Towers of Quality Insights - Towers of Quality

2 Jan 2022

Successful Quality Professionals Make Good Pie

I make a pretty good pumpkin pie. The first time, about 30 years ago, I gingerly followed an untested a recipe. The filling seemed too runny, but I trusted the method and it actually became a solid, as advertised. My confidence in the system grew as...

30 Apr 2020

Organizational Knowledge – Tribal knowledge by another name

Tagseffectiveness verification, organizational knowledge, tribal knowledge

We Are Special “I get what you are saying, but we are different. What we do is more art than science. I can’t just write a recipe and have my people follow it. It takes years to learn what we do.” Ah, tribal knowledge… Most organizations...

14 Apr 2020

Audit Traps and How to Avoid Them

Tagsaudit traps, quality manual

There are nonconformities, and then there are nonconformities Quality management system (QMS) audits rarely result in zero nonconformities. Usually, these findings point to real weaknesses whose resolution allows the auditee to increase process effectiveness. In other words, finding and correcting nonconformities is part of a larger...

10 Mar 2020

Context of the Organization, or “Know Thyself”

Tagscontext of organization, external and internal issues, relevant interested parties, scope of QMS

What is “the context”? The ISO 9001 requirement to define the context of the organization is as important as it is poorly understood. Intuitively, it makes sense that organizations should understand themselves before they can ensure their management systems (quality or otherwise) are capable of delivering...

3 Feb 2020

Continual or continuous improvement?

Tagscontinual improvement, Continuous improvement, corrective action, PDCA cycle

As a quality professional, you have surely heard of the requirement for continual improvement. Or is it continuous? Hmm… Is there a difference, or are we just splitting hairs? Plenty of people use ‘continual’ and ‘continuous’ interchangeably, much like ‘preventive’ and ‘preventative’… As I teach this...