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Everything in life brings with it a downside. The only question to answer in
life is "Can this be worth the downside?"
Often we have to let managers make that decision, because they're charged
with operating an entire company and making a profit, not facilitating the
work of individual departments. Those within departments often think that if
they can only get their work done more easily, that it will directly benefit
the company. That's not always so.
Doc management is a case in point. For ISO 9000 to work, there has to be
control, or at least tracking. Whenever formal controls are instituted,
somebody's work slows down. Can't be helped. The alternative is to trust in
chaos, and not every company can do that. Certainly an ISO 9000 company
can't.
Every company that I'm familiar with follows a general trendline of the
standard maturity model: when you get big enough, you have to implement
processes. If you don't, you'll waste an enormous amount of energy
duplicating efforts, redoing work, and generally spinning without going
anywhere. This isn't always evident from lower down, but in management, it's
painfully apparent. But of course, instituting controls, especially on
employees who were with the company in its chaotic stage, can breed a lot of
discontent. Some companies manage to avoid too much resentment, but many
lose flocks of employees at that point.
Tim Altom
Simply Written, Inc.
Featuring FrameMaker and the Clustar Method(TM)
"Better communication is a service to mankind."
317.562.9298 http://www.simplywritten.com
> Here is a classic example of a formal process interfering with the needs
of
> the people who use the information and do the work. In addition to many
> other things I've done in my working life, I've worked in organizations
that
> got themselves certified as ISO 9000 (or any of the 9000 series)
compliant.
> Almost without exception they created unnecessarily convoluted "processes"
> that served more to interfere with information flow than to facilitate it.
>
