Quality Management and Continuous Improvement
The Quality Management and Continuous Improvement Professional Specialty Group helps enhance processes and improve data assets by collaborating across NOAA Fisheries and with our partners to embed QM/CI practices into organizational culture.
Quality management encompasses a suite of principles and tools that guide and support an organization-wide commitment to continuous improvement. By implementing a QM/CI approach, agencies and teams can enhance outcomes by first improving the underlying procedures that drive them.
Whether it’s combining complex and divergent information streams into a single, accessible data source, or creating a strategic plan to drive a good idea from the whiteboard to the field, the QM/CI PSG has resources and funding available to help solve the everyday challenges faced by scientists, managers, and others who work with fisheries data.
Funding
Each year, the Fisheries Information System, National Observer Program, and National Catch Shares Program fund projects that enhance science and management. A key area of interest for this funding stream’s Request for Proposals is support for initiatives that incorporate quality management and continuous improvement practices—such as strategic planning or process analysis workshops—into new or existing projects to improve fishery-dependent data collection, storage, and dissemination.
Learn how FIS supports innovative projects
Explore previously funded quality management and continuous improvement projects
Tools
A variety of exercises, tools, and best practices can help us understand and improve data, processes, and projects. Group members have provided descriptions, examples, and templates from completed projects to help understand the benefit of these tools.
Learn about quality management and continuous improvement tools
Read about quality management and continuous improvement success stories
Contact Us
Members of this group provide guidance and expertise to the NOAA Fisheries community and our partners. To learn more about quality management and continuous improvement or to request help applying these tools to a project you’re working on, email the group or reach out directly to the group member from your region or office.
| Glenn Campbell | glenn.campbell@noaa.gov (206) 526-4240 | Alaska Fisheries Science Center Fisheries Monitoring and Analysis Division |
| Brandee Gerke | brandee.gerke@noaa.gov (601) 568-2214 | Alaska Regional Office |
| Julie Defilippi Simpson | julie.simpson@accsp.org (703) 842-0787 | Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ACCSP) |
| Talya tenBrink | talya.tenbrink@noaa.gov (978) 675-2190 | Greater Atlantic Regional Fisheries Office |
| Donna Bellais | dbellais@gsmfc.org (228) 875-5912 | Gulf States Marine Fisheries Commission GulfFIN |
| Lucas Johansen | lucas.johansen@noaa.gov (301) 427-8141 | Headquarters Office of Science and Technology |
| Melissa Yencho | melissa.yencho@noaa.gov (301) 427-8193 | Headquarters Office of Science and Technology |
| Debra Duarte | debra.duarte@noaa.gov (508) 495-2304 | Northeast Fisheries Science Center Fisheries Monitoring and Research Division |
| Erin Kupcha | erin.kupcha@noaa.gov (508) 495-2031 | Northeast Fisheries Science Center |
| Jeff Cowen | jeff.cowen@noaa.gov (206) 860-3413 | Northwest Fisheries Science Center |
| Dawn Golden | dawn.golden@noaa.gov (808) 725-5100 | Pacific Islands Regional Office |
| Bob Ryznar | robert_ryznar@psmfc.org (503) 595-3234 | Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission AKFIN/PacFIN |
| Jenny Suter | jenny.suter@noaa.gov
| Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center West PacFIN |
| Jason Edwards | jedwards@psmfc.org (503) 595-3109 | Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission RecFIN |
| Jennifer Cudney | jennifer.cudney@noaa.gov (727) 209-5980 | Office of Sustainable Fisheries, Atlantic Highly Migratory Species Management Division (SE Branch) |
| Vivian Matter | vivian.matter@noaa.gov (305) 361-4571 | Southeast Fisheries Science Center |
| Michelle Masi | michelle.masi@noaa.gov (727) 551-5729 | Southeast Regional Office |
| Yuhong Gu | yuhong.gu@noaa.gov (858) 546-7053 | Southwest Fisheries Science Center |
| Taylor Debevec | taylor.debevec@noaa.gov (562) 980-4066 | West Coast Region |