Journey of Excellence: A Case Study on the Use of the ASQ/ANSI G1:2021 Standard in the Federal Judiciary

Abstract

Following a leadership change in 2016, the Clerk’s Office of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit spent the next five years redesigning its processes; adopting proven quality-based methods to evaluate and enhance operations and services; and developing a staff culture focused on delivering quality services to the court’s judges, members of the bar, unrepresented litigants, and the public. Based on a precursor system management maturity model, and then the new ASQ/ANSI G1:2021 Guidelines for Evaluating the Quality of Government Operations and Services (“G1:2021”), the Clerk’s Office used these frameworks to guide its overall maturation process.

Through its focused and incremental approach toward quality management and then G1:2021 over the past five years, the Clerk’s Office achieved the following results by the end of FY 2021: case processing times reduced by an average of over 49%, time to train new staff reduced by 75%, overall employee satisfaction increased by 8%, and case manager accuracy sustained at an average of 95%. In March 2022, the ASQ Government Division certified the Clerk’s Office’s case processing system at the silver level under G1:2021, making the Clerk’s Office the first government entity to be awarded any level under G1:2021.

Keywords: court administration; quality management