IRCA Exam Revision Tips

Posted on May 19, 2014 by Shaun

I spend more time than I really want to advising people on how best to prepare for IRCA Lead Auditor exams, so I suppose it is time for a time saving blog post. I apologise in advance to anyone who has found this post hoping to find answers or strong tips on what the questions will be. I’m not giving you the actual answers. I do, however, hope that you’ll still read the post and that it will help you to pass your exam by fair means rather than foul.

In order to fully prepare for the exam, I think you first need to understand what the IRCA are trying to test. That is, the important auditor attributes of knowing the audit criteria, knowing the process and being able to think and act professionally. Generally you’ll be tested in three broad areas;

Your knowledge and accurate application of the relevant standard (ISO 9001. OHSAS 18001 etc)

Bear in mind that, whatever the exam, you’ll have access to that standard anyway, but knowing the standard is important. Just as important will be your ability to apply it in context.

Your knowledge of the audit process (particularly 3rd party)

That is, Stage 1, Stage 2, Audit Planning, Opening Meeting, Report Writing, Closing meeting, Appeals, Corrective Actions, Close out etc. Be clear about what happens at each stage, who is involved, what is required, desired outcomes and so on.

Your ability to apply sound judgement during an audit

This might be to identify priorities or checklist items in a given scenario, or how you might respond to an inconvenience, obstacle or query during the audit. These questions rely on you (the auditor) understanding his/her mission objective, being able to stick to that and not be distracted.

The mission objective? WHEREVER POSSIBLE STICK TO THE PLAN AND EXECUTE THE AUDIT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE AGREED PLAN. It is also important that you remember the auditor’s primary function TO ESTABLISH AND REPORT THE FACTS.

DO NOT pay any attention to people (especially in LinkedIn Forums!) who suggest the auditor has a broad role that could involve anything from consulting, diagnosing, problem solving, lecturing on what is right and wrong, or indeed anything else. Whilst these people may be entitled to hold weird and wonderful views YOU WILL BE MARKED DOWN if you share those views on your exam paper BECAUSE THEY ARE WRONG.

The exam papers are constructed so as to award maximum marks for descriptive answers and explanations. There are few right/wrong answer questions. There are some important reasons for this. First, it is easier to identify exam fraud and impropriety if the majority of questions require descriptive answers (that is, scripted/model answers are VERY easy to spot) and secondly, a good auditor needs to be able to think, reason and explain. Right/wrong answers do not test those important auditor attributes.

Hope that was useful. It’s over to you now. Good luck.

Shaun Sayers

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Quality and efficiency

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Shaun

 

A while ago I published an article on this blog entitled “Why doesn’t the quality community get it?”. The article was subsequently re-published by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) on their site, to a somewhat mixed reception. In the post I suggested that the reason so many “quality professionals” struggle to obtain the elusive “top management commitment” was because they make little attempt to meet management half-way and understand basic business dynamics and realities. I suggested that many within the “quality community” could do worse than to take a look at themselves as a starting point if they wanted to change the situation.

You only have to take a look at some of the comments on the CQI site to note how quickly denial kicked in. I was running a serious risk of rubbing a few folk up the wrong way, but those of you know me well will understand that the possibility of that was never going to bother me.

Anyway, time has moved on, and today I have been involved in an on-line discussion that was originally centred on comparing ISO 9001 with TQM. The discussion somehow evolved into one about efficiency and effectiveness, and this was where I had an epiphany. During the course of the discussion two things became apparent.

1. Many practitioners considered that efficiency had little, if anything, to do with ISO 9001, and consequently was outside of the remit of the quality department

2. A lot of quality people did not even understand what the term “efficiency” actually means

To illustrate my second point I’ll use the example that one contributor stated that efficiency was about “doings things right”. Well it isn’t. That is closer to the definition of effectiveness. Efficiency and effectiveness are not the same thing

What is efficiency?

The term efficiency has meaning in a range of contexts, not just quality. Here are a couple of definitions from the worlds of physics, economics and lastly from quality.

