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 |
| Stacy Katasse | stacy.katasse@noaa.gov 907-586-7363 | 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 |
| Karen Sender | karen.sender@noaa.gov 301-427-8192 | Headquarters Office of Science and Technology |
| 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 |
More Information