QRS has changed a lot in my time here. I have helped to transform and evolve it in new ways.
When I first started, there were two major processes called Intake and Repair. Intake meant figuring out what the problem is, where the problem is, and how to fix it. Repair meant contacting people everyday to remind them about the problem until it was fixed.
I started learning Intake and I basically replaced Sister Reid while she left to start an important surgery. Sister Henrie would leave two months after I started and soon I would be responsible for both Intake and Repair. We hoped to grow as a team so that we could keep up with the repair requests.
In April, Sister Aversa started with QRS, but she had a new unique role. Sister Aversa was the first young missionary to have edit access to church content. QRS had changed from a repair coordination team to a content repair team. We were suddenly able to make some changes on our own instead of asking and waiting for the busy church employees to have time for our repairs. Sister Aversa was responsible for the scripture reference links in over 5 lesson manuals in Spanish, French, and of course Portuguese. If we said there were 10 links per lesson and 40 lessons, that is 400 links in each manual. Then we take 400 multiplied by 5 manuals, that's 2000 links, then multiplied by 3 languages, that's 6000 links! 6000 links that were all added for free!
In May, we tried training five more missionaries to do the entire Intake process, but Intake needs so many different kinds of information and it was confusing for missionaries just started out. By July, we only had Sister Dunford (full time missionary assigned to HQ), Sister Rademacher (YCSM), Sister Beck (YCSM), Sister Aversa (YCSM), and me serving with QRS. During July, we decided to do an inbox purge or "Intake Blitz" as we called it. We basically had a lot of old emails piling up inside the inbox and so we just worked really hard to focus on taking in all of those issues and seeing if the problems were still relevant.
During that time, Gary was slowly developing the QRS skill levels and the "bite-sized" Intake process. And this model would truly be the reason for QRS success today. We integrated this process by the second week in August.
I will backtrack to explain the way the new process developed.
At some point in April, I was determined to clean out as much Intake as I could before I started learning to do Repair. I thought maybe I could ask a missionary to help me clean it out. I though it would almost be like hiring a temp to help with a push, like I had experienced at my job at Clarus Glassboards. If I could get a missionary to act as a temp when they weren't busy every once in a while, I could more easily clean out the inbox. I started coming up with ideas that a temporary QRS missionary could do like maybe just check each channel (Mobile, Web, Print) for problems after I had already described the problems. Or maybe I could have a missionary send out the email receipts saying "Thanks for letting us know! We'll take a look at it!"
I probably only thought about this for a week and I forgot about it and lost myself in the work.
Gary decided that we could split up the steps in Intake and make the QRS process into more of an assembly line. Each step would be done by a different missionary with different skills Each missionary would work on the tasks assigned to that skill and then could move up in skills after they had stayed with us for a while. It was an inspired idea to cater to missionaries with diverse talents and interests.
This is our process flow map.
When missionaries start, they start as Information Processing and are trained to bring issues in after confirming and understanding the errors that the users describe.
Then after completing the advancement requirements, they can move into Communication and they are trained to send email receipts, notifications of repair, and requests for error severity from church language supervisors.
Next is Research and they mostly spend time in Check Channels checking for problems and setting up the repair information.
Production is where the repairs are made, or "make correction". There are about 15 different repair type processes that are summarized into that one dark blue square.
Problem Solving is where Elder Stradling and I currently reside. Problem Solving manages repairs by combining duplicates and assigning the correct repair type processes to each repair. We also monitor how each process is doing and look for "clogs" in the process. If for some reason there are an overly large amount of issues stuck in Check Channels, we figure out why and then help to clear it to a more manageable number.
Leadership is meant to help improve products and maintain relationships with other church repair teams. I am trying to get into Leadership, but I'm still working on the advancement requirements!!
This method definitely helped training! Many missionaries were trained and we've retained much more than in the previous summer. In the summer, I trained 7 missionaries and retained 3. In the fall, Sister Dearing and I trained 15 missionaries and retained 10.
Sister Dearing is one of the missionaries I trained this fall and she has now been assigned the job as the Customer Satisfaction Leader and she is in charge of training Information Processing and Communication skills so that we communicate with the users respectfully.
In the fall, I also became the Team Effectiveness Leader, now responsible for training Research, Production, and Problem Solving I'm also responsible for helping each missionary serve effectively within QRS, and making sure that repairs are being completed.
I love this team, and I'm so glad I've been able to help build a foundation for the many QRS missionaries in the future.