Efficiency in physics

“The ratio of the effective output compared to the total input within a system”

Efficiency in economics

“Situation in which it is impossible to generate a larger total from the available resources”

Efficiency in ISO 9000

“Relationship between the result achieved and the resources used”

All of these definitions say more or less the same thing, that a state of efficiency compares what you get out to what you put in. A highly efficient system, therefore, is one that produces the most conforming output items for a given input.

Efficiency is NOT about “doing it right”

When politicians claim that a public sector department is inefficient, they are not claiming that they can’t do their job. They are suggesting that the department costs more to run than it should. They are claiming that there is too much waste in the system. That if the department was more efficient, then we’d be getting a similar output, but we’d not need to spend so much to get it.

Now, there are two things that amaze me when it comes to some “quality” people;

1. Just how few appear to have grasped this fairly simple and fundamental concept

2. Many quality professionals do not see “efficiency” as part of their brief in any way

Understanding this has been my eureka, my blinding flash. Now everything is clear to me. Now I understand why many quality professionals fail to engage senior management and turn them on to quality. The fact is that if senior management were to try and run a business using the narrow view of quality adopted by many quality types, we’d be closing the doors in no time.

Businesses have to be efficient. If they are inefficient, they become uncompetitive. They may be able to produce conforming and functioning goods, but they can’t make any money in the process. Call me obtuse, but if I was a senior manager and I had a quality manager that had not grasped that basic concept, and had not looked at how his “quality strategy” could help me make a decent margin, I’d not have much time for the guy either.

When Philip Crosby suggested that quality people needed to speak the language of the boardroom in order to be effective, he wasn’t throwing in a disposable sound bite, he was succinctly making an incredibly important point. In fact if I was a CEO who had a quality manager who did not think that efficiency was part of his job, I’d be looking for a new quality manager within five minutes.

… and finally (courtesy of Michael Palin in his 1977 film Jabberwocky) a demonstration why process improvement must always be introduced under controlled conditions …

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bsCu5yD9aY[/youtube]

Posted in ISO 9000, Quality Improvement | Tagged , , , , , | 16 Comments

Beginners’ guide to ISO 9001

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Shaun

 

Here’s a round up of a few ISO 9001 posts from the past couple of years that I think will be most useful for people feeling their way with the standard, or perhaps wondering if it is right for them

ISO 9001 a short overview – a pocket sized summary of ISO 9001 requirements

Permissible exclusions explained – a summary of what can be excluded and under what circumstances

ISO 9001 & continual improvement – what the standard needs with regard to the improvement process

ISO 9001 and the process approach – the process approach explained

Quality Policy and Objectives – what you need to know to get these right

The real benefits of ISO 9001 – don’t listen to consultants. They have a vested interest and half of them have no idea about the economic realities of running a business. Here’s the low down

ISO 9001 for service providers – a translation of the jargon for my beloved followers in the service sector. You are the future

ISO 9001 Internal Auditing – a summary of what you need to know to implement an effective audit program

Changes ISO 9001:2000 to ISO 9001:2008 – a summary and explanation of these largely cosmetic and wholly disappointing set of changes

A comparison of ISO 9001 and EFQM approaches – useful for anyone wondering whether EFQM can help deliver the “next step”

You’ll find even more on these themes by browsing the ISO 9000 category in the left side bar. But these will give any new starters a a decent low down. Hope you find it useful

If you have any further questions, feel free to get in touch

Shaun Sayers

Posted in ISO 9000 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The real benefits of ISO 9001 certification

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Shaun

ISO 9001, that part of the ISO 9000 series that defines the quality management system requirements, clearly means many things to many people. There are certainly people with a vested interest in promoting its virtues and (sometimes) overstating its merits in the process. There are also some very vociferous opponents, including some career critics who have made a good living from disparaging it. But let’s try to be objective and think things through clearly

Why do people seek registration?

I’m tired of seeing confused debates by so called quality professionals about the uses and benefits of ISO 9001. “How do we increase its take up? How do we get more companies interested?” … Why would you want to do that? If you have to sell something so hard, maybe the need isn’t there, and there’s only one result that comes from selling something that isn’t needed – Disuse. The simple inarguable truth is that most registered organisations seek registration to meet the requirements of an important customer, or an important prospect. It basically allows the company to bid for work they would otherwise be excluded from, as the customer has defined it as a condition to supply. Is this right? Well, we’ve talked about this in the past. The customer is king, if he says “jump!” we should all say “how high?”

