While actual product design is accomplished by highly trained and talented professionals, design is guided every step of the way by customer input. Not all customer input techniques are created equal. To understand how The Schoolhouse of Quality process helps districts create schools that meet and exceed customer expectations, it helps first to talk about what the process does not do. There are numerous ways to acquire customer input, but if it s neither representative nor properly channeled, it means little. While each of these techniques can lead to some valuable customer input, each has serious weaknesses that can, if left unchecked, actually create more problems than it solves.
Focus groups can be helpful, too, but alone they just don t provide a broad enough perspective.
And, just like town meetings, focus groups can be dominated by one or two loud, opinionated voices that don t necessarily represent the larger group. The Schoolhouse of Quality takes the best of these approaches and melds them with more sophisticated research and analysis tools to ensure a relevant and accurate picture of customer wants and needs. Don t ask for customer input if you don t intend to use it. On the surface, the Lakota East facility looks like any other well-designed, modern school. But when one looks deeper, it becomes clear that this is truly an exceptional facility, made so thanks to the more than 500 people who had a hand in designing it.