Excluding Design & Development - Small business - Consultancy Services

[katie9001]

Dear All,

We are a small business organization providing consultancy services to customers. Our main functions are to provide Business Analysis and Project Management Services to customers. We also have software engineering consultants. We are currently working on getting the ISO 9001 certification for our organization.
Considering the nature of our business, can we exclude the ‘design & development’ standard? This would seem appropriate since designing and development is not a key function within our organization. Software Development, Business Analysis staff will get involved in design & development to a certain extent during projects with clients, but they will be adhering to the client’s processes during the period of contract. However, we do not want to limit our options by stating that we are NOT currently doing design & development, because there might be a possibility of us moving in to in-house software design & development in future.

I would really appreciate your feedback on this...

 

[Randy]

Re: Excluding Desgin & Development

Do you design the service you provide and the way you provide it, or is it dictated to you?

 

[katie9001]

Re: Excluding Desgin & Development

I am sorry, but your question is not very clear to me... well, we do have a process covering how we should carryout the service, but the service itself is not designed by us, if thats what you meant...
e.g. we have a process defining from the point of doing pre sales, finding the customers, signing the contract with them and until we complete the service to them. but we dont have a design stating HOW we are going to provide the service to them. i.e. if a business analyst is being send to a customer we dont have a process designed to state how we will perform the business analysis.
We dont perform a design function within our company.

Also... thanks soo much for your quick response... really do appreciate it..

 

[Randy]

Re: Excluding Desgin & Development

We dont perform a design function within our company.

Also... thanks soo much for your quick response... really do appreciate it..

If you don't do design you answered your own question.

The answer is YES

 

[vanputten]

Katie9001:

The service you provide is your product. Do you design the service you provide?

If not, who designs your organization's consulting service? Who decides what service will be provided, how, when, what content, etc.?

Thank you, Dirk

 

[John Broomfield]

Dear All,

We are a small business organization providing consultancy services to customers. Our main functions are to provide Business Analysis and Project Management Services to customers. We also have software engineering consultants. We are currently working on getting the ISO 9001 certification for our organization.
Considering the nature of our business, can we exclude the ‘design & development’ standard? This would seem appropriate since designing and development is not a key function within our organization. Software Development, Business Analysis staff will get involved in design & development to a certain extent during projects with clients, but they will be adhering to the client’s processes during the period of contract. However, we do not want to limit our options by stating that we are NOT currently doing design & development, because there might be a possibility of us moving in to in-house software design & development in future.


I would really appreciate your feedback on this...

Consulting by its nature is design and some consultants also execute the approved design of the consulting project (instead of just leaving an expensive report).

Design translates the needs of your client into service requirements, these include the outcomes of the project and deliverables. Our service specifications also include a list of tasks necessary to fulfill the project outcomes and describe who shall do what for each task.

I cannot imagine consulting with the consultant doing no design.

 

[vanputten]

As applicable, a way to determine if an organization is not design responsible, is to ask the following question.

If your organization is not design responsible, then who does design your product?

I have challenged myself to think of a product that is not designed. I can't think of one. This leads me to the theory that every product is designed somewhere, at some time.

Instead of spending time on why an organization is not design responsible, spend time determining who is the designing organization or source.