Who develops the documentation?

[Ovsianko]

Hello, All,

I have a question to you, which is like a survey. I wonder who is basically engaged in developmig the documentation for an ISO 9000 quality system being newly introduced in a company?
Could be:
- Consultants;
- quality personnelle in the company;
- everybody in the company;
- all together in co-operation;
- people in the company develop the concepts, policies and procedures contents, and consultants formultae them in conformance with the ISO 9000 requirements.

Wish you the best,

------------------
Anton Ovsianko
Quality systems consultant

 

[Laura M]

One answer could be "All of the Above"
My preferred method is to have the personnel that will ultimately be responsible for carrying out the procedure to understand the ISO requirement, do their best at documenting the procedure, and have a consultant (or internal ISO 'expert') make sure it complies to the standard.
From my consulting experience, if the consultant writes the procedure, its twice as hard to get it implemented. I may bring in a rough draft for the company to mark up and debate, but they need to write it.

 

[eskay]

Yes, I agree with Laura M. I've got experience with a consultant writing the procedures for a company, where I took over QA department later. It was all impossible procedures in all practial sense for the operation of the company.

It should be everyone involved in the company and who knows the Operations of the company with a consultant or internal QA person to confirm that it meets the requirements of the Standard.

Kannan


[This message has been edited by eskay (edited 31 July 2000).]

 

[Marc]

Writing documentation is an art and a dance. You may have one or more of the 'interested parties' you listed doing the documentation - and any combination may or may not work. A good 'consultant' can write your documentation alone, but they must be good interviewers and must have 'the knack'. By the same token, a team can royally screw things up and draw out the process.

The ideal is where a team is utilized. Unfortunately the company typically determines what will and will not work. I have done work for companies where no one was interested and even interviews were extremely difficult to get through (not to mention getting a meeting set up where all the attendees to show up). Management says "...get these procedures done..." to the consultant (technical writer, what-ever) and the interviewees say "...so catch me if you can..."

I just want to point out there is typically a serious gap between the ideal and what reality allows.

 

[barb butrym]

Marc...you are absolutely right.....as usual...LOL

my preference is a willing team ( of the people that DO the function)lead by the consultant (the one with good interview or facilitation skills...)....the typist is irrevelant.

[This message has been edited by barb butrym (edited 31 July 2000).]

 

[Ovsianko]

Hi All
It seems to be the plainest answer that writing the documentation is a kind of an art, that it is hard to generalize, that each situation is not the same and so on.

However I often have to face a funny problem: the more clever and able the people in the company are, the more they are interested in what ISO and quality management can provide them with, BUT the less time they have for it.

Less able people are in this case an easier auditorium. But they usually hardly can provide you with necessary information and set up necessary documents. They lack quality knowledge and understanding.

I maybe keep it too simple,



------------------
Anton Ovsianko
Quality systems consultant