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Bridging the Communication Gap – It’s a Matrix!

Most probably, engineers have different view than marketers, or top management, and the real difficulty is not only finding the solution but communicating it to the various stakeholders. This is soft, fuzzy data as well.

As a simple example, take a customer help desk organization. They want to become brilliant and meet the expected customer’s needs profile (the y) in aspects such as friendliness, response time, and accuracy of the response. As controls for the process (the x), we might have training of the help desk employees, performance of the IT equipment, salary system, and work environment. Now, if the upper management wants to invest into its help desk operations, the question is how much to spend per control times response cell. Note that items in matrix cells need communication and cost effort.

The cells of the matrix contain the work items, as for instance : “Train help desk staff how to be friendly at the phone”, or : “Invest into new computer system”. Each cell has impact, indicating how much it contributes to the respective response in the row. Traditionally, impact is visualized as symbols that have values 1 – 3 – 9 assigned; but any other ratio scale will work as well. It depends upon the accuracy of data and availability of predictions and measurement methods what kind of ratio scale to choose; however, a ratio scale is mandatory, as the QFD community learned from Saaty’s AHP.

Summing up the columns of the matrix, weighted by customer’s needs, the Financial Manager can calculate how much of the available budget he should assign to which control function (the x). This is actually the dual space to the original transfer function, and the original meaning of (Quality) Function Deployment in Japan.

On the other hand, the transfer function maps controls to response, thus summing up the impacts per row, weighted by the investment money spent (i.e., the control profile), and yields the total effective impact on the customer’s needs (the y’), i.e., the total money spent on meeting customer’s need. The response profile describes the effectiveness of the investment made; result of the transfer function.

The difference between the expected profile y and the effective profile y’ is called the Convergence Gap. In the sample matrix Fig. 2 it can be seen that too much effort is spent in either cell , or cell . Financial Managers regularly keep an eye on the convergence gap to make sure investments are effective, with the gap as small as possible. This simple validation technique is useful for any QFD. A small gap tells the QFD team that the controls in the matrix make the expected response possible and predictable. Hence the convergence gap is a quality measure for QFD matrices that allows dealing with soft, fuzzy data as in cosmology and Google.

Calculating the convergence gap is highly simple and can be accomplished by means of a spreadsheet. Communicating the QFD matrix to people and stakeholders is straightforward: strong relationship means active work is needed – it corresponds to explaining issues, providing training, set rules, or ordering tools for improving process performance. Management can set up their communication plans based on the QFD matrix. AHP or a Blitz QFD does not provide such information and support, neither for doing financial investments into processes, nor when managing stakeholder communication. Management must communicate why they invest here and not there. The QFD Matrix communicates with teams and stakeholders; AHP or Blitz alone does not.

About the Author

This article was published with permission from the German QFD Institute (QFD Institut Deutschland e. V., QFD-ID).

The author, Dr. Thomas Fehlmann, Dr. Math ETH, is one of the board members of the QFD Institut Deutschland e. V., QFD-ID, and QFD Architect & Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

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