Interestingly, when the benefits of ISO 9001 registration are debated, most people launch into often unquantified justifications revolving around control, conformity and efficiency themes, almost as if doing it mainly because the customer wants it is somehow something to be ashamed of. The fact that it opens doors economically is often overlooked. This obvious economic advantage of offering access to more contracts has to be a major benefit, and “quality guys” should not be afraid of recognising it

Is it a mark of excellence?
Some people might claim that it is but they are just plain wrong. There may well be a decent set of good business practices woven into that clumsy and badly written document, but the requirements set out in ISO 9001 are no more than a base line. Successful certification indicates that the bones of a documented QMS is in place, it is auditable and it is supported by a basic set of management processes and, if we’re lucky, a PDCA theme running through it. The company may be a million miles from world class and may even be going steadily out of business at the same time. So I’m saying, in quality terms, it’s no more than our starter for ten
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Posted in Auditing, Certification schemes, ISO 9000, Quality Improvement | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

EFQM and ISO 9001 – A comparison of approaches

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Shaun

 

A while ago I published a review of ISO 9004:2009. In it I noted just how “EFQM” it was. That sparked a short exchange between Mark Harbor and I on Twitter about the merits of the EFQM self-assessment approach and the limitations of the typical ISO 9001 audit-driven approach. Something from that debate concerned me and it was a while before I could put my finger on what it was. Now I think I have

It is my firm belief that when we compare EFQM and ISO 9001 the strength of one framework is the weakness of the other and vice versa. In other words, what one framework does well, the other does badly, and the match is almost a perfect negative

In this post I’m going to try to explain exactly what I mean by that

My history with EFQM and ISO

My involvement with each model goes well beyond academia. Those of you who know me from Capable People will be aware that I’ve been training ISO 9001 lead auditors for about ten years, however prior to that, in a past life (in the 1990s) I worked extensively with the EFQM Model. I assessed on numerous occasions for the UK Excellence Award and the North East Excellence Award, trained assessors for the North East Excellence Award on a couple of occasions, and also got involved in upwards of 50 internal EFQM self-assessments for various organisations. It is from these direct experiences that I draw my conclusions

The reason I found it necessary to describe my battle scars, particularly with regard to the EFQM Model, is simply because it works so well on paper. If you’d never been through the pain of self-assessment, and suffered the frustration of post-assessment inertia, you’d never guess it had a single fault … but it does

efqm model

The strengths of the EFQM approach

Frankly the EFQM approach has a few faults, but let’s start with the strengths, because the glass might just be half-full. I’ll try and list them;

  • Its criteria covers strategic processes in far more detail than ISO 9001
  • It does the “systems approach” better too
  • Its criteria are “weighted” and identify that some processes are more critical than others (which they are)
  • It does “leadership” in a more detailed and academically sound way
  • It makes a more concerted effort to direct assessors to identify cause and effect relationships (sometimes in vain of course, but it tries, nonetheless)
  • It includes financial/business results and some financial processes within its criteria (not simply “quality”)
  • It directs assessors to examine the integrity and breadth of “results” in a better way, including an appreciation of direct and indirect measures, and the benefit of a balanced range of metrics
  • It actually has criteria that support the “Involvement of People” quality principle
  • EFQM self assessment is surprisingly good fun, if you like that sort of thing

The weaknesses of the EFQM approach

Although it has strengths it does have its significant weaknesses or, in EFQM language, Areas For Improvements (AFIs). These are what I consider have always been the most significant ones;

