Review: work smarter – operational quality management

Katharina Heger opened the event with a relaxed question: “What’s the weather like where you are?” Because this time we met via Teams, responses ranged from severe snowfall in Germany to glorious spring sunshine in parts of Switzerland. A fitting introduction, as quality management also looks different depending on the environment.

Quality management explained simply

Imagine quality management as a mountain you climb down from the summit. At the very top, on the normative level, sits the big “why”: values, principles, ISO requirements and an organisation’s overarching quality aspiration. This level is important, but not particularly tangible in most people’s daily work.

Descending further brings you to the strategic level – the “what”. Here, normative requirements are translated into concrete objectives and strategies. Quality management systems are introduced to bridge the gap between ambition and everyday reality.

At the bottom lies the operational level – the “how”. This is where people work, make decisions and can make mistakes. According to Armin Buchner, the operational level often suffers from an overload of strategic requirements that fail to reflect reality or are simply too complex. Processes today must not be rigid. Standards are useful, but add little value on the operational level if no one understands them. What is needed are simple, practical methods that function like helping hands in everyday work.

Communication barriers in quality management

Before presenting several practical methods, Armin Buchner divided participants into small groups. They were asked to discuss quality assurance and control within their own organisations and identify where most quality is lost.

The groups consisted of participants from medicine, official statistics, software development, the food industry, IT, manufacturing and consulting. Despite differing contexts, similar challenges emerged: unclear handovers, lack of time and staff, missing quality checks, and processes that were overly complex or poorly defined. One issue stood out across all sectors: communication. Or – as Katharina Heger noted with a nod to the song Du verstehst mi ned by Wolfgang Ambros – the challenge of not being truly understood. Anything that is not communicated clearly, handed over in a structured way or properly documented risks getting lost and ultimately compromising quality.

One participant shared an insightful example from the operating theatre: misunderstandings are among the greatest risks, which is why closed-loop communication is used. Every instruction is repeated and confirmed so that no one accidentally confuses, for example, potassium with calcium.

Methods: pathways to improved quality

Armin Buchner presented several methods that can be applied quickly and easily in practice. They can be grouped into three goals:

• Assessing quality within the team
• Preventing errors rather than fixing them
• Making quality visible

Visualising your own work processes

In the second group session, participants tried out quick process visualisation with Patchley themselves. Without prior methodological knowledge, they mapped complex processes such as software development, procurement and approval workflows, or medical tasks – as well as simple everyday processes like refuelling or washing a car. The AI visualised not only linear sequences but also approval loops, decision points and other logical structures.

The group then discussed limitations and conditions. The free version offers only limited editing options, and data protection requirements may restrict use in certain organisations. Nevertheless, all agreed that the tool is easy to use in workshops and that the generated diagrams are extremely helpful as first drafts.

Small steps with big impact

The event made clear that effective quality management does not emerge from thick process manuals or complex goal definitions. It emerges where people work together every day. Communication, clarity and shared process understanding are key quality indicators across all industries.

The aim of this work smarter event was to show how simple operational quality assurance can be. The methods presented were deliberately designed to be low‑threshold so they can be integrated directly into everyday work, regardless of role, sector or prior experience.

Our conclusion of the evening: Quality is not a project – it is a series of good, simple decisions.