I've been chewing on Gray Southon's dandy question, whether "ISO 9000 does
really enhance innovation and learning."
I'm not an ISO consultant, just an ISO user. The piece of it that strikes
me most as contributing to organizational learning is the inspection
process. It is by no means bozo-proof, but the extent to which it
promotes organizational learning is remarkable.
Say you have drafted a largeish document of some sort (requirements,
design doc, user manual, whatever). You'd like to get others to chop on
it to make sure it's clear, correct, etc. The difference between putting
that doc out for review, on the one hand, and getting it inspected, on the
other, is striking.
In an inspection (as I know it, anyhow), reviewers log their comments, the
producer responds to each (accept, reject, or discuss), and a meeting
addresses all items that were not accepted by the producer, pushing very
hard for closure on every last item. Given a little time to get used to
the drill, this turns out to be a surprisingly strong learning discipline
for all concerned.
I have not yet puzzled out why inspections are so different from reviews.
It's not fear, though inspections, like the prospect of hanging, do seem
to concentrate the mind. They're just a different mindset somehow, with
built-in consciousness of the the methods used and their impact, and with
a shared sense of accountability. Perhaps it's as simple as the certainty
that our comments will be documented, seen by our peers, taken seriously,
and resolved.
Personally, I hate paperwork with a passion. But I don't mind the ISO
paper as a reviewer, because it's giving me my say in things. And I don't
mind the paper as a producer (author), because it's the best way I know to
get issues identified and then nailed down; and there's closure, too,
which is rewarding in itself.
Most inspection meetings I've been in produce a better product as an
immediate consequence; in the process, they expand the common ground of
understanding, language,and practices among the participants.
Cheers
Bill Buxton
--"William Buxton" <wbuxton@hns.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>