Organise

July 28th, 2009 By The Quality Manager

Now that you’ve COLLECTed everything that was on your mind and PROCESSed everything so that you know what each item means to you (what’s the expected outcome and what’s the next physical action to move it forward) we can start to get ORGANISEd!

Most people, when they try to implement GTD, have a problem with separating PROCESSing from getting ORGANISEd. But this is a key step because in ORGANISE you build the trusted system that will allow you to release all the stuff that’s clogging up your brain and allow you to reach the GTD “nirvana” of being totally buried by the amount of things you need to do but having nothing on your mind – what David Allen calls a “mind like water”.

But you’re not there yet!

First you need to group all the results of what you’ve PROCESSed into appropriate categories so that you can retrieve and REVIEW them when you need to – remember that REVIEW is the next phase of mastering workflow.

The four key categories are:

  1. PROJECTS – projects you are committed to finish that will take more than one action
  2. CALENDAR – actions that must occur on a specific day or specific time
  3. NEXT ACTIONS – actions that need to be done as soon as possible
  4. WAITING FOR – projects and actions that you’re waiting for someone else to do

For each of these categories you need to make a list of each item you’ve PROCESSed that falls under that category. For CALENDAR items that’s easy – they go on your CALENDAR.

A list of PROJECTS is just that.

A list of WAITING FORs is also relatively simple to compile.

The lists of NEXT ACTIONS should be broken down into separate lists depending on the context in which the action will take place. This is a key principle of GTD that differs from other activity management systems – listing actions according to where they happen.

Typical CONTEXTS are:

  • AGENDAS – lists of the people you need to communicate with, and meetings planned, with the topics you need to discuss
  • ANYWHERE – list of actions that have no restrictions on where they can be carried out
  • CALLS – list of calls you need to make, by type of phone (mobile, landline, etc.) if that’s appropriate
  • COMPUTER – list of actions that require a computer
  • ERRANDS – list of things you need to do whilst you are out and about
  • HOME – list of actions that need to be done whilst you’re in your home environment
  • OFFICE – list of actions that require you to be in your office
  • READ – list of articles, books, etc that you’ve decided to read
  • SOMEDAY/MAYBE – list of items and actions that you might wat to do at some point but not now

So now, armed with your lists of NEXT ACTIONS for each of the CONTEXTs above plus your list of WAITING FORs and PROJECTs you’re ready to go into action. But before we do that, next week we’ll look at the REVIEW phase that’s key to GTD – how you keep your lists up to date.

Then we’ll look at the final phase – DO – where you actually Get Things Done!

Again you can get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen’s site for free!

Posted in Collect, Contexts, Do, Organise, Process, Projects, Weekly Review | No Comments »

Auditing Practices Group

July 27th, 2009 By The Quality Manager


The ISO 9001 Auditing Practices Group is an informal group of quality management system (QMS) experts, auditors and practitioners, drawn from the ISO Technical Committee 176 Quality Management and Quality Assurance (ISO/TC 176) and the International Accreditation Forum (IAF).

Their website provides ideas, examples and explanations given reflect the process-based approach that is essential for auditing the requirements of ISO 9001:2008 and is primarily aimed at QMS auditors, consultants and quality practitioners.

The information includes:

  • An introduction to the Auditing Practices Group
  • Measuring QMS effectiveness and improvements
  • Understanding the process approach (critical to understanding ISO 9001)
  • How to determine and audit requirements in ISO 9001 that are stated as “where appropriate”
  • Auditing management processes, the quality policy, quality objectives and management review
  • How to document a nonconformity, preventive action, internal communications
  • A code of conduct and ethics for auditors

etc . . . .

The site is well-worth a visit for material to improve your auditing of ISO 9001 in particular.

A related page web page (the Accreditation Auditing Practices Group) provides guidance to accreditation auditors working for the certification bodies.

In a future post, I will look at the technical committee at ISO that is responsible for the continual improvement of ISO 9001 and at the plans for the next version of ISO 9001 that is scheduled for 2015 and the plans to revise ISO 19011, the auditing standard, currently planned for next year.

