Are your off-shore facilitates really less expensive? It all depends on how you are calculating your Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Your TCO calculation should include all the hidden costs your new strategy will experience over the life of the project. These could include:

1. Extra inventory needed while you wait for your restocking order that is in transit from your chosen low-wage manufacturer. Remember, it is travelling slowly over the ocean a long distance away. (more…)

What does it take to be an effective business leader?  Many people have written about the qualities of great leaders.  Coming up with a top ten list is not easy because there are so many more traits than 10.  Here are my top ten.

1. Visionary.  Leaders are able to create a vision of a positive future, which begins the process of getting buy-in from the team.  A leader without a vision is not a leader all, they are called a manager.
2. Strategic.  A good leader understands how to capitalize on the assets of the organization in order to create a successful vision. (more…)

Document control is a common function within quality management systems for ISO, JCAHO, FDA, GMP, ITIL, SOX, and many other standards or regulations.  Document control has been around for decades.  In the old days it was all about controlling paper documents.  Then, along came electronic documents and a whole new world was created.  Yet, paper based systems remain today in many organizations that have yet to upgrade to more modern methods.  This leads us to make many common document control mistakes.

Do you make any of these document control mistakes?

1.       Assuming your document files are backed up on a regular basis.
Sometimes files are backed up and sometimes there not.  The only way to make sure that your files are backed up is to recover a missing file.  How long does it take? Hours or days to recover a file?  Who knows how to do it and has time to get your file?  Many assumptions are made about the backup process at any company.  Unfortunately, most people don’t test their assumptions until it is too late and they really need a file.  Products like OnPolicy archive all of your documents automatically and prevent you from deleting released documents.

2.       Saving document revision files under a new name.
Most people use MS-Word and MS-Word does not have a very good revision system.  It has a feature to “Track Changes”, which adds a lot of comments and colored text from each reviewer.  It used to have a version control feature (prior to Word 2007) that was removed.  If you are like most than you are probably saving your documents with a new name like document-name-Rev-1.  Then you have to remember to save the new version as Rev-2 or else you will overwrite your original and you will have to test your backup recovery system (see 1 above).  OnPolicy saves each file version for you, separate from the original document.

3.       Using a shared hard drive to store your documents and files.
Shared hard drives are easy to implement.  Just purchaser a network hard drive and connect it to your network.  Now everyone has access to the new hard drive space, but who has control.  Setting up access controls can be an issue.  So most people don’t have any access controls.  The result: document files get deleted, changed, renamed, or moved.  If you do not have access control then you do not have document control either.  ).  OnPolicy provides access control by department, category, and by user roles as an editor or reader to prevent unauthorized changes.

4.       Not using document templates.
If all of your employees write procedures from scratch every time then you will end up with different styles, formats, and structures that will confuse anyone trying to use your documents.  Document templates provide a standard format.  What is even better is having access to a library of best practices that you could edit to make your own.  Bizmanualz provides standard content in MS-Word for easy editing and customization.

5.       Printing paper drafts for review.
Paper is easy to print but it is not so easy to distribute to reviewers.  Document reviewers will mark-up your paper and give it back to you.  Now you have to implement the revisions.  If you had it all online in a system like OnPolicy, then you could route your documents to your document reviewers electronically.  They could enter their changes electronically, and then you could edit them electronically.  This works even better if you have a lot of locations.

6.       Using MS-Word to distribute your final documents to employees.
Most people use MS-Word to write their policies and procedures.  But if you send the original MS-Word file to your employees, your employees could make changes that others will not know about.  OnPolicy uses PDF files to distribute your documents which allows you to maintain control over your documents and keep unauthorized changes in check.

7.       Distributing paper documents to employees.
Paper and three-ring binders have been used for decades to house and distribute policies and procedures.  But paper is a lot harder to control.  Paper gets lost.  And paper gets forgotten.  Today, everything is moving online and onto the internet.  More and more employees have computers, smart phones, or access to one during the workday.  Eliminating paper save trees, improves document control, and allows for a more effective management system.

