Skattedirektoratet
møtereferat
U. Off. Off.l §5
Vedrørende
QMS Review
Dato
1. november 2006
Referanse
PEO
Møtedato
01.11.06 kl 11:40 (264 min)
Til stede
Managing Director (Petter Øgland)
Quality Manager (Petter Øgland)
Secretary (Petter Øgland)
Forfall
Møteleder
Petter Øgland
Referent
Petter Øgland
Minutes from Board Review of Quality Management System no 44/06
The meeting was conducted according to QP/4 and QP/8. Next Board Review is scheduled for
Monday next week. The agenda will be as defined by the minutes from this meeting [this
document]. Digital copy of minutes are recorded on server ”h:/Mine Dokumenter/03 Meetings
and Reports”.
1 Introduction
The reason I’m updating this document is because I want to improve the processes that are
relevant for personal quality and efficiency at Helsfyr and to make sure that my superior is
happy. My belief is that David Allen’s Getting Things Done (GTD) system should be a good
way of improving qualtiy and efficency, but it has to be implemented in a good manner.
Research question: How can I achieve improved quality, efficency and satisfaction
from my superior (“customer”) by use of the GTD system?
In the next section we look at some of the GTD theory, comparing it with other frameworks.
Then we have a methods section, and the we present the results from GTD reviews as applied
to the PhD process. The results are discussed in the next section, and the final section
contains a conclusion and recommentdations for further research.
2 Theory
My vision for a good solution is something that follows the principles of Lean Production (or
GTD) while also fitting with the ISO 9000 model.
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Side 2
2.1 The GTD system
David Allens time management method Getting Things Done (GTD) was published in 2001
and has become increasingly popular as a “back to basics” type of time management approach
(ref?). While we have found literature on GTD on the Internet, we are not yet sure to which
extent the method has been investigate in a scientific manner. The purpose of this article is to
try to investigate GTD by trying to see in which manner it can be used as a framework for
managing the process of doing PhD research, and we want to do that by investigating to which
extent GTD seems to be compatible with such frameworks as Lean Management (Womack &
Jones, 2003) and ISO 9000.
Allen (2001) has defined a framework for time management called Getting Things Done (GTD)
with focus on process rather than on deadlines and priorities. It is sometimes refered to as an
“action management” method (Wikipedia, 2006). The basic ideas look very similar to Lean
Management (Womack & Jones, 2003), although we haven’t yet found an formal comparison
between the two. Probably we should do both literature research and empirical testing in
order to find out how the two approaches meet.
2.2 GTD and ISO 9001:2000
We plan to use parts of the ISO 9001:2000 standard as a framework for doing action research
on how to get a PhD. Furthermore we are also interested in John Seddon’s work on applying
lean management principles for the service sector. Is it possible to use lean principles for
producing a PhD? The key idea here should probably have something to do with following
small units of knowledge through the cycle rather than reading batches of books. How would
one use such methods for learning about lean thinking? Probably it would have something to
do with building small systems that work and then elaborating on those as a method of
growing a total system.
2.3 GTD and Deming’s “System of Profound Knowledge”
In order to add structure to the approach, we have decided to group the research questions
along the four components in Deming’s “System of profound knowledge”, using the theory of
knowledge as the starting point for analysis as we are interested in applying the method of
action research for producing research papers.
2.4 Quality management system
The vision for the system as a whole is represented in the diagram below.
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Side 3
4. Continual improvement of the quality management system
5. Management
responsibility
1.Customers
8. Measurement,
analysis and
improvement
6. Resource
management
7.Product
realisation
2.
Requirements
1. Customers
3. Satisfaction
7. Product
Value-adding activity
Information flow
Figur 1 – The ISO 9000 process model
2.5 Management responsibility
2.5.1 Making priorities with GTD
What seems to be a possible lack in GTD is that there is no focus on priorities. Allen explains
this as being a part of the method, but it is nevertheless inconsistent with the advice of Koch
(1999) unless the GTD either creates a soft 80/20 approach or the weekly reviews can be
helpful for doing a statistical 80/20 analysis.
2.5.2 Building theory for improving the quality of business predictions
According to Deming (1993), the purpose of management is to make predictions. The data we
have collected so far, we have been using for making prediction as to how many items there is
in each of the six review folders. Why do we want to predict that? Are there other issues that
are more important to predict? The aim of LEAN is to make sure that everything flows as
smoothly and flexibly as possible, like water.
