Subjective baseline studies will be the most commonly conducted studies in measuring quality and productivity. Subjective means that judgment is applied in making the measure. We noted in the discussion on objective measures that when the individual involved in recording time has the option of applying judgment, then the measure becomes subjective.

Baselines should be quantitative even if it is a subjective measure, but quantitatively subjective. For example, because quality conformance and nonconformance must be defined by people, we are looking for ways to put this information into a quantifiable format. This does not convey a lot of information, but it is indicative of a problem. However, if we develop a five-point scale for unresponsiveness, and ask your dissatisfied customer to complete that scale, we now have conveyed a lot more information. If our scale rates “1” as very poor service, and “5” as very good service, there is a great deal of difference between a “1” rating and a “3” rating for dissatisfaction.

Examples of products/services that can be measured subjectively for developing a baseline include:

Customer satisfaction

Effectiveness of standards/manuals

Helpfulness of methodologies to solve problems

Areas/activities causing the greatest impediments to quality/productivity

Causes for missed schedules/over-budget conditions

Understandability of training materials

Value of tools

Importance of activities/standards/methods/tools to individual activity

Baselines can be conducted for any one of the following three purposes:

Planning: To determine where detailed investigation/survey should be undertaken.

Internal analysis: To identify problems/areas for quality improvement. Once the problem/area has been identified, then no additional effort need be undertaken to formalize the results.

Benchmarking: Comparison against external organizations.