8.       Not collecting older revisions from your employees.
It is a lot harder to retrieve outdated pieces of paper hanging around the office.  It is common to find an old employee handbook that was given to an employee on their first day – 10 years ago.  Electronic online controls ensure that only the latest, most up-to-date copy of any important document is maintained and managed in the system.

9.       Designing your own document control system.
Many organizations decide to design their own document control software.  SharePoint is the most common platform.  But SharePoint is not a document control system and unless you are a SharePoint Designer you will end up with an expensive IT project with software designed by software engineers that are not document compliance and control experts.  Many such projects eventually are abandoned.  It is a lot easier to purchase a pre-built system, designed by document control experts, then to build your own software product.

10.   Receiving document control audit findings.
The most common ISO audit finding is document control.  Procedures are not followed, controlled, backed-up appropriately, retained, or kept legible.  In just about any audit you can find a document control audit finding if you wanted to.  But, using electronic document control software will virtually eliminate any such finding.  Document control software prompts you to review, approve, release, and even read documents.  They remain legible, get backed-up, and provide the access control you need to stay in compliance.

Now you should be better prepared to prevent making these Top Ten Document Control Mistakes.  Bizmanualz new OnPolicy software will eliminate these document control mistakes.  Try OnPolicy FREE for 30-days to make managing your policies, procedures and forms easier.

1.       Assuming your document files are backed up on a regular basis.

2.       Saving document revision files under a new name.

3.       Using a shared hard drive to store your documents and files.

4.       Not using document templates.

5.       Printing paper drafts for review.

6.       Using MS-Word to distribute your final documents to employees.

7.       Distributing paper documents to employees.

8.       Not collecting older revisions from your employees.

9.       Designing your own document control system.

10.   Receiving document control audit findings.

During the “beta test” phase of developing our OnPolicy™ document management software, our beta testers have been coming up with great questions, some of which we thought we’d share with you in advance of our formal launch. For example:

1. What document formats are supported by OnPolicy™?

The OpenSource code behind OnPolicy will support many common document formats, such as:

• Microsoft Word (“.doc”, “.docx”);
• MS-Excel (“.xls”, “.xlsx”);
• Adobe Reader (“.pdf”); and
• Some limited-format and unformatted file types (“.rtf”, “.txt”).

2. Why are all of our documents converted to “.pdf” files?

In OnPolicy™, released documents are converted from their native formats to “.pdf” to lessen the likelihood that document “Readers” — personnel assigned read-only access to documents — can modify your documents.

3. Where are our documents stored?

All documents are stored in a “SAS 70 Type II Certified” data center, which is also one of the largest colocation facilities in the central United States.

4. How do we know we’re the only ones who have access to our company’s documents?

We’re using all available means to reasonably secure your data, including:

• Dedicated servers;
• Encryption;
• Firewalls;
• Periodic backups; and
• Password protection.

5. Can I set different access levels for different users?

OnPolicy™ Administrators can create users and assign them roles (e.g., Reader, Editor). Roles define responsibilities and accessibility of documentation and features.

6. Can documents be deleted?

• You can upload, download, and delete documents from your account at any time. Your documents are also backed up regularly.  But, as per document control, released documents can only be deleted after their retention date.

7. Can documents be recovered?

• Deleted documents are retrievable for an agreed-on period of time for as long as your OnPolicy™ account remains active.
• Note that recovery time depends, in part, on the number and size of files to be recovered.

If you have other questions about OnPolicy™ software-as-a-service document management, please:

• Visit our OnPolicy™ website, http://www.onpolicy.com;
• Call us (314-863-5079);
• Send us an email; or
• Visit the Bizmanualz web site, http://www.bizmanualz.com.

We’re happy to be of service.

How many times have you seen this in the movies — the “last stand”? A group of soldiers is heavily outnumbered, supplies are getting thin, and nerves are frayed.

Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, 1957)

Reinforcements are nowhere in sight. The enemy’s commander is just outside the gate, calling for the group to surrender.

Now, imagine yourself in the place of the officer in charge. Your organization is the castle/outpost/fortress under siege. You can fight or you can surrender; you’re surrounded, so retreat is not an option. It looks like there’s little chance of a favorable outcome for your small group. What do you do?

Your company might not be literally “under siege” but in our current economic state, you can be excused for feeling sometimes like the vultures are circling overhead. When times are tough for your business, what do you do?

1. Be a leader, not merely a boss. Get out in front of your employees. If you don’t demonstrate leadership capability, who will follow you?
2. Stand on your principles. There’s the expedient thing to do and there’s the right thing to do. If you believe in yourself, your product, and your employees, you’ll do the right thing.
3. Maintain employee morale. Convince yourself there’s no such thing as impossible, then demonstrate your conviction to your troops.
4. You know who your employees look up to — make those individuals part of your circle of command (“C of C”). Don’t lock yourself into one hierarchy.
5. Within your C of C, quickly determine your options.
6. Realistically assess your resources, strengths, and weaknesses.
7. Plan for the best- and worst-case scenarios.
8. Lay out the options for all your employees and explain why you prefer option ”x”.
9. Give your employees a choice whether to take a stand with you or cast their lot elsewhere. Those who aren’t firmly with you will weigh you down.
10. Execute your plan.

Remember — anyone can play a leader when things are going well. It’s in times of crisis when we find out who our true leaders are.

Maybe you and your business have been — or are — in a scenario like the one above. What kind of leadership did you display in that time of crisis? Do you have other ideas on how to lead in a crisis?

Policies and procedures provide the framework and direction for addressing many common business problems your organization might face.  Let’s look at the top ten business problems solved by Policies and Procedures.

1. Accounts Receivable procedures to reduce accounts receivable (A/R) aging and ensure even cash flow.  Every company needs Strategies for Writing Accounts Receivable Procedures.  Your accounts receivable process is the heart of your cash cycle.  Salespeople can find plenty of customers but without cash-paying customers, you can’t pay your bills, which is part of your Strategies for Writing Accounts Payable Procedures.

2. Sales procedures to standardize sales pipeline management and ensure a consistent sales pipeline.  Sales procedures allow you to take control of the sales and marketing cycle.  Developing measurements, sales assignments, and target markets are all important elements of your sales process.

3. Disaster Recovery procedures will assist in an orderly and timely response to emergencies your company may face, as well as control the inevitable chaos that occurs.  Every company needs to effectively respond to disasters or emergencies in a timely manner; if not, they could be out of business.  In recent months, we’ve had ample opportunity to learn the lessons of the Gulf oil disaster, such as “having a disaster recovery plan before the need arises”.

4. Human Resources procedures ensure non-discriminatory practices; specifically, well-defined employee hiring and termination practices will help you avoid costly litigation.  Human resources procedures address diverse topics such as recruiting, hiring, training, retention, termination, and — most importantly –complying with local, state, Federal, and even international employment laws.

5. Quality procedures (nonconformance, corrective action, and auditing) improve product and process quality.  The ISO 9001 quality standard addresses quality control, quality assurance, and quality management practices.  Learning how to meet quality standards with ISO 9001 will help your organization reduce costly rework and overtime, thereby improving quality, satisfying customers, and contributing to your competitive advantages.

6. Customer communications procedures, like collecting data from customer feedback and complaint handling for process improvement.  ”Poor customer communication” is the root cause of much customer dissatisfaction.  If you know what your target customer wants, your business has all the information it needs to satisfy the customer. Implementing communication procedures will help you act on your customers’ wants, improving sales.

7. Shipping and receiving procedures are needed to track materials purchased and sold.  Most of shipping and receiving revolves around inventory or assets, which requires processes for handling, inventory management, asset acquisition, and asset disposition.  Specific supplier requirements — and the policies and procedures that flow from them — ensure that you receive what you want, when you want it, in the quantity you want, and with quality built in.

