Re: Updated Quality Manual for 9001:2008
I say poppy cock. The structure of your manual is independent of it's use to management or anyone else in the company
Poppy cock, huh? I contend that if a manual (or any other document for that matter) actually contains
useful and comprehensible information (eg, good content and a structure that assists understanding/finding of info) then it is or will be useful (& not just to management, as howste reminds us).
I've seen companies with really neat-o short quality manuals that didn't follow their procedures
OK. I've also seen companies who had 'one-size-fits-all-regurgitate-the-Standard manuals' and they didn't either. How is this relevant?
I started doing implementations almost 18 years ago and that is how we did them then in large part because auditors in the early days would ding you if you did not address every sentence in the standard whether it applied to you or not.
Yeah me too. But just because 'we did it then and it worked', does that mean it's good? Or that we shouldn't aim to do better? I discarded them because I found something that worked better and gave more value. In my experience, no one (with the possible exception of the writer and auditor) actually understood, let alone
used that kind of manual. I recall - vividly - the MD of a successful small boilermaking enterprise who picked up one of those that I'd written, read for a short while and then dropped it on the desk looking rather ill, and said something rather along the lines of (expletives deleted):
What on earth does that actually mean in English??
I was fortunate enough to come across a couple of really good auditors from CBs, with whom I had a lot of very productive discussions. After which I started writing them in 'plain English' and using language that the people in the company actually used. And watched their eyes light up as they really "got" that this stuff could make sense to them, rather than require a degree in 'quality speak' to comprehend. And oh yes, they got and maintained certification of course.
As you can see, I feel passionately about clear communication.
It is so easy to conceal, or to obfuscate and confuse with language that is too 'technical', too full of jargon and just not clear. The Standard has some excuse - written by committee, dependent upon consensus and needs to be readily translatable to/from many different languages.
Unfortunately, I have also seen many people comment as Andy did as if the structure of a quality manual is a big deal. It simply isn't.
Big deal? No, not if everyone wants to structure, manage & run their organisations in
exactly the same way.
Whatever happened to a process approach? Or an authentic voice?
I have also found that for many companies, especially small companies, an 'it looks like the standard' quality manual serves to 'remind' them of the requirements of the standard.
Good point. I haven't.
If the structure works for you, use it. Just because there are other ways to structure a quality manual doesn't make one way the 'correct' way.
Yes, I agree with you. There's no such thing as only one way.
Like Howste says, doing a manual by copying the Standard can be a starting point. But only a starting point.
Finally, re. my raising the issue of unique content = 2 pages (at most). Please don't read as arguing in favour of a '2-page manual'; I merely commented on the quantity of unique content in the manual. (But for the record, I do not believe any organisation can effectively manage itself with a '2-page manual' or even a '4-page manual'.
The argument about length, again, is a different topic, and exhaustively discussed elsewhere.)