2.6 Resource management
From the perspective of action research, the human resource management part of resource
management is particularly interesting, as part of the philosophy of ISO 9000 is to make
people work more efficiently by doing structural changes. In my case of trying to get a PhD,
the result measurements of my efforts could be identified as a part of clause 6.2.
Hoyle (2003: 131-132) suggest there are five resource management processes; (1) resource
planning, (2) resource acquisition, (3) resourse deployment, (4) resource maintenance, and (5)
resource disposal. He uses a diagram to link these processes into a system where there is a
flow from resource planning through all processes and back to planning again. I choose to use
Hoyle’s model as my vision of the resource management process.
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Side 4
2.7 Product realization
2.7.1 The concept of FLOW
There are insights in the concept of ‘flow’ in terms of having clear goals producing a
psychological state of happiness. It is apparent that updating this document causes a mild
state of flow, but it does not necessarily mean that the process is meaningful. How can we
improve the concept of ‘flow’ in a more efficient manner?
2.8 Measurement, analysis and improvement
2.8.1 Building theory as a ‘map’
However, do these ideas constituate a theory? A theory should be like a map. It should be
based on (1) collecting data, (2) sorting things out, and (3) making laws that show how the
various categories relate to each other. What are the main categories for researching on how
to do a PhD? Probably we should use the theory of learning, investigating whether it is better
to read books at random than linearly. We also need to measure whether the ISO 9000 idea is
useful. We spent on average about half an hour every week on updating this document. Is it
worth it? Does it help us improving the management of the PhD process? In what way?
2.8.2 Building GTD as a Complex Adaptive System of independent processes
What does the map look like right now? For the moment we assume that spending 30 minutes
each week on updating this document to comply with the ISO 9001 requirements, the
management of the PhD process will emerge by itself. In other words, our assumption is that
starting with nothing and then just audting according to the ISO 9001 requiremet, a
management system will emerge by itself. Is this a good strategy? It will obviously take time
as there are more than 50 check points, meaning it will take many years before all checkpoints
have been assessed if we use the Monte Carlo approach. Are we sure it will converge? Could
it be seen as a CAS approach for building management information systems?
Allen describes five phases for doing GTD. There are five phases of processing and five phases
of project managing. In terms of what seems reasonble to measure, we have the following two:


Processing data from inbox (measure time)
Weekly review (measure time)
In the way we have implemented GTD at SKD in order to fit with the monthly and annual
cycles, we could also add the monthly review (measure time) and the annual review (with RN).
2.8.3 GTD and Action Research
Action research is a framework for doing research, but it is also a structure for collecting
knowledge. As the typical epistemological choice for doing action research consists of
understanding knowledge in a pragmatical sense in terms of what creates change, the
description of that kind of knowledge is perhaps best understood in terms of an algorithm of
some kind. In this way, GTD in itself can be seen as a knowledge structure, and what we
would like to research is a refined way of describing the GTD-flowchart to make sure that it
will work in the context of doing PhD research. In this respect, it will be necessary to compare
the GTD process with the AR process or the research process in general (e.g. Collins &
Hussey, 2003).
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Side 5
3 Method
According to Morgan (1979) there should be a close link between the chosen research
paradigm and methodology. When working in the context of action research, this puts
demands both of the chosen theory and methodology.
3.1 General description
The purpose of this document is to develop a method for weekly control, making sure the PhD
project is on track. We try to achieve this goal by doing introspective research on what we
seem to be “unconciously” doing in order to control and improve the research process. We
have framed this type of research as action research. The approach is inspired by discussions
with Lars Mathiassen. As we have not yet found any literature to support this approach, it
seems like relevant research, although we have not yet done sufficent amount of literature
research in order to understand the state of the art.
In order to get the best results from the research, it is our quality policy to make sure that the
process of collecting and analysing data is as efficient as possible. In order to make sure that
the research process is under control and improving we will use some statistics in this section
to indicate stability and progress.
3.2 Population and sampling procedures
Although we are studying our own process we would like to think of the general population
being people applying GTD for doing administrative work in general, although we are
sampling data only from our own work. In order to answer the question about how to
implement GTD we need to sample data from how we have implemented GTD so far and then
carry out experiments by tinkering with the process in order to see whether it is possible to
make improvements.
As there should be a weekly review within the GTD system, we sample data from the folders
on a weekly basis, as a part of this weekly review. We sample data by counting elements in
the six folders defined by Allen, and also do weekly ISO 9001 audits where we measure the
maturity of the system according to the ISO 9004 scale as a way of trying to achieve
systematic improvements.
