For an ISO certified company, it is essential to document every process and archive all evidence of the process being implemented and working efficiently.
What should the company do if it wants to become more Agile? How to comply to the ISO standard and at the same time eliminate heavy documentation? Saving Changes...
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Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Dear Mariam
I only see one way to do it
Reviewing the quality manual, processes and documentation
This change has to involve management to approve the new processes through "management review".
I suggest you start with an audit of the company's quality system. Saving Changes...
ISO won't prescribe how "heavy" the documentation is. You could use a lightweight approach to document the process steps and quality checkpoints. You could also move from standalone process documents to an online knowledge base where improvement recommendations and evidence of approvals can be captured collaboratively and dynamically. Saving Changes...
Jen Jee ChanManaging Director| DotProjects Pte LtdSingapore, Singapore
Hi Mariam,
I believe these are 2 different things. ISO certification signifies that your company follows a fixed set of procedures/documentation systems that is prescribed by the company. As Kiron mentioned it does not question how heavy or light the processes are. If they meet a certain flow and makes sense and auditors check that your daily practice follows what was documented, the company will be certified.
Agile is a methodology on how you run projects. Unlike the traditional waterfall approach, agile prescribes an incremental approach on the premise that the project environment is wholly uncertain and hence it is not practical to follow a plan that was done right from the beginning of a project.
I would suggest that in your ISO, you find ways to document a workflow that is agile aligned, meaning that you have short working sessions (sprints) and review sessions (retrospective) to adjust and hone your plan going forward.. that in my view would be the first step towards moving towards a more agile organisation but with roots firmly on a documented ISO system.
Hope this helps - all the best! Saving Changes...
Bipin SavantAsst. Vice President| VALAD InfotechMumbai, Maharashtra, India
Hi ISO mandates certain functions which need to be documented only which preserve show the essence of the standard, it does not specify the quantum or the mode that it should be done in. Please go through the standard and where the word 'should' is encountered are the places to be documented. The whole standard can be easily applied to any Agile project Saving Changes...
Suneel Kumar NadellaDirector (Self Employed)| Manasai Services Pvt Ltd (Self Employed)Solihull, West Midlands, United Kingdom
Being agile is different to what archiving requirements are. As long as key/critical data is identified and that is linked to archiving process, the organisation can always become agile. Most of the time, we tend to assume that all data is important and need to be archived. If a proper analysis is done, roughly 20 to 30% of whole data will be key and critical to run core business of any company. The other data will be temporary, staging or transactional data which may or may not be archived. If this exercise is done with proper due diligence and maintained, any organisation can become agile as well as comply to ISO standards. Saving Changes...
Please see the clause 7.5.1 NOTE "The extent of documented information for a quality management system can differ from one organizational to another due to : - the size of organization and its type of activities, processes, products and services; - the complexity of processes and their interactions;-the competence of persons."
It means your organization can decide the deliverable of documents depending on the project and business characteristics, and it will be better to make separate "quality assurance plan for Agile project" Saving Changes...
Stéphane ParentSelf Employed / Semi-retired| Leader MakerPrince Edward Island, Canada
Sometimes changing the medium can make a big difference. Why create a ten-page document if a single infographic can convey the same information. There are so many ways to capture and communicate processes. Saving Changes...