8. Management procedures can improve poor meetings, poor internal communications, and poor reporting.  Management is really about communication — that’s why improving internal communication benefits the whole company.  One of the best ways to improve communications is to develop, document, implement, and monitor a procedure for communications.

Also, it’s important that management shows its commitment to the highest standards, whether those standards have to do with internal processes or processes that directly involve your customers.

9. You also need compliance procedures to ensure your company conforms to the requirements of various regulations, statutes, and standards.  This is where policies and procedures can help your organization.  Compliance is one of the primary problems solved with policies and procedures.

10. Accounting procedures ensure that you fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.  Accounting is a process to track transactions of items, cash, and information.  Accounting procedures help to ensure consistency, reliability, and accuracy of those transactions, which (in turn) helps to build trust in your financial statements.  What Are the Top Ten Accounting Policies and Procedures?

Prewritten policies and procedures from Bizmanualz help solve many of these common business problems.  The Top Ten Core Business Policies and Procedures you will need can be found in the Bizmanualz CEO Company Policies Procedures Manuals bundle.

Top 10 Business Problems Solved by Policies and Procedures

1. Accounts Receivable procedures, to reduce A/R aging and ensure even cash flow.
2. Sales procedures, to standardize sales pipeline management to ensure consistent sales.
3. Disaster Recovery procedures, to control the response to chaos in an emergency.
4. Human Resources procedures, to ensure non-discriminatory employee hiring and termination.
5. Quality procedures, to improve quality.
6. Customer communications procedures, to collect data from feedback and complaint handling for process improvement.
7. Shipping and receiving procedures, to track materials purchased and sold.
8. Management procedures to improve poor meetings, communications, and reporting.
9. Compliance procedures to conform to regulations, standards, and laws.
10. Accounting procedures, to fulfill your fiduciary responsibility to your shareholders.

What do you think? How quickly could your most urgent problems be solved by implementing effective policies and procedures?

Does your organization talk about quality? Does it put quality concepts into practice in every aspect of the business, from design and development to product delivery? Is your firm practicing quality from top to bottom, from the chief executive to your newest hires?

Commitment to quality starts at the top and flows from there throughout the organization. Whether management is sold on the notion of “quality in everything we do” or they’re not, the rest of the company follows suit. Here are ten indicators that your company’s top management is making the quality commitment:

1. You have a quality budget for Corrective and Preventive Action, Training, and Internal Audits. If management puts money on the table, they’re obviously committed to quality.  Quality requires a budget to prevent problems from occurring and recurring.  Quality requires training.  And Quality requires gentle prodding from internal audits, to ensure the quality system is continuously improving, not stagnating.

2. You’re allowed to use the quality budget for Corrective and Preventive Action, Training, and Internal Audits. Having a monetary budget for Quality is great but if you can’t use it because there are too many orders that need to get out or there are never enough worker-hours to work on Quality, do you really have a budget for Quality? Don’t forget — time has to be budgeted, too.

3. You track the cost of quality in your budgeting process. Your cost of quality includes scrap, defects, rework, corrective actions, preventive actions, quality training, audits, management reviews, lost business due to customer complaints (i.e., returns), warranty claims, and other such “quality” costs.  If you’re actively tracking and comparing your cost of quality to your revenues, expenses, and profits, you’re displaying a keen sense of what quality means to your business.

4. Top management actively participates in your regular (weekly/monthly) management reviews. Quality management reviews are critical to management’s understanding of the future of the business.  Top management’s attendance demonstrates that the future of the business is important to it and the results of management reviews are a valuable input to management’s strategic direction and execution.

5. Quality management participates in regular (weekly/monthly) management meetings, planning sessions, and decision processes. Quality management’s attendance at the management meetings demonstrates that input from quality is important.  Can your company expand, add new products, contract, cut costs, or implement strategic actions without understanding how it may impact the operation’s quality?  Cross-functional teams at all levels provide an early warning to management that improves the execution of your plans.

