To Certify Or Not To Certify? That Is The Question.

25th November 2016

Many businesses never go near ISO 9001 or other management standards unless they have a clear need to obtain certification, perhaps to allow access to tendering processes or its a stipulation of a client………………

This is a shame as these types of structured management systems, and I deliberately avoid the “Q” word, offer a whole bunch of useful business improvement and management tools. There is no reason for most businesses not to use some (or all) of them without the added expense of certification. Indeed why would you not take advantage of world class management processes…………………..

Why do I avoid the “Q” word? well Quality can bring with it unfortunate negative reactions, which brings me to one of my favourite sayings “Management by data, not by anecdote”. Don’t just accept someone’s opinion, seek some clear data and base your business decision on that. Management by data is a great leveller, a graph with trend lines based on process measures is infinitely more powerful in a board room than a loud voice, and if it works at Director level then it absolutely works throughout the business. So I prefer to see these structures and standards as good old plain management tools for everyone to use, not just the “Quality Department”.

That is not to say of course that a good dose of leadership and entrepreneurial thinking isn’t at the heart of many a successful business, but integrate that spark with a robust management system and wow the results can be fabulous. That said one of the disadvantages of ISO type standards is their general lack of Human or Leadership content, other management standards such as EFQM (European Foundation for Quality Management) for instance are much better at setting out how Leadership in a business is vital, the solution? ……… simple, take the best bits from both!

Once you realise your business can improve markedly through the implementation of some of these systems you are then on the road to culture change in the way you work and that can really bring benefits.

There are two key requirements really for any business to benefit from implementation of management process, a desire to do so by senior management and the recognition of the fact that the management process must be driven by what you actually do , its not something that bolts onto and to be done in addition to your day job.

So back to the original question? the answer is up to you ……… but using management tools and structured data driven processes anyway is a simple “absolutely” for most.

We will be taking a canter through the various elements of a good management system over the coming months, but if you cant wait, or want to go straight to a specific subject let us know and we’ll do our best to help.

Derek.