I’ll also take a look at ISO 9004 Guidelines for Performance Improvements, a valuable member of the ISO 9000 family of standards that is often ignored but provides guidelines to cover efficiency (not covered by ISO 9001) as well as effectiveness (the purpose of ISO 9001). The revised version of ISO 9004 is due August 2009.

Posted in Accreditation Practices Group, Auditing Practices Group, Audits, ISO 19011, ISO 9001, ISO 9004 | No Comments »

Process

July 22nd, 2009 By The Quality Manager

Before you can get ORGANISEd, you need to PROCESS the information that you have COLLECTed.

You need to decide what each item means to you by asking firstly – “Is it actionable?” – that is, is it something that you need to take action on, or do something about?

1. NOT ACTIONABLE

  • Is it reference material? If so file it as reference material in an A-Z Filing System. We will come back to the best ways to do this at a later date. For now if you don’t have a filing system put it in another in-tray labelled “Reference”.
  • Is it something you don’t need to do anything about just now but you’d like to be reminded of it at a later date? For example, menus for Christmas or New Year meal that you may want to book. These sort of items go into a Bring Forward (or Tickler File). Again we will talk more about these at a later date. For now put them in another in-tray labelled “Bring Forward” or “Tickler”.
  • Finally, in the Non-Actionable, is it something you no longer need? In this case bin it now!

2. ACTIONABLE

  • Is this something you can defer until a later date – a reminder to pay a bill for example. This can then go into your Bring Forward file to be actioned on that date.
  • Is this something you can delegate to someone else to do? If it is put it in a pile labelled “Delegate to”.
  • Is this something you need to do? If it is you have two choices. 1. If it will take less than two minutes to do then do it now because it will take more time to write it down and pcik it up again! 2. If it will take longer than two minutes then what’s the next physical action you need to take on this to move it forward? Write this down on a list as an action, for example, “Call Fred about Jane’s school report”.

In dealing with the ACTIONABLE items, think about what outcome you seek for the item that you originally COLLECTed. What does DONE look like? The next physical action is about DOING something that will get something DONE.

If that one next physical action will get the item done then you can discard the item you COLLECTed. But if it will take more than one action to get something done then you have a PROJECT and as well as listing the next physical action on a list you need to put the PROJECT on a list of PROJECTs so that you’re reminded that it’s not finished yet. Then you can discard the COLLECTed item.

Next time we’ll look at ORGANISE where you put the items you COLLECT and PROCESSed into a trusted system that will help you with Getting Things Done.

As last time, you can get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen’s site for free!

Posted in A-Z Filing System, Bring Forward File, Collect, Defer, Delegate, Do, Dump, Organise, Process, Reference Material, Tickler File, Two Minute Rule | No Comments »

Showing ISO 9001 Compliance

July 20th, 2009 By The Quality Manager


This spreadsheet was created in Excel 2007 to illustrate a simple way of showing how compliant an organisation is with the clauses of ISO 9001.

It uses the icon sets in Microsoft Excel and the MIN function to map compliance across each clause and subclause of ISO 9001.

Each subclause is scored 1 for non-compliant resulting in a red button, 2 for partially compliant resulting in yellow button and 3 for fully compliant resulting in a green button.

For each grouping of subclauses, the minimum score for each subclause determines the overall score. For example, subclauses 5.5.1 and 5.5.3 are fully compliant but 5.5.2 is only partially complaint so 5.5 is partially compliant.

This works up all the way to the main clauses – 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Clause 5 is non-compliant because 5.3 is non-compliant even though all the other subclauses are either fully compliant or partially compliant. For example, subclause 5.5.1 is partially compliant but 5.5.3 is fully compliant.

The Microsoft Excel 2007 file used to create the above diagram will be sent to you if you provide your email address in a comment below. The spreadsheet does not work with earlier versions of Excel as they do not have the icon set that is used in this example.

Posted in Compliance, ISO 9001 | No Comments »

Collect

July 14th, 2009 By The Quality Manager

COLLECT is the phase where you need to capture everything that has your attention in leakproof in-baskets.

Your in-baskets can be:

  • physical in-trays
  • email inboxes
  • voicemails
  • notes
  • your head!

