Shared brainpower

Events organized by the CQI branches provide a forum for quality professionals to meet with their peers and share ideas. ‘They almost all cover aspects of current interest,’ says Mike Debenham, CQI director of policy. The number of events held by any branch will depend on local interest.

Special Interest Groups

The institute’s special interest groups (SIGs) provide an opportunity for members with a particular interest to share ideas and expertise. There are essentially two types of SIG: those that focus on specific topics, such as the Deming approach, and those that are sector based, such as the medical technologies, engineering and pharmaceutical SIGs. ‘If there is enough interest expressed in a topic, we will create a new SIG,’ Mike says. ‘It really depends on the amount of interest and energy from our membership.’

The SIGs meet in London and elsewhere and attract people who are passionate about a particular topic or sector. They deliver a range of services to both members and their sector. For example, the medical technologies and pharmaceutical SIGs, hold conferences, learning events and workshops. The Deming SIG holds very successful learning and networking workshops and is developing its own model for sustainable businesses. All SIGs have their own pages on the CQI website and the integrated management SIG has a very successful forum.

Cross-sector networking

Other opportunities for networking and sharing ideas also exist. For example, the Business Improvement Network arranges events on a range of topics, hosted by organizations such as Siemens, Balfour Beatty, Orange and the UK Atomic Energy Authority. ‘We don’t carefully select people to come to events according to their sector or the size of their company,’ says Jim Wade, founder of the Business Improvement Network. ‘We encourage people from all sorts of businesses to mix and so people get fired up with new ideas.’

As an example, he refers to discussions about ISO 9000, where network members can discover that another organization is treating a particular circumstance differently. ‘Members discover scope for flexibility,’ Jim says. ‘People often believe they have to do things in the way their certification body tells them to, but by sharing ideas they recognise that they have much more power and flexibility to do things differently.’

Although the Business Improvement Network events are designed to help quality professionals, Jim would like to see more discussion and interaction with other management disciplines. The quality community can get very cosy, he says, ‘But you don’t get anywhere without management commitment. In some cases I have specified that you can only come (to an event) if you bring a director.’