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From: Conna Condon [mailto:gandolf@cyberverse.com]

The applications group had developed project management tools which
supported their implementation and achievement of level 3 CMM for SEI.

The ISO9000 team developed a set of project management tools that met
the
minimal requirements to achieve ISO9000 certification across the
organization. They required the Application people to stop using the
tools
they had been using and to begin using the tools ISO team developed.

The reduced level of quality in the ISO toolset was sufficient to earn
certification. It did bring up other departments and workgroups that
had
not been working to either the SEI or ISO toolsets. However, it reduced
the
quality of the applications people. They were no longer allowed to use
their tools.

Conna

Well, that explains everything! As Eeyore (friend of Pooh & Christopher
Robin) would say.

the purpose of an ISO9000:2000 certification _should_ be to assure that a
firm has a decent Quality (aka operations) System with certain functional
feedback loops (corrective/preventive action cycles) etc., etc. If the
'tools' used by one group in fact produce the desired results, short & long
term, it is very likely that they will include said feedback loops and
other accouterments of an ISO 9000 certified system. If the tools used by
a group do not include the minimums required by the standard, then
something must be added. Inasmuch as said tools are comprised of items
necessary to accomplish the task at hand, I can't see why one would want to
remove anything, until it was shown to not contribute to said task. by the
same token, why put or keep anything in which is counterproductive?

I can easily see how two groups within a company could find themselves
pushing for their own 'tools' that overlap intent, and even conflict. that
is why we have so many standards. but to reduce effectiveness by selection
of one set, for non-technical reasons - is that what we really want? What
was that original corporate objective again?

Jay

Charles Wankel wrote:

> From: Conna Condon [mailto:gandolf@cyberverse.com]
>
> The applications group had developed project management tools which
> supported their implementation and achievement of level 3 CMM for SEI.
>
> The ISO9000 team developed a set of project management tools that met
> the
> minimal requirements to achieve ISO9000 certification across the
> organization. They required the Application people to stop using the
> tools
> they had been using and to begin using the tools ISO team developed.
>
> The reduced level of quality in the ISO toolset was sufficient to earn
> certification. It did bring up other departments and workgroups that
> had
> not been working to either the SEI or ISO toolsets. However, it reduced
> the
> quality of the applications people. They were no longer allowed to use
> their tools.
>
> Conna

--
Jay Warner
Principal Scientist
Warner Consulting, Inc.
4444 North Green Bay Road
Racine, WI 53404-1216
USA

Ph: (262) 634-9100
FAX: (262) 681-1133
email: quality@a2q.com
web: http://www.a2q.com

The A2Q Method (tm) -- What do you want to improve today?

From: Conna Condon [mailto:gandolf@cyberverse.com]

"What was that original corporate objective again?"

<wicked grins> Ahhhhhhhh ... now there's the salient question. Wise,
very wise.

Objective: meet contract requirements at minimum obvious short term
costs ... aka do it on the cheap.

You mention ISO9000.2000. They snuck in under the old IS09000 ...
saved 3 years of the cost of the stronger standard. That was a
consistency standard rather than a quality standard.

In the old ISO9000 you "say what you do and do what you say". However,
if what you do causes the output to be broken every 5th time than to be
ISO9000 compliant you will produce a broken output every 5th time.
Consistently.

That is why ISO9000.2000 has added an improvement requirement (which
CMM always had). One hopes things will get better when everyone has to
be compliant to the new standard.

Conna