Explain core quality management concepts, including cost of quality and the plan-do-check-act cycle, in plain business language.
Quality & Productivity
Quality Management Basics for Managers Without a Quality Background
A practical entry point into quality management for operations, production and service managers who have taken on quality responsibility without any formal quality training.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Many managers are handed quality targets, audit findings and customer complaints to resolve without ever having worked inside a quality department. This course closes that gap by building quality management literacy from first principles: what quality means in commercial terms, how a management system such as ISO 9001:2015 is structured, and which everyday tools turn a vague complaint into a resolved non-conformance. Rather than treating quality as a specialist mystery, sessions translate audit findings, control charts and corrective action reports into language a general manager can act on immediately. Participants work through real reporting formats, from non-conformance logs to corrective and preventive action forms, and practise reading the data a quality team already produces so they can question it with confidence. The course ends with the softer but critical skill of leading a function you were not trained in: working productively with auditors and quality specialists, defending quality objectives at budget time, and presenting quality performance to senior leadership without relying on jargon you do not fully own.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Interpret the structure of ISO 9001:2015 and identify which clauses apply to a manager's own department.
Apply basic problem-solving tools such as the fishbone diagram, five whys and Pareto charts to recurring issues.
Read control charts and quality dashboards to distinguish everyday variation from a genuine problem.
Manage a non-conformance from containment through disposition without a background in quality engineering.
Verify that a corrective and preventive action has actually removed a root cause before closing it.
Present quality performance and improvement plans to senior leadership using the team's own data.
Who Should Attend
Operations and production managers newly responsible for quality outcomes.
Service delivery managers handling customer complaints without quality training.
Project managers whose projects carry quality acceptance criteria they must defend.
Small business owners acting as their own quality manager.
Team leaders preparing to support an internal or certification audit for the first time.
Functional managers in finance, HR or IT who now sit on a cross-functional quality committee.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Understanding Quality as a Business Discipline
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1What Quality Means Beyond Inspection
- Define quality as fitness for use and conformance to requirements rather than a purely subjective judgement.
- Break down the cost of quality into prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure categories.
- Trace how a single customer complaint can move through cost of quality categories when it is resolved late.
- Apply the plan-do-check-act cycle to a routine departmental problem as a structured alternative to firefighting.
Session 2Quality Standards and the Manager's Role
- Map the clause structure of ISO 9001:2015, including context of the organisation and risk-based thinking.
- Distinguish a quality policy from quality objectives and from the key performance indicators that track them.
- Identify which management system documents a manager is expected to own, review or approve.
- Clarify how leadership commitment under clause five translates into a manager's day-to-day decisions.
02Everyday Tools for Reading and Solving Quality Problems
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Basic Problem-Solving Tools for Non-Specialists
- Run a five whys session on a recurring defect without letting the discussion stop at the first symptom.
- Build a fishbone diagram that separates people, method, machine, material and environment causes.
- Use a Pareto chart to focus limited improvement time on the few defect types causing most of the impact.
- Design a simple checksheet that front-line staff will actually complete accurately during a shift.
Session 2Making Sense of the Data a Quality Team Produces
- Read a control chart well enough to tell common-cause variation from a special-cause signal worth escalating.
- Interpret first pass yield, defect rate and on-time delivery metrics in a weekly operations review.
- Question a sampling report by understanding what the sample size and acceptance criteria actually cover.
- Turn a quality dashboard into three questions worth asking the team before the next production meeting.
03Managing Non-Conformance and Corrective Action
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Handling Non-Conforming Product, Service and Complaints
- Log a non-conformance with enough detail that someone outside the department can understand the issue.
- Decide between use-as-is, rework, scrap or return-to-supplier disposition with the right people involved.
- Structure a customer complaint investigation so the response addresses cause, not just the symptom raised.
- Set containment actions that protect the customer immediately while root cause work is still under way.
Session 2Corrective Action Without a Quality Engineering Background
- Complete a corrective and preventive action form so the root cause and fix are both clearly stated.
- Verify effectiveness by checking that the defect rate or complaint actually stopped after the fix, not before.
- Distinguish a genuine preventive action from a repeat of the same corrective action under a different name.
- Feed open and overdue corrective actions into the management review agenda instead of a forgotten log.
04Leading a Function You Were Not Trained In
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Working With Auditors and Quality Specialists
- Prepare a department for an internal audit by knowing which records and evidence the auditor will request.
- Respond to an audit finding with a proportionate action plan instead of dismissing or over-reacting to it.
- Collaborate with quality engineers and specialists as a client for their expertise rather than a bystander.
- Escalate a recurring supplier quality issue through the right channel instead of solving it informally each time.
Session 2Building a Quality-Aware Team and Reporting Upward
- Maintain a training and competence matrix that shows who is qualified for which quality-critical task.
- Delegate specific quality tasks to team members without losing sight of overall accountability.
- Translate quality objectives into individual and team goals that staff can act on day to day.
- Present quality performance and a short improvement plan to senior leadership in commercial, not technical, terms.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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