6. Quality management reports directly to top management. Quality management’s input is vital to strategic execution and requires that quality management be a peer (equal) at the top management level.  Quality management needs to attend critical meetings, needs resources to act on Quality issues, needs to act across the organization chart, and needs the active support of top management for quality success.  Can you really achieve high levels of quality by delegating quality to lower levels of the organization’s management?

7. Top management champions quality, communicates it, and understands its bottom line impact. In order for top management to appoint a quality manager at the top management level, that quality manager has to have a budget and has to interact with all other departments. To ensure the future of the business is secure, top management needs to understand how quality impacts the company and it needs to communicate that impact to the entire organization.  Quality takes discipline and only top management can instill the discipline required for success.

8. Management’s strategic plan includes quality milestones. The road to quality takes time measured in years.  Top management can communicate its commitment to quality through the successive achievement of quality awards over the years (e.g., ISO 9001, Shingo, state Quality awards, Baldrige).  I have seen one organization that, after winning Baldrige, required its individual operating units to all go for Baldrige.  Top management can keep on the continuous improvement road by driving quality milestones deeper into the organization.

9. Management allows people to fail, make mistakes, experiment, and improve without serious repercussion. Improvement is really about failure. If you’re allowed to fail, you can learn from your mistakes. Conversely, if you’re not allowed to make mistakes, you’re being deprived of learning and growth opportunities.

Without learning, there is no quality.  When top management allows people to fail, they allow people to learn and grow.  Fire people for failure and people will stop reporting failures…and they will stop learning, too.

10. Quality is implemented as a strategic requirement to build competitive advantage, not as a customer requirement to qualify for new business. A committed top management is focused on quality because it represents improvement, being better than others, and the future.  If a customer has to ask you for proof of quality, do you have a problem?  Even worse, if you only implement quality because the customer asks and not because you want to, then do you really have quality?  Committed top management doesn’t wait for customers to ask for quality — they integrate quality into their strategy.

Top Ten Signs of Management’s Commitment to Quality

1. You have a quality budget for Corrective and Preventive Action, Training, and Internal Audits.
2. You’re allowed to use the quality budget for Corrective and Preventive Action, Training, and Internal Audits.
3. You track the cost of quality in your budgeting process.
4. Top management actively participates in regular management reviews.
5. Quality management participates in regular management meetings, planning sessions, and decision processes.
6. Quality management reports directly to top management.
7. Top management champions quality, communicates it, and understands its impact.
8. Management’s strategic plan includes quality milestones.
9. Management allows people to fail, make mistakes, experiment, and improve.
10. Quality is implemented as a strategic requirement to build competitive advantage.

Your thoughts?

There are many reasons why procedures become too complex.  Many revolve around “too much”, “too many”, or “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  Reducing the complexity of your procedure is simple.  Keep it simple.  Less is more.  Don’t go into long explanations, use industry- or profession-specific terminology, or try to dispense too much information. Remember — complexity is one of the enemies of consistency and quality. Keep it simple.

How do you know if your procedures are too complex? Here are the top ten signs:

1. Your procedures are too long.  This is possibly the most common kind of complexity. If your procedures are 30 pages in length, they’re too long.  It is very difficult to follow a 30-page procedure (try it).

The fewer the pages, the better. This forces you to simplify your procedures — to make them more concise. If you have a 30-page procedure, try breaking it into three 10-page procedures.  See if you can simplify each ten-page procedure — maybe eliminate or repurpose the information into work instructions, training material, or pictures.  Pictures are a great substitute for excess verbiage and should reduce your document size.

2. Your procedures have too many steps. If your procedure contains — let’s say, 27 — steps, it has too many. Follow the “rule of seven” — use no more than seven steps to describe a process.  No more than seven activities to describe a procedure.  Use no more than seven tasks to describe an activity, and no more than seven lines to a paragraph.  Break information into chunks that can be easily understood and followed.

