Consulting

Carter & Associates, Inc. understands the pressing priority to improve performance, quality, timelines, and efficiency of organizations and, at the same time, optimize the resources of the organization.  This small, women-owned business is known for its ability to bring practical, results-oriented techniques and processes to its clients.  It is a long-standing partner with both private industry and the public sector.  Among its many products, the following examples of key services have been mainstays of its exceptional customer outcomes.

Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning is a practical, action-oriented guide which directs goal-setting and resource allocation to achieve meaningful results over a 3-5 year time period.  Strategic
Planning answers five key questions:

1. Where are we now?
2. Where do we want to be?
3. How do we get there?
4. How will we measure progress?
5. How will we deploy and integrate this plan across the organization?

In the process of creating and executing the organization’s strategic plan, yearly business plans and strategic outcomes will be achieved congruent with appropriate resource allocation.  Deployment strategies to include key individuals in the organization and to align work groups with the plan are considered.

Quality Management System Development
Quality Management System Development focuses on satisfying internal and external customers and eliminating waste by involving employees in building and continually improving formal systems, using quality tools.  The principles of a quality management system are implemented by a simple process that follows the four steps illustrated in our AIMS Model.

Our approach provides a consistent problem solving approach for team initiatives, while assisting leadership to adapt the culture as needed to ensure results.  Results have netted significant dollar and customer satisfaction gains.

Process Improvement is a systematic problem-solving approach that addresses root causes of problems, by using statistically based fact gathering and analysis, to improve the performance of a core business process or sub-process.  This technique tends to incrementally improve a current process in such areas as cost, quality, cycle time, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.  The basic steps of Process Improvement are:

1. Define the process and its requirements
2. Map the process
3. Determine key measures and baseline performance
4. Benchmark and seek learning from "best" practices
5. Develop or improve needed processes/methods
6. Implement the change
7. Measure results
8. Recognize/celebrate success

Typical results range from 10-30% improvement without the benchmarking steps and 30-50% with them.

Benchmarking
Benchmarking is the process of continuously comparing and measuring against other organizations - anywhere in the world - to gain information on philosophies, policies and practices in order to adapt them to one’s own situation to significantly improve performance.

Improvements of 30%-50% are typical when using the benchmarking process.  To put it simply, benchmarking is being humble enough to admit that someone else is better at something, and wise enough to learn how to match and even surpass them at it.

Organizational Assessment
Organizational Assessment consists of gathering information about the organization’s performance, evaluating the systems and processes, evaluating performance/importance, sharing the information, writing a report, and presenting the findings.  

While we are Baldrige experts, our assessment methodology can be customized to your needs.  For example, if your organization is not ready to comprehensively assess itself against a Baldrige-like criteria,

Additionally, we are capable of conducting Culture assessments if an organization needs to work on the underlying fabric of the organization, rather than the “harder” side of process performance.

Organizational Design
Organizational Design is the process of comparing the strategy to the structure needed to accomplish it.  From product line to market to process-based structures, our firm assists leaders in determining the most effective design by explaining each design options’ strengths and weaknesses.   

The process begins with the executive team chartering a design team to evaluate the potential groupings and identify workflow and information needs.  The design team then creates and tests alternative designs.  Next, the team selects a final design and builds a communication and change/implementation plan.  Implementation assistance is advised and results measurement deemed critical as a final evaluation of effectiveness.

Performance Measurement
Performance Measurement is used to develop meaningful measures of performance that ensure work group alignment with customer requirements.  It is necessary to educate and involve managers and employees about Performance Measurement in order to generate commitment.  This commitment can be used to not only develop, but also use meaningful performance measurements at the work group, process or sub-process level to help achieve the desired outcome and to develop an effective mechanism to report results to customers, employees and stakeholders.  We have extensive experience with balanced approaches to measurement, including the Balanced Scorecard.

Leadership Development System
The Leadership Development System is created by following these eight steps:

1. Develop leadership expectations
2. Develop leadership behaviors to support expectations
3. Validate behaviors
4. Conduct development assessment
5. Build development plan
6. Integrate development plan with performance management system
7. Monitor individual development plan
8. Monitor leadership team effectiveness.  Multi-rater feedback is often used in as a key measure

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