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Growing a quality culture: a case study - Oracle UK S. Verbe, P.W. Robinson Quality Management Group, Oracle Corporation UK Ltd, The Oracle Centre, The Ring, Bracknell, Berkshire, Abstract Founded in 1984, Oracle UK is a relatively young organisation that currently employs almost 2000 people throughout the UK. Our early years were dedicated to growing our market share and establishing the organisation. As we mature, we are starting to analyse ourselves, re-focusing our objectives "to excite and delight customers, and become the strategic partner of choice"[1]. The rigours of certification to ISO 9000 and the introduction of a significant customer satisfaction programme have encouraged a change in our behaviour. In this paper we will describe how the culture has been changed and the methods used to facilitate the change. This paper will cover: Management Policy,Leadership & Commitment -how our objectiveshave changed, necessitating leadership and commitment at the highest level; People Participation -how toget everyone involved, and communicate what needs to be done; Training - setting up training & awareness programmes; Supporting Framework - what supportingmechanisms need to be inplace to enable people to achieve the stated objectives; and Continuous Improvement - moving towards a TQM approach. 1. Background & Organisation From its formation in 1977, the Oracle Corporation (Oracle) has designed and developed a wide range of computer software products including application development tools, CASE tools and end-user applications products. Our principal product is the Oracle relational database management system Transactions on Information and Communications Technologies vol 11, © 1995 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517

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Growing a quality culture: a case study -

Oracle UK

S. Verbe, P.W. Robinson

Quality Management Group, Oracle Corporation UK Ltd,

The Oracle Centre, The Ring, Bracknell, Berkshire,

Abstract

Founded in 1984, Oracle UK is a relatively young organisation that currentlyemploys almost 2000 people throughout the UK. Our early years werededicated to growing our market share and establishing the organisation. As wemature, we are starting to analyse ourselves, re-focusing our objectives "toexcite and delight customers, and become the strategic partner of choice" [1].

The rigours of certification to ISO 9000 and the introduction of a significantcustomer satisfaction programme have encouraged a change in our behaviour.In this paper we will describe how the culture has been changed and themethods used to facilitate the change. This paper will cover:

• Management Policy, Leadership & Commitment - how our objectives havechanged, necessitating leadership and commitment at the highest level;

• People Participation - how to get everyone involved, and communicate whatneeds to be done;

• Training - setting up training & awareness programmes;• Supporting Framework - what supporting mechanisms need to be in place to

enable people to achieve the stated objectives; and• Continuous Improvement - moving towards a TQM approach.

1. Background & Organisation

From its formation in 1977, the Oracle Corporation (Oracle) has designed anddeveloped a wide range of computer software products including applicationdevelopment tools, CASE tools and end-user applications products. Ourprincipal product is the Oracle relational database management system

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(RDBMS), an SQL-based RDBMS that runs on a broad range of platforms.Today Oracle is the largest database company in the world, and the third largestsoftware company, employing approximately 12,500 people in 93 countriesthroughout the world.

Oracle Corporation UK Ltd (Oracle UK) is the largest of these subsidiaries,employing almost 2000 people throughout the UK. Formed in 1984, OracleUK's business is made up of a balance of sales and services - offering acomprehensive range of services to compliment our products, primarily in theareas of Consulting, Training and Support.

MANAGING DIRECTOR

QUALITYMANAGEMENT GROUP

C&L

Key:

" CUSTOMERSATISFACTION

HR MKT ALL SALES CONSULTINGSERVICES

SUPP TRA F&F

BusinessIMtS

C&L = Commercial & LegalHR = Human ResourcesMKT = MarketingF&F = Finance & Facilities

ALL = AlliancesSUPP = Customer SupportTRA = Training Services

Figure 1 - Oracle UK Organisation

Our Sales and Consulting functions are segmented by market specialisation andare referred to as Business Units (BUs), for example Public Sector, Finance, andHealth, etc. Oracle UK's organisational structure is shown in Figure 1.

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2. Management Policy, Leadership & Commitment

2.1 How Our Objectives Have Changed

Oracle UK's early years were dedicated to growing our market share andestablishing our organisation within the UK marketplace. As a technology-based company, the young Oracle UK was very product sales oriented, thus thebusiness planning process was sales-driven, focused on achieving growth.

Having achieved our current position, we are now starting to mature and re-focus our objectives. Our mission is "to be recognised as one of the world'sgreatest corporations" by being "the best business partner, supplier andemployer" [2].

2.2 How We Are Meeting Our Objectives

"Research shows that there is a strong correlation between delighted customersand increased sales" [3]. Sales is, and will continue to be a vital part in ouroverall success, but in order to be "the best business partner, supplier andemployer" we are re-aligning our objectives. In order to meet these objectives,a number of activities have either been implemented or are planned, many underthe banner of a number of ISO 9000 initiatives.