3. Your procedures reference too many other documents. If you have to keep flipping between documents, it’s difficult to follow the main procedure (and easy to derail your train of thought). If your procedures reference multiple documents, this leads to straying from the main path.

4. Your procedures contain too much terminology. Industry jargon needs to be defined in the procedure.  Does everyone really know how the “takt time” on your value stream map is used to improve your OEE? Instead of assuming they know, define your terms or use them in such a context that your readers can infer what you mean.

5. Your procedures involve too many people. If your procedure requires a lot of different individuals, you probably have too many handoffs. The more information and materials are handled, the greater the likelihood of a breakdown in the process. Therefore, you have an opportunity to simplify the process.  Break your procedure into several discrete procedures and focus the responsibility on fewer people in each procedure.

6. Your procedures involve too many reviews. Do you really need as many reviews, meetings, or inspections as your procedure calls for?  Can you combine, eliminate, or substitute a review with another element? Individuals can do self-inspections with checklists.  A lot of reviews make for a complex process.  Simplify.

7. Your procedures cover a long period of time. Delays allow for interruptions.  Eliminate them.  Reorganize the procedure into time-based elements that can be easily followed.

8. Your procedures encompass asynchronous activities. Loosely related activities that occur in their own time frame are hard to coordinate. Tie the activities together with milestones — have them share start times or end times. Synchronize them.

9. Your procedures leave out important information. This is the opposite of using jargon, or giving too much information. By leaving out bits of necessary information for the sake of saving time or space, you increase the risk of process failure. The reader does not know what they do not know. Economize and keep it simple, but don’t omit important information.

10. Your procedures use too many big words and long sentences. The average person reads at a ninth-grade level.  Using too many “big college words” and stuffing a lot of information into long sentences or paragraphs introduces unnecessary complexity. Use smaller words, shorter sentences, and shorter paragraphs. Remember the Rule of Seven (above).

Your Procedures Are Too Complex If They:

1. Are too long with too many pages;
2. Have too many steps, activities, or tasks;
3. Reference too many documents, work instructions, or forms;
4. Contain too much jargon, industry terminology, or slang;
5. Involve too many people, jobs descriptions, or managers;
6. Involve too many review steps, meetings, or inspections;
7. Cover a long period of time;
8. Discuss a series of asynchronous activities;
9. Leave out important information, pictures, or explanations; or
10. Use too many big words, long sentences, and long paragraphs.

So, are some of your procedures too complex? What is the most complicated procedure you have ever had to work with?

Here we go again. Just as it did a decade ago, questionable or downright unethical behavior has led to the enrichment of a few and the financial ruin of many. And after the damage has been done, the legislature has vowed to make sure “it will never happen again”.

Here’s the story in 2010: Citigroup allegedly did not see the mortgage crisis coming, or it failed to properly manage risk. Either way, a lot of mortgage holders are in extreme financial difficulty. Goldman Sachs is reported to have made an enormous profit a couple of years ago by betting against the mortgage market, supposedly with help from Paulson & Company.

And before that, there was Madoff Securities. Bernie Madoff was put in jail for running a “Ponzi scheme” for a number of years, but not before investors in his scheme lost everything.

The situation is strikingly similar to that of about a decade ago, when executives at Enron, Tyco, and other companies enriched themselves at the expense of shareholders.  Then, the U.S. Congress developed the regulation known as Sarbanes-Oxley as a result of the financial misdeeds.

Now, Congress is again debating the need for legislation to combat ethical “lapses”. Why legislation should even be considered is a mystery — we know from history (e.g., Prohibition, the War on Drugs) that moral behavior cannot be legislated. When people want badly enough to make a profit, gain power, improve their competitive position, or do whatever it is they want to do, they will:

• Prevent the undesirable (e.g., ethics legislation) from happening;
• Water down the legislation so as to make it virtually worthless; and
• Find ways to circumvent the law, even as it’s being enacted.