Get one physical in-basket and put them all in there. For your emails, print each single email off and put it in your physical in-basket.

The rule is – one item per piece of paper. No lists! Break them down into single items and one per sheet of paper. I know this sounds wasteful but you’ll find it easier to process them that way – trust me!

What you may find is that you need to do what is called a full mindsweep. There may be things on your mind that you don’t know are on your mind. What’s in that cupboard? What’s in that box? What about all that stuff in the garage? If you need help with this try going through this trigger list to remind you of things you need to deal with.

Take a walk round your house. Start in one corner at the bottom, left-most corner near the front of your property and cover the whole house until you’re at the top, right hand corner. Write everything down that you see needs your attention.

You will end up with a very long list but that’s the only way to get everything that’s cluttering up your mind out of your head and down on paper.

You’ll start to feel what it’s like to have nothing on your mind.

Next week we can start to PROCESS what you’ve collected!

In the meantime, get an overview of the Five Phases of Mastering Workflow from David Allen’s site for free!

Posted in Collect, In-basket, In-tray, Process | No Comments »

The Well-Behaved Auditor

July 12th, 2009 By The Quality Manager

There is no excuse for the behaviour of some auditors who act like “those who come in after the battle to bayonet the wounded”!

J P Russell is an author and editor of many books on auditing, including the ASQ Auditing Handbook and The Internal Auditing Pocket Guide

He also provides web-based training in auditing at Quality WBT.

He has produced this Etiquette for Auditors as a code of behaviour that helps people get along with one another. It’s simply a set of good manners and it provides guidelines for courteous, considerate behaviour during audits.

Posted in Auditor, Audits | No Comments »

What is GTD?

July 7th, 2009 By The Quality Manager

GTD is shorthand for Getting Things Done, a systematic approach to achieving higher productivity and reducing the stress in you life.

The approach was first explained in David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity” and there’s no better first step than getting his book and then working systematically through it.

However, here’s a simple guide to his five step process:

  1. COLLECT everything that has your attention
  2. PROCESS what has your attention to define what each means to you, what outcome you want to achieve and the next physical action you need to take to move it forward.
  3. ORGANISE reminders in an appropriate way so that you’re reminded what needs to get done, when and where you need to be reminded.
  4. REVIEW your whole system on a regular basis (at least weekly) to keep it current.
  5. DO the next physical actions you’ve processed and organised, according to the context, time and energy available, and priority.

To get started you’ll need to:

  • Set aside the time (particularly for the initial COLLECT phase) – a couple of hours should get you well on your way.
  • Set up the space – a nice clear area, desk, kitchen table, the bench at the bottom of the garden or even a corner down your local coffee shop!
  • Get the tools you need – you don’t need any sophisticated software or other expensive tools – just pen and paper.
  • Get everything else out of the way – make sure you’ve got no interruptions!

Intrigued? Then stay tuned for next episode of how to get your life back!

Posted in Collect, David Allen, Do, GTD, Getting Things Done (Book), Organise, Process, Weekly Review | No Comments »

12 Myths surrounding ISO 9001

July 6th, 2009 By The Quality Manager


There are many myths surrounding ISO 9001.

Let’s start off by dealing with the twelve most common ones.

Myth #1 – Implementing and maintaining ISO 9001 is expensive.

Beyond the costs of third-party assessment there should be no additional costs. All organisations should have clearly defined how they work to ensure customer satisfaction.

If you document what you do and put in place processes to improve what you do it doesn’t need to be expensive. You probably already have most of what you need.

Myth #2 – ISO 9001 is the responsibility of the Quality Department and you must have a Quality Manager.

You don’t need a Quality Department to run ISO 9001 and you don’t necessarily need anyone full time to run it. Your ISO 9001 quality management system should be about how you run your business – not how you run your Quality Department if you even have one.

Myth #3 – To implement ISO 9001 you just copy the standard inserting the name of your company.

There are many quality consultants who offer to provide a customised quality manual based on rewording the ISO 9001 standard. The quality manual should describe how your business works, the scope of the management system, the procedures used and their interaction. The ISO 9001 standard lists the requirements your management system needs to meet – it isn’t a quality management system itself.