Oracle UK has three ISO 9000-based quality management systems (QMSs):

• Consulting QMS• Training Services QMS• Shipping QMS

The Consulting QMS is the largest of these in terms of impact on our businessthrough delivery of products and services to our customers, and involves almosthalf of all Oracle UK staff (Figure 2 shows the main parts of the organisationcovered by this). Its scope covers all activities relating to bespoke softwaredevelopment, applications implementations, systems integration, bespokesupport and development of vertical applications products. The ConsultingQMS is also the most mature of our QMSs, having been originally certificatedto ISO 9001 under the TickIT arrangements in 1991, and recently re-certificated (as required by TickIT) in September 1994.

2.3 Management Leadership & Commitment

Part of the Managing Director's (MD's) defined role is "to promote a customersatisfaction culture across the organisation and to assist in resolving qualityproblems" [4]. As part of the commitment to doing this, the MD has appointedtwo direct reports, one for 'quality' and one for customer satisfaction.

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Additionally, the quality systems are maintained and continually developed by afull-time, centrally based Quality Management Group (QMG), working onbehalf of the Managing Director and his management team, and backed byquality consultants in each of the business units.

The MD's declared quality policy states that we must "endeavour to provideproducts and services" that are " fit for their intended purpose...meet any agreedspecifications...and...satisfy customer requirements and needs" [5]. Aspreviously detailed, to support these endeavours we operate a number of qualitysystems in Oracle UK, applying to all business undertaken by the offices withinthe UK organisation. The following sections define how we implemented theConsulting QMS, our largest quality system.

PtojectManagementServices

NOTE: ShadedArea&cws organisation of eachBusiness Unit

Figure 2 - Scope of the Consulting QMS

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3. People Participation

3.1 Culture

To fulfil our goal of successfully implementing the Consulting QMS, we had tochange our organisational culture, to accept greater formality in the way wework. The question facing us was how to make this change.

Oracle UK, like many others in the computer software business, employscreative, intelligent people who relish their freedom and the level of trust thecompany places in them. These types of people react negatively to anymandated application of procedures, especially by a central group, oftenregarding such a move as trying to limit their creativity and causing unnecessarycomplexity. We could not therefore take an 'external police force' approach,i.e. the central Quality Management Group enforcing a set of procedures froman ivory tower, since it would result in a 'them and us' situation, resulting inlack of commitment from the consultants themselves and ultimately loss of ourcertification to ISO 9001 in the longer term.

3.2 Selling the Consulting QMS

We decided to adopt a 'with the people for the people' approach where we soldthe idea of quality to the organisation as a whole, in order to gain buy-in fromeveryone to take responsibility for their role within the Consulting QMS. Weformed a network of people within each of the individual business units (BUs),to act as the focus for quality-related issues within their particular part of theorganisation. This was advantageous firstly because it focused 'quality' (i.e.good business practice) as a local issue with a known credible face, andsecondly because these local people would be funded by the business areas, thusshowing management commitment.

The main selling points we used to highlight the benefits of the Consulting QMSwere:

• Not re-inventing the wheel

We have many similar projects running within the organisation and each projectspends a great deal of time defining its operating procedures at project start-up.By defining procedures, techniques and standards in one place, these can beused and re-used for all projects, rather than being re-invented for every project.These common procedures also make personnel portable between projects,without consultants having to familiarise themselves with a new set ofprocedures. They also ensure that we provide a consistent level of servicedelivery to our customers.

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• Defined roles

A key source of problems on projects occurs where roles and responsibilities arenot clearly defined. Apart from leading to genuine confusion, it also facilitates'buck-passing' and permits problems to remain unresolved as they are passedfrom one person to the next with no one taking responsibility for it. Cleardefinition of roles and responsibilities is also particularly important for us sincewe are becoming increasingly involved in complex projects* which lead toconsultants fulfilling a more complex set of project roles. By defining these rolesformally as part of the QMS we can ensure that they are available to andunderstood by the individuals fulfilling these roles, as well as their managers.

• Makes life easier & more productive

Since the way in which tasks are to be done is pre-defined, this enables allconsultants to concentrate on the task in hand, rather than on how they aregoing to achieve it. For example, to focus on testing a piece of software, ratherthan on the procedure for testing it.

• Sales and marketing advantage

Having a QMS that meets a recognised international standard not only enablesus to compete for work where having ISO 9000 is mandatory, but it also givesus an advantage over competitors who are not certificated.

