This book presents clear overviews of quality management-features, benefits, and barriers; provides a 15-minute personal self-assessment which helps you understand why you need to adopt quality management; delivers a comparative assessment of Deming, Juran, and Crosby, comparing their approaches to quality; shows how to use federal and state quality award criteria as models for improvement; highlights federal, state, and local award-winning quality success stories - who they are and how they did it; provides a comprehensive primer on quality management tools and techniques; details a 17-step planning and implementation methodology that can be customized for your organization.

The book uses examples from actual government case studies, and presents the "lessons learned" from these success stories to help you implement a quality system for your unique organization. These success stories represent many branches of federal government, including the Internal Revenue Service, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, and the Department of Labor. Successful state quality efforts in Arkansas, Minnesota, and New York are also described.