Blog Post
Quality Management: Daily Huddles Drive Performance
By Jason Lipes
March 31, 2021
An essential component of quality at Wheels is the daily huddle.
A daily huddle is an arena for our teams to:
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Evaluate their performance against set goals and key performance indicators.
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Apply problem-solving techniques to drive improvement.
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Communicate updates and raise issues needing leadership support.
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Hold each other accountable.
Daily Huddle: How-To
Huddles follow best practices designed to uphold standard expectations and improve effectiveness of the forum.
1. Participation: All team members attend their department’s daily huddle. They are led by the front-line associates on a rotating basis and team leaders are present to provide support.
2. Presentation: To create familiarity and establish understanding companywide, each daily huddle gathers around a performance tracking board. Each board features the team name, huddle time, leader schedule, metrics with visible goals, and countermeasure sheets to document problem-solving.
3. Metrics: The huddle metrics reflect the team’s daily performance against set goals and are tracked over time to show trends. The goals are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-bound.
4. Method: During each huddle, problems and effective countermeasures are documented. Countermeasures are actions taken to reduce or eliminate the root causes of problems that are preventing the team from reaching their goals. One person is assigned to each countermeasure and is accountable for implementation of the action.
5. Environment: Huddles are prompt—started on time; brief—no more than 15 minutes; local—taking place in the area where the work is done.
Daily Huddle Example: Renewals Team
During this huddle, the Renewal Specialists identify vehicles they plan to renew each day, state by state. This opens communication channels and ensures the specialists are prioritizing the right vehicles to work on each day. It also ensures vehicles are renewed prior to registration and any obstacles are identified early, keeping your vehicles legal.
The daily huddle also has a high-level component, the estimated completion date. We use this metric to estimate when a request is slated for completion. The team reviews the number of requests, the remaining time to complete and creates countermeasures on how those requests will be handled in time to meet the expectation we set with you.
The intended outcome of the daily huddles is to demonstrate steady performance improvements and reaffirm our focus on adding value for our clients. With our proactive approach to improvement, we strive to provide quick responses, solutions and reliable results.
If you would like to partner with us on a quality project, please reach out to Jason Lipes, senior director of solution services at Wheels, at [email protected].