3.3 The Role of the Quality Consultant

This 'sales campaign' generated a great deal of positive feedback and persuadeda number of consultants to become part of the 'quality' network. Therefore, inconjunction with the individual consultants' managers, we created a role calledthe business unit 'quality consultant'. The quality consultant acts as a localfocus, responsible for:

• answering any QMS or quality-related questions within the BU;• performing local presentations at business unit meetings covering topics of

interest or updates to the QMS;• conducting audits on projects within their business units for compliance to

the QMS;• acting as a guide for the external auditor during any audit of their business

unit, giving a known face and context to the local auditee;• helping to produce any local procedures for the BU where 'localisation' of

the corporate procedure is required; and• reviewing and approving quality related documents within the business unit

and passing to the quality management group for further review whereappropriate.

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The local quality consultant role is usually fulfilled by a senior consultant. Inorder to balance their chargeable time with their quality-related activities, theyagree specific percentages of their time to spend in their role as qualityconsultant with the BU managers. This percentage varies depending on the sizeand nature of the business unit, but is approximately 50% of their time.

3.4 The Role of the Quality Mentor

The quality consultant concept worked well for the business units and wetherefore decided to provide a reciprocal commitment from the QualityManagement Group (QMG) by assigning QMG members as 'quality mentors'to support a number of local quality consultants. The quality mentor role hasthe following main responsibilities:

• answering questions and helping to resolve problems escalated by thequality consultants;

• reviewing and approving any significant quality documentation such asquality plans for large projects or business unit procedures;

• performing local presentations at business unit meetings covering topics ofinterest or updates to the QMS when requested by the quality consultant;

• performing project audits when requested; and• developing and giving training and awareness sessions (over and above

those courses already defined - see below) when requested.

The quality mentor and quality consultant communicate regularly to discussprogress, problems and on-going plans for each business unit. There is also amonthly QMS review meeting, chaired by the quality management group andattended by the local quality consultants, which meets to monitor overallprogress and feedback recommendations for improvement in the QMS, and anyother quality-related matters.

4. Training & Awareness

In order to ensure that everyone understood the purpose and format of theConsulting QMS, as well as how to use it, a number of training and awarenesssessions were developed. A standard 'QMS Rollout' presentation wasdeveloped by the quality management group that could be given to each of thebusiness units. The purpose of this presentation was to explain at a high levelwhat the QMS is, who it affects and how, and where to go for more detailedinformation and training. This presentation was then tailored by each qualitymentor for each individual business unit, taking into account how much 'quality'experience they already had, and what their particular industry requirementswere.

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More detailed information and training is as defined in five training andawareness courses. These courses are:

• 'QSO' - an interactive 2 hour awareness session suitable for any employee. Itis an introduction to "quality" in its widest sense, and looks at differentinterpretations of what quality means, and how this is translated into whatpeople do on a day to day basis under the scope of the QMS. It also looks atthe concepts behind international quality standards and how they fit into thewider challenge of becoming a company motivated by customer satisfactionand business results;

• 'QS1' - a 1 day training course for senior consultants and project managers,covering specific QMS procedures that apply to them such as: Bidding, RiskManagement, Estimating, Project Start-Up, Planning and Control. Mostattendees of this course will either have already attended the lower-levelquality techniques course (QS3) or have an understanding of the activitiesinvolved. This course is heavily workshop-oriented, the emphasis being on"hands-on" use of the procedures;

• 'QS2' - a half-day training course for administrators. It looks at anintroduction to what the QMS is, and addresses specific procedures thatapply to administrators, in particular Documentation Format and Control,and Filing and Administration;

• 'QS3' - a 1 day training course aimed at consultants who are involved inanalysis, design and build activities on software development projects. Itcovers how to use specific procedures such as: Document Format & Control;Reviews; Testing; Configuration Management; and Issue Tracking &Problem Management. There is also an alternative version of this course thatlooks at the same topics, but is aimed at consultants who are involved inimplementing applications packages, rather than bespoke softwaredevelopment. Both versions of this course are heavily workshop-oriented.

• 'QS4' - a 2 day training course in quality auditing, aimed at QualityConsultants and Project Managers. At the end of this course consultantsshould be able to perform and follow-up an audit, act as a guide to anexternal auditor and understand how our QMS relates to the variousinternational quality systems standards. It is a pre-requisite of this coursethat as well as having IT experience, the participant has attended theQS1/QS3 courses (or has a thorough knowledge of the QMS). This courseis also heavily workshop oriented.

Where additional training needs are identified, specific training sessions aredeveloped, often by the quality mentor and in conjunction with the local qualityconsultant. Additionally, training curriculum requirements are continuouslyreviewed, and new courses developed as appropriate, for example a newtraining course is currently being developed to address training in the QMS for amanagement and sales-oriented audience.

