Certificate Early

That’s certificate [verb].  Are you the executive sponsor of the design, implementation and certification of your quality management system?  Excellent.  The excellent and the title is not meant to be glib.  I truly believe that if you are this person, it is time to make a difference for your company.

Certification is quite often seen as a race with a finish line, when we all know, it is just a journey.  Some think, you have to have a perfect quality management system in place first before you go through certification.  This is not a rule.  A well-structured and implemented quality management system with an adequate volume of records to demonstrate effectiveness, can still be achieved in the very early stages of your system.

And why would you do that?  ‘Low hanging fruit’ is my answer.  Chalk up a win in the early stages of your journey, and show the company that certification at any stage of the certification cycle is just another project element, not some wonderful event.  Hell yes, you will be awarded a certificate, you will celebrate and you will get corporate cred and market cred for bringing in the project demonstrating how your company can get things done.

But when the hoopla dies down, then it is time to shine.  Time to continuously improve, time to get the team thinking that that wasn’t so bad.  Can we expand it?  Can we add other risk management?  The early certificate will be a benefit.