3.3 Research instruments
In our case we would like to consider the SPC diagrams as our research instruments. The
diagrams are supposed to give a statistical description of the stability of the processes, and
thus need to be calibrated whenever it is reason to believe that the processes have changed.
3.4 Data collection
The diagrams below show the amount of data we go through each week (or every second
week), and how much time we spend on data collection.
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Side 6
Inbox (size)
UCL = 173
AVG = 126
LCL = 79
Proc. inbox (min)
LCL = -0,6
44
40
35
25
23
21
19
17
15
44
38
32
28
25
22
19
16
13
7
10
4
1
0
13
50
11
100
9
150
7
200
5
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
250
AVG = 1,5
UCL = 3,6
One problem with the mailbox for week 22. Otherwise the process seems to be stable.
3.5 Data analysis
The audit plan:
55
51
41
31
54
42
55
25
35
51
11
2
10
51
10
2
14
6
28
49
(30.07.06)
(07.08.06)
(21.08.06)
(04.09.06)
(18.09.06)
(02.10.06)
(16.10.06)
(01.11.06)
27
38
37
30
9
22
14
1
36
26
42
50
2
34
26
24
37
52
29
13
35
53
19
22
50
6
25
42
3
25
40
18
53
7
20
47
54
34
19
37
50
34
51
7
50
1
8
34
30
12
28
17
41
37
37
55
32
41
42
47
28
35
30
35
53
54
24
24
10
4
44
6
1
33
49
29
43
28
12
13
The audit results will be presented in chapter 5.1.
4 Results
We try measure the size of the six files defined according to the GTD methodology.
4.1 Control diagrams
All six diagrams are controlled in the same manner. The first observation was done on week
33. Previous data are related to other processeses.
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Side 7
@Calender/T-File
UCL = 23,1
40
34
28
25
22
19
16
13
7
10
@File
UCL = 23,1
AVG = 12,4
LCL = 1,7
@NextAction List
UCL = 24,0
AVG = 12,3
LCL = 0,6
@Project List
UCL = 25,8
40
34
AVG = 12,0
LCL = -1,8
@Someday/M.be
UCL = 25,9
AVG = 12,0
LCL = -1,8
@Waiting For
UCL = 20,7
40
34
28
25
22
19
16
13
7
10
4
1
40
34
28
25
22
19
16
13
10
7
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
4
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
28
25
22
19
16
13
7
10
4
1
40
34
28
25
22
19
16
13
10
7
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
4
1
4
AVG = 12,4
LCL = 1,7
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1
1
40
34
28
25
22
19
16
13
10
7
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
4
1
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
AVG = 14,3
LCL = 7,9
4.2 Resource management
The structure below follows the structure of Hoyle as described in chapter 2.6.
4.2.1 Resource planning
The planning process is integrated in the GTD system, meaning that we do little planning
beyond having a process that means we show up at Helsfyr every 14 days. This means we
have about 4 hours a week in order to get work done, where most of this work is realted to
adminsitrative duties. More detailed predictions are given in the SPC diagrams in chapter
4.2.4 below.
4.2.2 Resource aquisition
Acquisition consists mainly of buying books from amazon. We use the “waiting for” folder in
GTD to make sure that we are reminded of books that don’t show up in time, and we also
register books on a separate plan. The “waiting for” SPC diagram above and the checklists
and SPC diagram in the separate plan show that the resource acquisition process is managed.
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Side 8
4.2.3 Resource deployment
As books arrive at home, we either bring them to Helsfyr or to Blindern or keep them at home.
In all three cases we have elements of an archive to make sure we know how many books we
have and what the exact titles are.
350
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
42
44
Books at Helsfyr
UCL = 291
AVG = 132
LCL = 0
42
44
Fully registered books
4.2.4 Resource maintenance
Days
LCL = 0
AVG = 7
UCL = 15
120
10
100
8
80
6
60
4
40
2
20
44
38
28
25
22
19
16
13
10
Minutes
LCL = 0
12
0
7
1
44
38
0
28
0
25
50
22
100
5
19
10
16
150
13
200
15
10
20
7
250
4
300
25
1
30
4
As I understand Hoyle, resource maintenance relates to the resources used during production
(order fulfilment). In my case this corresponds to the diagrams below, that I use to monitor,
control and predict time and cost for doing the weekly reviews.