  • The use of documented evidence or the requirement to provide “proof” (as opposed to testimony) within the self-assessment process is usually limited
  • Although the criteria, in theory, covers strategic issues, financial measures and results, the output from assessment will only ever be as good as the inputs allow. In my experience of going through numerous assessments, there is an almost universal reluctance from the senior team to allow unfettered access to this sensitive information “warts and all”. Therefore the principle of “Garbage In – Garbage Out” (GIGO) usually applies
  • Although the criteria includes financial performance, it does not do it in sufficient enough detail to allow a realistic assessment of the sustainability of the business. Assessors may well look at how budgets are allocated and managed, which is a good thing in itself, but sustainability is the $10,000 question. Consequently there have been numerous examples of award winners getting into commercial difficulties a very short time after receiving an EFQM based award. It could therefore be argued that the model awards a deceptively high score for companies that are going out of business albeit in an “excellent” way. This feature may well partially explain why it seems to have retained its popularity a little longer within the public sector in the UK. In this sector financial management more or less is management of budgets, and the issue of commercial sustainability is not really a factor in the mix
  • The assessment does not identify any clear “rights” and “wrongs” – just a set of “coulds” and “could do betters”. Fair enough, you might think, but in my experience that almost always leads to strangulation of the process by inertia once the assessment is complete. Typically the assessment will yield upwards of 150 strengths and 150 AFIs, with no direction on priorities (that is for the company to decide). The problem is that this wealth of data  usually completely overwhelms the organisation and brings the process of improvement via self assessment to a sudden stop. You can have too much information
  • The process, done properly, is incredibly hungry on resources and often struggles to satisfy even the briefest of cost versus benefit analysis

I must confess that between the years 1994-1999 there was no bigger disciple of EFQM than I. However, after a few years, Groundhog Day well and truly kicked in. I looked back over the fifty or so assessments that I’d been involved in and struggled to identify even a small hand full that had delivered real improvements. That is, improvements that I felt the organisation could not have identified anyway, simply by intuition. The fact was that most companies already knew fine well what their biggest problems were before the process began, and I could see in the faces of many a senior manager during the assessor feedback an expression that suggested “this is an expensive way of telling us what we already knew”. I’ve heard senior teams criticised on numerous occasions for a lack of “buy-in” or “commitment”, but sometimes you need to see things from their perspective. After a while I found myself asking, hand on heart, “is this an effective use of so much resource?”

My biggest criticism, however, is that these weaknesses have existed within the EFQM framework for almost 20 years. They are actionable, but the guardians of the model have done little to resolve them. Is that continuous improvement?

EFQM and ISO 9001

Each framework having more or less the exact opposite strengths and weaknesses actually carries a thick irony – the solutions are staring us in the face. To be fair, there has been some movement on the ISO 9001 side to incorporate some of the EFQM strengths. This was seen most obviously when ISO 9000:2000 was published. The under-pinning “8 principles of quality management” were introduced, as were some new EFQM-influenced criteria, most notably Customer Satisfaction and Continual Improvement. However, to my eyes, this was done in a very superficial and even a clumsy way. The clauses were brief and ill defined, leading to a large degree of elasticity in the way the are applied. Now we also have ISO 9004:2009, which moves even further in the EFQM direction. However, in Mark’s words, “does it ever deliver truly strategic information?” Probably not

process-approach

And ISO 9001 does have its strengths

There is clear potential for a meeting of minds between the frameworks. For all its weaknesses, ISO 9001 has the inarguable strength that it requires auditability and proof. An ISO 9001 audit may not be strategic but, done properly, it should at least be factual, reliable and performed in a reasonably cost-effective way. ISO 9001 systems also usually benefit from two levels of independent scrutiny and regulation (again maybe not perfect but its there). Plus ISO 9001 certification is worldwide and widespread and it has found a way (by fair means or foul) to role out a commercially viable model and system of assessment

The conclusion? Put both frameworks in a blender and turn it on. We might just end up with a half-decent smoothie

3rd December 2009: Update to this article

Matt Fisher posted a very useful comment to this post yesterday and told us that the most recent EFQM revision has taken some of these issues on board

The criteria has in fact been expanded with regard to sustainability. On a first review it does appear to relate to environmental as opposed to economic sustainability (profitability in other words), which was the weakness to which I was referring in my post

Shaun Sayers

Contact the author

This is clearly a very popular post, it gets a lot of visits from University servers, so I assume it may even get cited! Anyhoo, if you want to ask me a question, you can contact me here

You can find more EFQM articles here

And more articles on a range of risk management themes, techniques and approaches here

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Shaun Sayers

Posted in Auditing, EFQM, ISO 9000 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 26 Comments