The 2011 Housing Giants Ranking Report shows that the Housing Giants are taking advantage of this slow period to focus on what they see is the top opportunity, working on improving operational efficiencies to boost profit margins. (Professional Builder Magazine, May 2011, p 28-44)
Of course the problem is how to actually find the right opportunities and how achieve these improvements. In earlier blogs I have discussed which quality tools can be used to identify areas for improvement, select which opportunities to focus on first, how to use the tools to determine the root cause problems, how to create solutions and how to create improvement teams to achieve results. One tool that can help is a Charter Document. A team charter document can save a significant amount of time and focus efforts effectively by defining goals, responsibilities, outcomes, timelines and milestones.
A great example of what a charter template looks like, a completed sample and a detailed explanation of each section is provided by John Moran and Grace Duffy in ‘Team Chartering’ in the ASQs 2011 Spring edition of Quality Management Forum.
This link will take you to the Spring edition of the QMF where you will find the paper on pages 11-17.