Issue 81 – How to avoid your ISO program (and the ISO auditor)?
ISO 9001:2015…
How to avoid your ISO program (and the ISO auditor)?
Receiving emails with questions and/or comments from readers of this Newsletter is much appreciated… please continue to do so since it provides me with ideas on what these publications should cover. In my last Newsletter (ISO 9001:2015 Newsletter Issue 80) we discussed the topic of “Internal Audits – Why should Management want the quality of their products & services audited?”, and now in this Newsletter we will discuss “How to avoid your ISO Program (and the ISO auditor)?“.
The ISO 9001 Element numbering…
Element 4 – Context of the organization
Element 5 – Leadership
Element 6 – Planning
Element 7 – Support
Element 8 – Operation
Element 9 – Performance evaluation
Element 10 – Improvement
Let’s talk about why some people want to avoid ISO… Once in awhile a question comes into my Inbox asking about “how to stay clear of an ISO auditor”… I received one like that a few weeks ago and it reminded me also how often I run across Managers & Supervisors who simply want nothing to do with their ISO system, and hoping an ISO auditor doesn’t come knocking on their door. I get it… who would ever want to be audited, for any reason? It can be an awkward conversation, especially if your t’s aren’t crossed or your i’s are not dotted. So let me answer the question by saying that you can avoid an ISO 9001 auditor if your job has no impact on the Customer. That means that your job would exist even if the company you work for, lost every last Customer they had. By the way, let me state the obvious (because sometimes we forget)… your Customers are the people who put money into the organization’s bank account so that paychecks can be issued to you on a regular basis. If you are not sure who your Customers are, then find out how the money comes into your organization, and from who… in some cases it’s obvious, but others not so much… if you are a non-profit organization then donations from Donors keep the lights on… if you are a government agency then it’s taxes from Tax Payers… I think you get the idea. The point I am trying to make is that most people have their job because it’s needed to keep their Customers satisfied. I view ISO 9001 as a “Customer Satisfaction Standard”. So if you want a “system” to ensure that your internal customers stay happy and keep your paying Customers coming back, then ISO 9001 spells out what you need to do.
Let’s take a closer look at what it means to be “outside” the ISO program… It means that you don’t have to have anything written down that explains how to do your job, and if you have something written down it can be old and out-of-date, and you don’t need to do what it says anyways. That means you get to do your job anyway you want, on any day you want, or not even do your job at all… well, probably not, otherwise you’d lose your job. With the freedom to do your job differently every day you don’t care that it might be making other employees jobs harder (your internal customers) because it’s not as if you see them every day in the break-room, or in the parking lot. You also don’t need to fill out any forms or enter anything into the computer because being “outside” of ISO means you don’t have to prove you did anything each day. That means no keeping of any records (paper or electronic), as well as no tracking of your goals or targets each day or week, although I’m not sure how you ever get a raise if your boss can’t tell if you do anything in the organization. You won’t have to fix any problems that crop up which means you get to deal with the exact same problem happening over and over again. There won’t be any point in giving you training on your job since nobody is sure what exactly it is that you do, but that also means that no one can cover for you when you want to go on vacation since there isn’t any way to train someone else on your job (which means all that work will just pile up and wait for you to return). If you are lucky enough to use a measuring device in your job, you won’t need to calibrate it which means any “number or reading or result” it gives could be right, or could be wrong, but it won’t matter, right? Basically what it means is that your job can be complete chaos, every single day… but at least you stayed “outside” the ISO program.
So how bad would your job be if it was “inside” the ISO program?… Let’s start things off by saying that you’d have to recognize that you have both “internal” and “external” Customers, who want things done the way they want them done… much like when you order a product from Amazon and it looks and works exactly like what you expected, right? In order to give your Customers (internal & external) exactly what they expect, you’ll need to follow a series of steps (a process), the same way EACH time. You decide to write down those series of steps (like you would a recipe) so that you don’t have to rely on your memory EACH time, and then keep it up-to-date with any improvements you make so that your Customers are always getting the “latest and greatest” version. To keep track of what you accomplish each day, you keep a record of what was done today, and what was done yesterday, and last week, and last month, and last year, because you never know who might ask you to show them that you are always following your series of steps, EACH time. If problems crop up in your job you will have those records to go back and investigate what happened, and maybe stop it from happening again. You can use those same records that you keep to prove to your boss that you are doing a good job, and to convince her/him (and others) that your job is important to the organization. Cross-training of your job can be done using what you have written down, which means that you now have someone to back you up if you are away. Let’s not forget those measuring devices you use in your job… you’ll have to “calibrate” them which means you will be able to believe what they are telling you and ALSO be able to answer the question: “Did I deliver what my Customer expected?”. Basically what it means is that your job would be consistent and in control, every single day… but in order to do so your job had to be “inside” the ISO program. With all of the above information, I’ve only touched on just a few of the aspects that a job entails…. Would a job really be that bad if you had to do all of the above because it was “inside” the ISO program?… Really?
Be sure to watch for our next Newsletter issue where I will be answering some of the questions that I get from Readers of my Newsletters about how to implement the requirements of ISO 9001:2015 in a specific and practical way, that will also help improve business performance…
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Need Help?
ISO 9001:2015 Internal Audit Outsourcing (we can do it for you OR with you!)
For cost effectiveness, the Internal Audit function can be outsourced to an external experienced auditor on a periodic basis. This will provide an independent and objective assessment to management, of where process issues may exist, along with identifying opportunities for improvement. It will also provide the evidence needed to satisfy the Internal Audit requirements in the ISO Standards. We have used two different approaches with this service: a) We conduct the entire audit ourselves, or b) We act as the lead auditor, and along with your Team of internal auditors, we complete the entire audit together. This latter approach allows your people to receive guidance and direction from an experienced lead auditor while at the same time maintaining significant involvement in the internal audit process.
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Internal Process Auditor Training for ISO 9001:2015
The two (2) day Internal Process Auditing for ISO 9001:2015 Training Session is focused on a process approach to auditing with the objective being not only to assess conformance of the quality management system, but also to uncover process improvements during an audit. This goes hand in hand with the process auditing requirements found within ISO 19011 and the process approach covered in ISO 9001:2015, which promotes continual process improvement throughout this Standard. An enhanced checklist is developed, and there will be workshops throughout, to reinforce learning, as well as a live, practice audit. If you are looking to meet the ISO 9001:2015 internal audit requirements and to “raise the bar” for your internal audit program then this is the course you should consider.
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Until next time…
Tim Renaud
Helping Business Professionals Reduce Risk and Remove Waste!