AVG = 18
UCL = 57
0
2005
Days (avg)
LCL = 3,68
2006
AVG = 7,18
UCL = 10,68
2005
Min (avg)
LCL = -20
2006
AVG = 47
UCL = 114
Resource maintenance also corresponds to the monthly reports I fill out for my superior, so
that he can see that I’m spending the right amout of resources on doing the PhD research.
4.2.5 Resource disposal
Sometimes I need the books at Blindern or at home rather than at Helsfyr. The systems and
diagrams mentioned in section 4.2.2 and 4.2.3 are used for monitoring and control.
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Side 9
4.3 Summary of problems
The table below represents a Pareto analysis of the problems recorded from the SPC diagrams
above.
Process
3.1 Meetings cost
3.2 Meetings frequency
4.6 @Waiting For
4.1 @Calender/Tickler File
4.2 @File
4.3 @NextAction List
4.4 @Project List
4.5 @Someday/Maybe
3.4 Processing inbox
3.3 Inbox
TOTAL
2004-y
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2005-y
3
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
5
2006-y
11
4
3
2
2
2
2
2
1
0
28
Total
14
6
3
2
2
2
2
2
1
0
33
So far there seems to be an initial tendency of an increasing level of errors. In time this level
should stabilize and we should be able to make a SPC chart.
5 Discussion
As mentioned in section two, we want to use ISO 9001:2000 as a theoretical framework, and in
this section we want to discuss to which extent the current approach is consistent with ISO
9001:2000 and what can be done in order to improve the situation.
5.1 An overview of the significant findings of the study
We chose to use the ISO 9001 audit results as a way of summarizing the main findings. The
audits have been selected according to the audit plan in chapter 3 with the following audit
results:
Clause no
ISO 9001:2000 title
4
1 Quality management
system
2 General requirements
4.1
4.2
4.2.1
3 Documentation
requirements
4 General
Documented practice within the
main document.
The quality management system
for running the weekly control is
described in section three. There
is, however, not listing of
processes and how the processes
relate to each other.
Quality policy and quality
objectives are implied in the
experiment, but there is no
explicit reference to the words
“quality policy” or “quality
ISO
compliant
0
ISO
capability
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
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Side 10
4.2.2
4.2.3
4.2.4
5 Quality Manual
6 Control of documents
7 Control of records
objectives”.
Chapter 3
There are procedures QP/1 ?
This document is stored
systematically.
Score
Clause no
ISO 9001:2000 title
5
8 Management
responsibility
9 Management
commitment
5.1
5.2
10 Customer focus
5.3
11 Quality policy
Documented practice within the
main document.
We have written proof for top
managements commitment to
making sure the COBOL
software complies with the
COBOL standard through the
“strategisk plan for bruk av IT i
Skatteetaten” (chapter 4.3.1), the
top management signatures on
the preface of the COBOL
standard, and we are now also
trying to establish a routine were
top management gets more
involved in each cycle by
controlling the annual evaluation
report before it gets published.
As the customers in the case of
standardizing COBOL software
seem to be the programmers
themselves, it is not quite clear
how we should interpret the
issue of customer satisfaction
(see also checkpoint 8.2.1).
15.10.06: The aim of the quality
policy should be to create a
vision for the work to be done.
In the case of running a GTD
system, the purpose is obviously
to improve efficiency and reduce
stress, so the vision (quality
policy) should be to make a QMS
that is compliant with the leanprinciples of GTD and the
requirements of ISO 9001.
As it is presently somewhat
unclear how to be more formal
and use measurements for
0
0
0
0
0
0
0,00
0,00
ISO
compliant
0
ISO
capability
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
møtereferat
Side 11
creating or updating the quality
policy, we find it difficult to see
how we can go beyond ISO 9004
maturity level 1.
In order to meet the
requirements of ISO 9001, we
should perhaps say something
about the vision of the
experiment in the introduction to
chapter three.
5.4
5.4.1
5.4.2
5.5
5.5.1
Another approach may perhaps
be to think of the research
question as the vision, or
perhaps seeing the research
question as a way of coming
closer to the vision of the system.
From this perspective, we would
expect to see chapter one as the
place to search for the quality
policy.
12 Planning
Although the basic issues seem
to be okay, we need to
investigate planning a bit
further.
13 Quality objectives
COBOL software should comply
with the internal COBOL
standard. Explicit quality
objectives are described in the
standard. There is a
measurement program developed
to make sure that the quality
objectives are being met.
14 Quality management
Updates of this document are
system planning
discussed in chapter 5 and 6. In
later issues, it will be important
to make references to this table
and produce SPC statistics to
make sure that the quality
management system as actually
becoming better with each
annual iteration.
