Critical to Customer Who is the Customer Who

Critical to Customer

Who is the Customer? • Who is the customer(s) for your project? • Is your project customer(s) an internal or external customer? • Who are IRRI’s customers? • Discuss as a class who IRRI’s customers are and what is critical to them… • How is your project connected to IRRI’s “real” customers? • Do your project’s goals satisfy a critical need of a “real” customer?

Critical to Customer Flowdown • A technique for identifying a list of critical features of a service or product based on the "Voice of the Customer". The CTQ flowdown method works backwards from customer feedback, creating a chart that allows process improvement teams to identify which inputs to business processes have a significant impact on the experience of the customer, indicating which characteristics are critical to quality (CTQ).

Determining CTQ To identify factors that are critical to quality (CTQ), an organization must first define the products and markets it is targeting. The clearer the definition, the better the understanding of how those products or markets define quality. Unclear definitions result in CTQ factors that are not only fuzzy but also lacking in any practical approach. This makes it harder to put the information to work.

Develop a CTC (Critical to Customer Tree) Customer Critical Needs Critical Company Need Critical Project Output

CTC Tree Example

CTC Tree Example

Conclusions • At the completion of this initial tool you should know how your project is linked to the customer’s critical needs. • Questions to ask: – Have I defined everything that is important to the customer and related to my project? – Do I understand how and why it is important? Levels and limits? – Do I understand how that translates to the critical outputs of my process/project?

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