Myth #4 – Every process must be documented.

The ISO 9001 standard says that the extent of the documentation can be tailored according to the size of organisation, the type of activities, the complexity of the processes, and the competence of personnel. The ISO 9001 standard only requires six procedures to be documented – plus any procedures that are needed to ensure that the planning, operation and control of the organisation’s processes is effective.

Myth #5 – A cross-reference must be maintained showing how each process meets each requirement of the standard.

Whilst this is useful in ensuring that all the requirements of the standard are met it is not, in itself, a requirement of the standard. It is often “demanded” by assessors and auditors because it makes their work easier. [See ISO 9001 4.1]

Myth #6 – Procedures (and forms) have to be signed, numbered and have version numbers and dates on them.

The standard requires that documents have to be controlled but there is no requirement for them to be signed, dated, numbered or version controlled. Forms are not mentioned in the standard. [See ISO 9001 4.2.3]

Myth #7 – A master list of documents (procedures and forms) has to be maintained showing what the latest version of each document is, where it is kept and for how long.

The standard does not require such a list. [See ISO 9001 4.2.4]

Myth #8 – The management review has to be a meeting that covers all the inputs of ISO 9001 5.6.2 and outputs of ISO 9001 5.6.3.

The review does not have to be a meeting and only the relevant requirements in 5.6.2 and 5.6.3 need be considered. [See ISO 9001 5.6]

Myth #9 – All suppliers have to be rated and regularly re-assessed.

The organisation should decide when and how it evaluates its suppliers based on the impact the purchased product has on the finished product. [See ISO 9001 7.4.1]

Myth #10 – Every piece of measuring equipment has to be calibrated or be given a reference-only sticker or label.

There is no requirement for stickers or labels. [See ISO 9001 7.6]

Myth #11 – Customer surveys have to sent out regularly to customers to measure their satisfaction.

The standard requires that the organisation monitors their customers perception as to the extent to which the organisation has met their requirements. How this is done is up to the organisation to decide. [See ISO 9001 8.2.1]

Myth #12 – The audit schedule must cover 12 months, all procedures must be audited within 12 months and all clauses of the standard must be audited over a 12 month period.

The standard requires that audits are planned and take into account the status and importance of the activities to be audited and what happened at previous audits. No timescales are defined. [See ISO 9001 8.2.2]

There is no substitute for carefully reading the ISO 9001 standard, being clear about what it requires, and deciding how best to meet those requirements in your organisation. Don’t let any consultant, auditor, or assessor try to tell you that there’s a “best practice” that you should follow. Decide what’s right for your organisation, check that it meets the actual requirements of the ISO 9001 standard, and you will have nothing to worry about!

Posted in ISO 9001, Myths | No Comments »

Welcome!

July 1st, 2009 By The Quality Manager

Welcome to my world of Getting Things Done, based on the best-selling first book by David Allen.

Would you like to have more energy, be more relaxed, and get a lot more done with much less effort?

Who wouldn’t?

If the answer’s “yes” then David Allen’s Getting Things Done systematic approach to the “game of work” and the “business of life” is for you.

When I first came across David’s work in 1987, he was still, I believe, refining the practices that he later synthesised into Getting Things Done which he published in 2001 and remains an international best-seller. In 2001 I bought the book and started implementing, or rather transforming, the time management system I was then using into what is now known as the GTD systematic approach.

It was 2006 before I was able to attend one of David Allen’s seminars, which by then had become the GTD The RoadMap. At this I met David and was pleased to find him friendly, approachable and inquisitive about how I came across GTD and how I’d implemented the system.

Since then David has published Ready For Anything (in 2003) and his latest book, Making It All Work, was published in 2008.

I’m going to explain how I implemented GTD and how my systematic approach had developed over time and how it continues to evolve. I’ll also throw in some other productivity tips I’ve discovered along the way.

Keep reading to see one person’s insight into the system that works even for the laziest people on the planet!

Posted in David Allen, GTD, Getting Things Done (Book), Making It All Work (Book), Ready For Anything (Book) | No Comments »