15 Responsibilty, authority Responsibility, authority and
and communication
communication looks okay, but
we need more measurements in
order to make sure the processes
are improving.
16 Responsibility and
Responsibilty and authority
authority
follows the usual structure of
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
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Side 12
5.5.2
5.5.3
5.6
5.6.1
5.6.2
5.6.3
IT/SYS. The research scientist is
currently responsible for
monitoring and analysis as this
is part of the experiment.
17 Management
As the Research Scientist
representative
(Øgland) is situated in a staff
position under the IT manager
general (Nybø), the research
design is sufficient for making
the position of the research
scientist meeting the
requirement of “management
representative”.
18 Internal communication Not much communication is
needed. All communication is
done in writing and supplied
with interviews if anything
unusual is registered by the SPC
diagrams.
19 Management review
The document itself looks like a
good way of doing and
documenting the management
review, but as this has not yet
been done in a formal manner,
we need to wait and see whether
it will work as expected.
20 General
By using this document, we have
a process for doing management
reviews on an annual basis. The
review will be documented in
ELARK (in compliance with
4.2.4) and all relevant parts of
ISO 9001 will be addressed.
21 Review input
A draft version of this document
is used as input
22 Review output
When this document has been
signed by management, it
functions as review output.
Score
Clause no
ISO 9001:2000 title
Documented practice within the
main document.
6
23 Resource
management
01.11.06: At the moment, all
requirements seem to be met,
although some processes are still
at level 1. More measurements
and deeper reading of Hoyle is
needed.
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0,00
0,07
ISO
compliant
1
ISO
capability
1
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Side 13
6.1
24 Provision of resources
6.2
25 Human resources
6.2.1
26 General
6.2.2
27 Competence, awareness
and training
01.11.06: As shown in chapter
4.2, when it comes to managing
books and managing time, there
are processes in existence.
In both cases there are SPC
diagrams, but as not all books
have been fully archived in the
system and the cost of weekly
reviews is not yet stable, we
assume that the maturity is on
level 2.
01.11.06: As 6.2.1 and 6.2.2 are
accepted, 6.2 should be acceted
as well.
01.11.06: The purpose of the
human resources clause is to
make sure that we have
competent people. I certainly
consider myself competent for
doing the tasks provided for me
by my superior, i.e. being a
quality management researcher
and getting a PhD. The fact that
I was accepted at the PhD course
at UiO should be sufficient proof
at this stage.
In this spring I managed two
exams out of two (100%). This
autum I also hope to do two
exames out of two, but I’m not
yet sure what to measure for this
clause. I could perhaps measure
the number of complaints I get
from my superior. Last year I
got one complaint (annual
appraisal). This year there have
been no complaints so far.
01.11.06: I’m now getting the
PhD training for becoming a
better research scientist, doing
even better work than I did as a
quality manager.
a) Necessary competance: PhD
b) Provide training: PhD
program
c) Awareness. ok
d) maintain appropriate records
of education, training, skills:
1
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
møtereferat
Side 14
home page at UiO + CV + SKD
archives + RN folder with copies
of all exams.
As required in ISO 9001, it is the
organization (SKD + UiO) who
have defined the PhD standard,
and I try to comply with that.
6.3
6.4
28 Infrastructure
29 Work environment
Competence, awareness and
training should be measured
based on the number of academic
articles I manage to publish per
year. This year I have only
publised at IRIS 29, but it is
better than the previous year
when I had none. In order to
move up to level 3, I need to be
able to plot diagram showing
annual improvement or stability.
01.11.06: Helsfyr provides me
with an office and a place to have
my books. I do not have access
to all the relevant databases, but
I have access to the Internet and
I have access to relevant journals
at Blindern. I have access to
COBOL statistics, and through
negotiations I should probably be
able to get access to all the kind
of relevant data that I should
need.
Currently I do not measure the
infrastructre appart from the
fact that I get COBOL data
whenever I ask for it. In order to
move up to level 2, I should be
more specific about what to
measure.
01.11.06: The only work
environment I need as an office,
book shelves, a computer, access
to the internet and access to the
organization where I’m about to
conduct the experiments.
I’m not sure how to measure
this, although I’ve previously
filled out “health environment
1
1
1
1
møtereferat
Side 15
security” forms, in order to
explain that everything is okay.