So, how do you make people behave in an ethical manner, especially in settings where temptation is hard to avoid? Well, you can’t ensure everyone will behave ethically in all circumstances. If Mom and Dad and all the other influential people in their lives couldn’t plant a fully functioning moral compass in them, you’re not going to have much luck.

It’s an almost certain bet that the companies in question have an ethics policy in place. Merely having an ethics policy isn’t enough, though, any more than having legislation in place is a cure for society’s ills.  However, there are ways you might be able to lessen the risk of unethical behavior. To make your ethics policy work, you can:

• Develop a clear, concise ethics policy (a “code of ethics”);
• Communicate your ethics policy to employees, management, suppliers, customers – in other words, let all stakeholders know where you stand;
• Enforce the policy – punish unethical conduct and positively reinforce ethical behavior;
• Establish a framework (hierarchy) of ethical responsibility;
• Develop and implement a system of checks and balances within the framework of your policy;
• Make all stakeholders part of your ethical framework – everyone is responsible; and
• Regardless of where you are in the hierarchy, set an example for others.

And no, I don’t expect that “it’s just that simple”. No matter what you do, you will not eliminate unethical behavior entirely. People succumb to temptation when it becomes too great, and this is probably the most important point. Understand what tempts people to act unethically and do what you can to prevent or lessen the temptation.

Good luck, and let me know if you have any answers.

* * * * * * *

Recommended Reading

1. Grace, H.S., Jr., and Haupert, J. E., “How to Make an Ethics Program Work”, The CPA Journal, April, 2006 – http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2006/406/essentials/p66.htm
2. Crosby, David C., “Who Is Responsible for Quality?”, Quality Digest, April 20, 2010 - http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insider-column/who-responsible-quality.html#

When was the last time you had to manage a “critical” project without the support of top management in word and deed? If it’s happened once, it’s happened too often.

Yet, this happens all the time with quality management systems. Quality management systems are commonly — and wrongly — viewed as a “necessary evil”. That is, your company’s top management feels a QMS project won’t have an immediate and positive effect on the bottom line but they’re going ahead with the project because “they’re making us do it!”

A customer may require its vendors (and maybe you’re one of them) to have an ISO-9001-certified QMS in place. Or, maybe you deal in a product or service that’s highly regulated, so you’re implementing a QMS only “because it’s the law.”

ATTITUDE

If your attitude is “we have to” instead of “we want to”, you may be setting up your QMS  to fail before you’ve begun.

Think about it. You always perform a task better when your heart and mind are in it, right?Isn’t the same true of your employees? If you’re not sold on the QMS as a win-win, your employees won’t be, either. And neither will the certification auditor.

Besides management having a poor attitude, there are other ways to sink your QMS project. Here are just a few:

• No development plan or one that’s insufficient
• Unrealistic expectations
• Lack of management support
• Poor communication
• Not enough resources
• Lack of user involvement

NO DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Just as with any other project, a QMS is more likely to yield desired results when a realistic plan is drawn up in advance. It’s just that simple: thorough project planning leads to a greater likelihood of success than relying on chance.

When you started your company, you drew up a detailed business plan before you went to borrow seed capital. True, the bank required you to have a business plan, but not because they just “felt like it”. They wanted you to succeed so they’d get their money back and so you’d become a regular customer.

The same is true of your QMS project — plan now for success, or pay dearly later.

UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS

Without bothering to put a plan together, top management will say, “We need a functional QMS in three months and we can spare one person from the staff to work on it.” It’s just a QMS, right? You only need a half-dozen procedures and a quality manual and you’re done, right?

WRONG! If you don’t do the research, you ensure that your expectations will NEVER be met. Realistic, achievable objectives come only from careful research and planning. If you don’t have a history of QMS projects, look at other projects.

Look at what other companies have done with their quality management systems. Ask around — maybe you know someone who’s been through the experience. The point is to have a clear idea of what you’re getting into and what to expect.

Next, we’ll look at four more reasons why QMS projects fail. In the meantime, I’d like your comments. Why do QMS projects fail? Why does any kind of project fail?

Thanks for your time.