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5. Supporting Framework

5.1 Levels of Documentation

In order to make using the QMS as painless as possible, we had to ensure thatthe supporting documentation we produced not only communicated therequired information, but was in a user-friendly and portable format. Wetherefore decided to split the QMS documentation into 3 distinct levels, ratherthan have one huge 'quality manual'! Figure 3 shows this breakdown.

The first level consists of the 'Level I Quality Manual' which is a very slim 8page document, summarising our quality policy and acting as a quick summaryand route-map to the detailed levels II and IE of QMS documentation.

LEVEL I - Quality Manual

LEVEL II - Procedures

LEVEL III -Reference

Figure 3 - Oracle UK Consulting QMS Structure

The second level consists of the 'Level II Procedures Manual' which containsthe bulk of the detail of the QMS, defining all of Oracle UK's mandatoryprocedures for consulting, for example Bidding, Estimating, Testing, etc.

The level III documentation consists of a number of manuals and otherdocuments, containing reference material that can be used as appropriate, forexample Standards and Guidelines for developing with Oracle tools, Checklists,Forms, etc.

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5.2 Format

All of the mandatory material (i.e. Level I & II manuals) is contained in portable'hand-sized' manuals. This is essential to enable consultants to carry themanuals with them to customer sites. In addition, all of the procedures definedin the Level II manual are in the same format, so that, for example, when aconsultant refers to an individual procedure, they know that at the front of theprocedure there will be a Task Diagram' (see Figure 4), summarising visuallythe main tasks and deliverables involved in the procedure. This is then followedby detailed descriptions of all tasks, deliverables, roles and responsibilitiesinvolved in the procedure. All documentation is available electronically,including forms, checklists and templates.

Tasks

Define WorkBreakdown

Deliverables

WBS

Create BasicEstimate

SpreadsheetEstimating Forms

Apply Contingency& Fee Rates Spreadsheet

Estimating Forms

Review &Handover Estimate Final Estimate

Figure 4 - Example Task Diagram for Estimating Procedure [6]

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6. Continuous Improvement

6.1 Customer Satisfaction Programme

As already detailed, as part of the our commitment to promoting a customersatisfaction culture across the organisation, Oracle UK's MD has two directreports, one for 'quality' and one for customer satisfaction. The two roles workvery closely together, the Director of Quality Management being responsible formanaging our ISO 9000 programmes, and the Customer Satisfaction Managerfor the Customer Satisfaction Programme.

The Customer Satisfaction programme is made up of a number of projects, inparticular an on-going Customer Satisfaction Survey, which is one of our mainmechanisms of measuring customer satisfaction. Other key projects within thisprogramme include Business Process Re-Engineering, RelationshipManagement and Product Delivery. Whilst some 'quick fixes' have beensuccessfully implemented already, the majority of these projects are current, andtherefore will not be discussed in detail here.

6.2 A TQM Approach?

This paper has discussed how we have met our objectives so far, but we mustcontinue to work towards our goal of being "recognised as one of the world'sgreatest corporations". In order to do this we need to not only continue toimprove what we have been doing thus far via our ISO 9000 and CustomerSatisfaction programmes, but we also need to look at the rest of ourorganisation.

One way of doing this is to adopt a TQM approach, such as the EuropeanFoundation for Quality Management (EFQM) model, which is based on theoperations of some of the most successful companies in Europe.

The EFQM model looks at the operations of the whole of an organisation and isbased on the premise that "Customer Satisfaction, People (employee)Satisfaction and Impact on Society are achieved through Leadership drivingPolicy and Strategy, People Management, Resources and Processes, leadingultimately to excellence in Business Results" [7].

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The EFQM model is made up of the following criterion, each forming aparticular percentage of the model:

• Leadership - 10%* Policy & Strategy-8%• People Management - 9%• Resources - 9%• Processes - 14%• People Satisfaction - 9%• Customer Satisfaction - 20%• Impact on Society - 6%• Business Results - 15%

As part of planning our next steps towards being "recognised as one of theworld's greatest corporations", we are currently assessing the applicability ofthe EFQM approach as a model on which to base our improvement activities.The 'Processes' and 'Customer Satisfaction' parts of the model are worth twoof the highest percentages of the whole model. As we hope this paper hasshown, Oracle UK has already made a significant start in both of these areas.

References

II] & [2] Oracle Corporation UK Ltd Three Year Business Plan FY'95-'97.

[3] Donovan, P. & Samler, T. Delighting Customers, How to build a customer-driven organisation, Chapman Hall 1994, ISBN 0 412 61010 8.

[4] & [5] Oracle UK Quality Management System, Consulting Quality ManualIssue 3.0, ORA/QMS/002 July 1994.

[6] Oracle UK Quality Management System, Consulting Procedures ManualIssue 2.0, ORA/QMP/002 July 1994.

[7] EFQM 1995 Self-Assessment Guidelines.

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