Score
Clause no
ISO 9001:2000 title
7
7.1
30 Product realization
31 Planning of product
realization
7.2
7.2.1
7.2.2
Documented practice within the
main document.
04.09.06: What is the product?
If we consider this document as
the product, then the methods
chapter in section three shows
how we update the document
each week and try to improve the
way we are getting things done.
Perhaps we should think of the
GTD algorithm as the product,
as this is a research process and
the product should the be
knowledge. In that case we
could say that quality objects,
test requirements etc should be
described in chapter three. So
far, however, chapter three is not
up to date, although we use SPC
for monitoring time, cost and
quality of process (ISO 9004).
We have not yet defined ways to
monitor the quality of product
(quality of algorithm).
32 Customer-related
The programmers have
processes
themselves designed the COBOL
standard, so they have
themselves made the
specifications to be met.
33 Determination of
When making the original
requirements related to the standard and updating the
product
standard, I gave some additional
feedback to make sure that the
standard was “operationally
defined” (appropriate for
generating measurement) and
also that it seemed consisted
with international advice on
programming in general and
COBOL programming in
particular.
34 Review of requirements The programmers used the
to the product
procedure in “hefte 1” for making
1,00
1,29
ISO
compliant
0
0
ISO
capability
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
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Side 16
7.2.3
7.3
7.4
7.5
7.5.1
7.5.2
7.5.3
7.5.4
7.5.5
and updating the standard.
35 Customer
The update of the standard was
communication
done by a committee of
programmers who then
communicated the ideas to the
rest of the programmers.
36 Design and development Does not apply. The process
consists of standardizing the
COBOL software. Perhaps one
could see the updates of the
COBOL standard as design and
development, and there are
written procedures for how to to
that, but we choose not to focus
on that aspect at the moment.
37 Purchasing
Not applicable, at least not if we
think of purchasing from some
external supplier.
38 Production and service
provision
39 Control of product and
Control of production seems to
service provision
correspond with how the
experiment is designed in
chapter 3.
40 Validation of processes
Not yet clear how to interpret
for production and service
this. There are no written
provision
procedures on how to
standardize COBOL software,
and there seems to be no reason
why such procedures should be
written.
41 Identification and
21.08.06: The six files of the
traceability
GTD systems are used for
keeping track of every item to be
processed.
42 Customer property
02.10.06: Sometimes I need to
handle customer property in
terms of borrowing books or
material from TJG or others, and
I may also handle intellecutal
property in terms of discussing
issues with people that need to
be handled with confidenciality.
Although I use the GTD system
for handling books, there is no
explicit procedure or mature
practice indicating how this
should be done.
43 Preservation of product Software is always in the same
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
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Side 17
7.6
44 Control of monitoring
and measuring devices
place.
The COBOL measurement
program was updated when the
COBOL standard was updated.
Score
Clause no
ISO 9001:2000 title
Documented practice within the
main document.
8
45 Measurement,
analysis and
improvement
46 General
Much is in place, but we need to
focus more on customer
satisfaction and internal audits.
a) There is a measurement
system for checking software
compliance with the COBOL
standard. (stable process,
capability = 3).
b) These tables in appendix B are
used for measuring how the
quality system fits with ISO
9001:2000. (initial process,
capability = 1).
c) These tables in appendix B are
also used for measuring how the
quality management system
improves in compliance with ISO
9004:2000. (initial process,
capability = 1).
Customer satisfaction and
internal audit has not been
sufficiently established.
Monitoring and measurement of
product and process should be
sufficient.
As the programmers themselves
are the customers to the
standardization process, it is
unclear how we should measure
customer satisfaction. Perhaps
we should ask programmers to
rotate and report whether they
feel comfortable with the new
COBOL software they now have
to deal with?
This discussion section is used
for checking whether the
experiment is carried out in
compliance with ISO 9001:2000
or not. It is not possible to make
8.1
8.2
47 Monitoring and
measurement
8.2.1
48 Customer satisfaction
8.2.2
49 Internal audit
0
0
0,07
0,20
ISO
compliant
0
ISO
capability
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
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Side 18
8.2.3
50 Monitoring and
measurement of processes
8.2.4
51 Monitoring and
measurement of product
the audits independent, as this is
a one-man company.
The time charts and SPC
diagrams all show that we are
monitoring and measuring
processes. Action is taken in
compliance with the principles of
SPC.
07.08.06: There are three types
of processes/products: (1)
Writing articles, (2) reading
books/articles, and (3)
administrative processes like
writing this weekly document.
