Take a sample poll in any organization, ask people what they think Quality is about. Few can talk about Quality with reference to documentation. Insistence on paperwork to verify compliance led people to believe Quality is all about documentation and paperwork. If paperwork is in order, reality is (naively or conveniently) assumed to be just fine. Sometimes it looks as if Quality is more about documentation and less about customer - that predicament still bugs many of you like it bugs me. But is documentation and paperwork really necessary for Quality?
In sensible servings, documentation is beneficial: as reference and as communication tool. Policies and high level processes should be documented. But traditional approach for pushing documentation for consistency, accountability, completeness is outdated. Documentation (in its traditional sense of paperwork) is as necessary as cheques are necessary to withdraw cash from your bank account. There are better and more effective ways of bringing in accountability, consistency and completeness, just as there are faster and convenient ways of withdrawing money using an ATM, electronic transfer/clearance etc.
Focusing on Quality rather than Documentation
When processes are seamlessly unified with requirements for workflow automation, built into a workflow tool, documentation takes different, more effective form . Benefits of documentation are achieved, but differently, through automating and implementing the processes. When document changes automatically mean workflow changes - changes become seamless needing minimal manual intervention. Business can focus on service provision and Quality can get workflows to reflect processes. This opens up a host of other possibilities too and focus shifts to Quality from documentation.
For this to happen, processes should directly address business requirements, not requirements of a standard. Often, processes are designed to comply with a standard and to get a certificate (The argument is not against certifications - in fact, no standard requires processes to be defined in a particular way, only broad guidelines are laid out). When certification is the goal in itself, business needs take back seat.
Even when that is not true, requirements for workflow automation are something and processes are something else. Quality owns processes and somebody else owns workflow tools and automation requirements – their goals are not common. Often these people don't see eye to eye, perhaps even be at logger heads with each other – and business needs take back seat. It comes down to a silly turf war, yet, no one dares ask executive management to intervene and to break the silos. Consequently, Quality remains a back office that can’t reach out to the end customers, cannot influence the way services are provided.
If ineffective leadership, egotism, personal agendas (like personal brand building) take precedence over everything else, paperwork and other trivial stuff takes precedence and Quality remains a back-office business.
What are your thoughts? You agree? Disagree? Just share your opinions (you don’t need to login to comment)
