulated vision, stating the desired
outcomes can galvanize employees to
accomplish it (Giordan, 1995).
Strategic management and TQM
emphasize leadership from opposite
ends of the spectrum. With strategic
management, the fundamental
responsibility remains with upper
management, whereas with TQM
leadership is an important component
of every job (Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996).
Employees become intimately involved
with redesigning work processes, and
considerable training must be provided
to prepare staff to participate fully in
TQM (Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996).
Emphasis on Management Control
Management control is probably the
area of greatest similarity between
strategic management and TQM.
Strategic management focuses on
internal requirements, and TQM
focuses on measurements such as
statistical process control to ensure
continuous improvement (Vinzant &
Vinzant, 1996) . It is important for
employees to have the ability to
influence both the quality and quantity
of the items measured (Patton & Daley,
1998). However, management control
is also an area of weakness for both
TQM and strategic management. Due
to the difficulty of implementing of
13
Strategic Planning
management control mechanisms, less
stringent management controls are
often put in place, thereby undermining
the integrity of the controls (Vinzant &
Vinzant, 1996) . In a service-orientated
organization, the measurements are
frequently dependent on customer
surveys and focus groups (Patton &
Daley, 1998) .
Linking Strategic Planning with TQM
Strategic planning, like TQM,
requires management support and a
commitment to change (Ehrenberg &
Stupak, 1994). The strategic plan can
be the blueprint for the organizations
future direction, including the adoption
of TQM (Ehrenberg & Stupak, 1994) .
The benefit of improved quality
strategic decisions, can dwarf the
benefits of other improved
organizational processes (Dervitsiotis,
1998b). There are three critical links
between TQM and strategic planning
(Butz, 1995): 1) strategic planning must
be customer driven, 2) strategic
planning must precede TQM initiatives
and set the TQM direction, 3) results
and not activities must be the focus to
ensure long-term success.
While Ahmed and Maddox (1995)
propose determining organizational
direction and providing customer
satisfaction is the purpose of TQM
strategic planning, Butz (1995) argues
that strategic opportunity occurs by
providing customer value. This is
particularly true when the strategic
planning process identifies a need that
the customer did not previously know
existed! A rapidly changing competitive
environment demands a new approach
to strategic decision making to ensure
innovation for the future; most of these
decisions will be the result of strategic
planning and implementation of the
plan (Dervitsiotis, 1998b) .
JOL Journal of Organizational Leadership
1999, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 5-17

Nevertheless, in addition to effectively and efficiently be

projecting future customer desires, implemented by the organization
current customer satisfaction, must not (Ahmed & Maddox, 1995). The
be neglected (Dervitsiotis, 1998b) . In a strategic plan determines what is
consumer driven market, quality is a urgent and improves the timeliness of
strategic focus, and an essential TQM initiatives (Butz, 1995). “It is hard
component for an organization’s to conceive of a successful TQM
success (Davin & McCampbell, 1996). implementation effort that does not
When strategic planning is the have as its foundation a good strategic
foundation for TQM, then quality goals planning process” (Ehrenberg &
become an integral part of the planning Stupak, 1994, p. 88).
process. This strengthens the
probability of the incorporation of
quality into the accomplishment of an Conclusion
organization’s day to day operations,
and into the long and short-term goals
Total Quality Management is a tool
(Dobbs, 1994). Including milestones
that can used by an organization to
and measurements into to goals will
meet its quality goals. When is TQM
future support and validate the
successfully implemented? When it
organization’s commitment to TQM
becomes an integral part of the normal
(Brough, 1992). work processes and is no longer
discussed as a separate program; it is
Just as the heart and the focus of
just part of getting the job done (Cohen
TQM is the customer, this same focus
& Eimicke, 1994).
is also necessary for a successful
strategic plan (Cherkasky, 1993).
Both TQM and strategic management
According to Ahmed and Maddox (1995) started in the private sector and each
there are five key components to TQM
has been adapted for the public sector;
strategic planning: 1) customer
they are complementary initiatives
satisfaction factors; 2) categorize
(Vinzant & Vinzant, 1996). Moreover,
customer satisfaction factors as either
incorporating TQM into strategic
critical and non-critical; 3) translate
planning provides the best opportunity
customer satisfaction factors to
for a successful implementation of both
deliverable items; 4) benchmark to
initiatives, providing a synergy and
develop a baseline; 5) develop a
likelihood of success that neither
strategic plan to meet to TQM goals. provides alone.
Indicators that TQM and strategic
Increasing requirements and citizen
planning need to be more closely
expectations, coupled with decreasing
coupled are separate structures for
funding, challenges the ability of
TQM and strategic planning, focus on
government agencies to accomplish the
financial measures, activity based organization’s mission. TQM along with
measures vs. result based measures,
strategic planning can assist
and slow performance improvement
government agencies prioritize
(Butz, 1995). Integrating TQM and
initiatives, and through improved
strategic planning strengthens both processes, provide high quality services,
processes and helps determine which
that are the correct services, provided
processes are most critical, will
at the right time.
enhance customer satisfaction, and can

14
 Strategic Planning

Cohen, S., & Eimicke, W. (1994).

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