0
0
1
2
0
0
In order to make things as
simple as possible, we start by
focusing on (3). In the weekly
process of updating this
document, this document in itself
is the product. We are
monitoring the process by
focusing on time and resources in
chapter 3. In the graphs at the
bottom of chapter 5 we measure
to which extent this document
compiles with the requirements
of ISO 9000. Currently
(07.08.06), the compliance is
0.53, but measuring the
compliance in itself means that
this particular checkpoint should
be safe.
8.3
52 Control of nonconforming product
With respect to the maturity of
the process, the monitoring is
systematic (weekly) and there
are some minimum data of
improvement available in the
ISO 9000 and ISO 9004 graphs,
but not sufficient for saying that
the process has reached maturity
level 3. We assess the maturity
level to be 2.
It is not quite clear how we
should interpret the concept
“non-conforming product” here.
What we are investigating is
whether the standardization
process is stable or not. Non-
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Side 19
8.4
53 Analysis of data
8.5
54 Improvement
8.5.1
55 Continual improvement
conforming product in such a
context should correspond to too
much improvement, too little
improvement or other
unexpected phenomena.
Analysis of data is done by the
use of SPC diagrams and Pareto
charts. There is currently no
focus on customer satisfaction, as
the concept of the customer is
somewhat unclear in this context
(i.e. the programmers
themselves), but analysis of data
provide information related to
conformity to product
requirements (COBOL standard)
and characteristics and trends of
processes and products as
opportunities for preventive
action. As the programmers
themselves are the software
suppliers, analysis providing
information related to suppliers
equals analysis related to
products and processes.
18.09.06: There are elements of
continuous improvement, as can
be seen on the ISO 9001 and ISO
9004 charts, but there is little
evidence of improvement being
done due to corrective of
preventive actions yet. The only
corrective and preventive actions
in this case must be how we
respond to this ISO 9001
assessment.
16.10.06: We have now been
using the ISO 9004 maturity
measurements for almost three
months, and despite this
obviously being a good idea as we
by this approach indirectly make
sure the effectiveness of the
QMS is being improved by use of
(a) quality policy, (b) quality
objectives, (c) audit results, (d)
analysis of data, (e) corrective
and preventive actions, and (f)
management reviews, we have
measured no improvement on
0
0
0
1
1
1
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Side 20
the ISO 9004 chart between
week 27 and week 40. In order
to be on ISO 9004 maturity level
2 “reactive approach” we need to
have established a “problem- or
corrective-based systematic
approach with minium data on
improvement results available”.
Thus in order to move from level
1 to level 2 we need the ISO 9004
graph to be indicating
improvement.
8.5.2
56 Corrective action
8.5.3
57 Preventive action
30.07.06: We want to measure
annual improvement with
respect to some indicator
measuring results divided by
costs. So far the main focus has
been on measuring costs
(minutes in chapter 3). It is too
early to identify a total indicator
for measuring continual
improvement, but as an early
indicator we use the ISO 9004
maturity indicator.
So far there are no formal
procedures for corrective actions,
although corrections are carried
out in order to improve the
system.
So far there are no formal
procedures for preventive
actions, although the system is
continuously being improved in
order to make it more efficient.
Score
Clause no
ISO 9001:2000 title
Opportunities for improvement.
4
Quality management
system
5
Management
responsibility
We need to rewrite chapter 3
while looking at the
requirements in ISO 9000 to
make it quite evident that the
design of experiment is
consistent with the ISO
standard. This should be made
explicitly clear.
The most important issue to
address is probably the
0
0
0
0
0,15
0,31
ISO
compliant
0,00
ISO
capability
0,00
0,00
0,07
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Side 21
7
Product realization
8
Measurement, analysis
and improvement
6
Resource management
management review.
We need to do a deeper analysis
on the clauses related to
production (7.5) to see how we
should refer to the production
flowchart in chapter 3.4.
We should figure out how to
measure customer satisfaction,
how to do internal audits, and
construct efficient formal
procedures for corrective and
preventive actions.
We need to investigate whether
there are some procedures that
make certain that all new
personnel get training in how to
comply with the COBOL
standards.
Score
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3
0,2
0,1
0
0,07
0,20
0,15
0,31
1,00
1,29
0,24
0,37
1
0,8
0,6
0,4
0,2
0
26
27
28
34
35
36
37
38
40
42
44
27
28
34
ISO 9001:2000
35
36
37
38
40
42
44
ISO 9004:2000
The purpose of the diagrams is to document how the way we are doing weekly updates is
gradually getting more and more compliant with the ISO 9000 framework.
