fun – Investigations of a Dog

People learn and solve problems when they are having fun, stress is low, and the environment encourages discovery. A core part of psychological safety.

I’ve talked before about bringing playfulness to work, about exuberance and excitement. These personal approaches can be turned to the wider organization.

Quality as a profession – not so known for fun. So we need to look for opportunities for fun, whether in our training programs, through initiatives like Quality Days, or any other place we can find it.

Here are some ideas for organizing fun to drive a quality message.

Activity Name	Description	Cost required	Effort required	Impact/ Learning Opportunity	Learning Outcome
Video Competitions	Contest of team videos with stories about how they transfer quality or outline continuous improvement projects. Teams may also record a best practice to be shared with the organization.	Medium	High	High	-Video and poster viewership helps transfer quality behaviors and values to others. -Employee-created messages are more credible, giving them a stronger impact on transferring the culture of quality throughout the organization.
Poster Signing	Teams can sign a poster to make a commitment to quality. They can hold a contest for designing the best Quality Day poster.	Low	Low	Medium
Employee Idea Demonstrations	Make peer idea generation (quality ideas) visible to all employees through the use of regularly refreshed public “progress boards” and idea showcases where projects are publicly evaluated.	Low	Medium	High	-Shows employees that quality focus is something that peers around them prioritize and benefit from. -Provides employees a benchmark for what behaviors are expected from them and encourages the ones whose ideas are recognized.
Quality Awards and Recognition	Publicly recognize individuals and teams with a trophy/certificate for consistently embodying quality in their work. Awarding behaviors, not just outcomes, increases employee engagement.	High	Medium	High	-Helps engage employees in quality improvement efforts by demonstrating that despite other objectives and priorities, quality remains important to leaders.
Client/ Customer Visit	Invite your clients/customers to visit and talk about their experience with the product/service and the importance of quality.	High	High	High	-Helps employees understand how a high-quality mindset avoids customer-facing mistakes and leads to greater customer satisfaction.
Games	Word-Play Games: A group of employees can play games like Scrabble and Bingo with quality terminology.	Low	Low	Medium	-Quick games help employees become aware of quality terms, tests, standards in a fun way.
Games	Trivia Games: Employees can play games such as “Jeopardy” and beer pong with quality standards, tests, tools to educate themselves.	Low	Low	Medium
Articles on Quality	Share blogs and articles on quality.	Low	Medium	Medium	-Increases quality’s visibility across the organization and promotes awareness.
Quality Quiz Competition	Employees can take quizzes on quality-related concepts.	Low	Medium	High	-Tests employees’ awareness and creates a healthy competition to know more.
Quality Merchandise (swag)	Distribute T-shirts, mugs, badges with quality quotes to employees. Reward contest winners with goodies such as chocolates with quality phrases written on them.	High	High	Medium	-Provides more visibility to quality and imparts a sense of pride in employees.

Leveraging fun is a good way to help build a culture of quality.

Building moments of planned fun is work, and should be part of the overall Quality Plan, with activities and milestones clearly marked and executed towards.