5.2 A consideration of the findings in light of existing research studies
A relevant comparison would be the research I am doing at home, but it would be more
interesting to look at published research, indicating the state of the art when it comes to
designing quality management systems for single-person organizations. So far, I have not
found anything on this.
5.3 Implications of the study for current theory
I have the book by ISO on ISO 9001 for small organizations (Pronorm, 2003), and I have the
book by Tricker (2005). Neither of these books seem to emphasize the importance of the
maturity level of the quality management group should be on the same level or a higher level
than the processes the quality management group try to improve.
Seddon (1999) questions whether the ISO 9000 framework is consistent with “lean
management” and the Deming philosophy of quality management. What we would like our
study to show is that not only is the ISO 9000 framework compliant with Lean Management,
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Side 22
but it also provides a good framework for installing Lean Management in small organizations,
such as single-person organizations.
5.4 A careful examination of findings that fail to support the hypothesis
The main challenge so far, is that the data in the ISO 9004 does not really tell us anything
yet, beyond the fact that the maturity level we found during week 27 still seems to be the best
estimate for the actual maturity level of the QMS.
5.5 Limitations of the study that may affect the validity or generalisation of the results
Beyond the fact that we are studying ourselves, the main challenge for validity and
generalisation at the moment is that we haven’t done a sufficient ISO 9004 analysis in order
to say whether the QMS is improving or not. Perhaps the approach would have worked better
if we started by setting all unverified control points equal to zero rather than just assigning
random numbers as given from a previous assessment of a different QMS.
5.6 Recommendations for further research
If we look at the benchmark table at the bottom of chapter 5.1, we see that the clauses related
to chapter four in ISO 9001 are the ones with the lowest score. This should indicate that this
is perhaps the area were we are in most need for more knowledge. However, as we are still
have not made a complete assessment of the QMS, it may perhaps be more wise to focus on
chapter eight.
5.7 Implications of the study for professional practice or applied settings
For the professional practice of designing, implementing and maintaining quality
management systems, we believe that our main idea is that the quality management function
should be on a ISO 9004 maturity level that is higher than the ISO 9004 maturity level of the
organization as such. We believe the following algorithm may be a simple way of achieving
this:
1. Start by installing GTD and apply SPC for weekly reviews
2. Use the ISO 9000 framework for doing QMS assessments as part of the weekly review
3. Document the process as if it were a research project, researching ISO 9001 quality
management systems, by using the ISO 9004 theory and research questions.
It is furthermore important to be selective when doing the ISO 9004 assessments, starting
with the processes that relate to the administrative processes of doing audits.
6 Conclusion
So far we have not described the GTD algorithm in its original form nor have we described
how we believe it should look like in order to enhance performance. However, we seem to be
progressing in a nice way. The concepts do not seem to be quite clear yet, but they look better
than they did half a year ago.
Further research must be carried on, however, in terms of completing the ISO 9001
assessment and then gradually move on to improve the framework by applying Lean
Management principles and Deming principles to the GTD process, continuously evaluating
the process according to the ISO 9004:2000 standard.
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Side 23
References
Allen, D. (2001) Getting things done, New York.
Collis, J. & Hussey, R. (2003). Business Research: A practical guide for undergraduate and
postgraduate students. Second Edition, Palgrave Macmillan: New York.
Deming, E.W. (1993). The New Economics. Second Edition. MIT Press: Massachusettes.
Hoyle, D. (2003). ISO 9000:2000 – An A-Z Guide. Butterworth-Heinemann: Oxford.
ISO (2000). Quality Management Systems – Requirements (ISO 9001:2000), Geneve.
Koch, R. (1999). Le principe 80/20: Faire plus avec moins, Les Edition de L’Homme: Paris.
Morgan (1979). …
Murdaugh, B. (2005). Getting Things Done with Gmail,
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Pronorm (2003). NS-EN ISO 9001 for små virksomheter. Pronorm AS: Lysaker.
Seddon, J. (1997). In Pursuit of Quality: The Case Against ISO 9000, Oak Tree Press: London.
Tricker, R. (2005). ISO 9001:2000 for Small Businesses. Third Edition. Elsevier: London.
Wikipedia (2006). Getting Things Done, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_things_done
(accessed 2 October 2006).
Womack, J.P. & Jones, D.T. (2003). Lean Thinking: Banish waste and create wealth in your
corporation, Free Press Business: New York.