DocQment

This starts a list of resources on the topic of quality management. The QPI SIG also has a list of quality management standards.

The BetterManagement site identifies resources for management of performance and information technology as well as financial management: http://www.bettermanagement.com

The following are organizations outside the US that focus on quality, with their web addresses:

National Quality Institute (NQI), Canada, http://www.nqi.ca

European Organization for Quality (EOQ), http://www.eoq.org

Hungarian Quality Database of the Hungarian Society for Quality, http://www.ezaz.hu/quality

Pakistan Institue of Quality Control, http://www.piqc.com.pk

Saudi National Quality Committee, http://www.snqc.org

Business Excellence Australia (BEA), a division of Standards Australia International (SAI), formerly Australian Quality Council, http://www.sai-global.com/professionalservices

Diane Evans, member of the Puget Sound chapter and the Quality and Process Improvement SIG, published the article “Document Control Systems” in the April 2006 issue of STC’s Intercom magazine. The article reviews configuration management, document control software, and search engines and emphasizes the importance of business rules in effective operation of document control systems.

 by Rod Ward, Member Australia Chapter and QPI SIG

I’ve provided a zip file you can download, containing a typical Visio file of a navigable business process, created according to the methodology I outlined in “How to build an interactive flowchart with Visio.” This is a version of a Visio file that I did for a client, with all the references to the client removed. This process is a Workplace Hazard Management Process. There is another more complex one for handling actual safety incidents (where someone gets hurt or real damage occurs) and it has at least three levels, but this one shows the basic idea just as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Region 1 Director Cindy Currie talks about The New World of STC in her May column, posted by the Online SIG.

STC has an RSS feed, so you can stay up to date with news from the Society all the time. You can subscribe from the home page of the STC website, http://www.stc.org/.

Recently the reports from the May Board meeting have been posted and announced via the RSS feed. The next STC telephone seminar on July 12, 2006 is “Adding Panache to Your Procedures,” presented by Leah Guren.

by Rod Ward, Member Australia Chapter and QPI SIG

This article is based on a post by Rod on the Information Design and Architecture SIG list on June 12, 2006 and appears by Rod’s permission.

There are any number of tools that can be used to build an interactive visual document with links to more detailed information. To build a flowchart of this kind, Visio (2003) is effective and especially useful because it is standard on corporate software lists and therefore easy for others to edit and update.

Recently I used Visio’s Cross-functional Flowchart wizard to build multi-page swim lane diagrams of complex organisational processes, and then inserted hyperlinks on action shapes to link out to web page content residing on an intranet and in my client’s corporate SAP Knowledge Warehouse. Read the rest of this entry »

by Amy S. Friend BB, CQM, Senior Member Rochester Chapter STC

This is part 1 of a series: Revel in Your Discomfort: Living With Change. An earlier version of these articles was published in the Proof Sheet newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of STC, beginning in November, 1996.

I keep waiting for the pace of life to slow down. Change is constant, with no end in sight. This can be overwhelming. This past year (1995), I participated in a workshop called “Living In Turbulent Times” on coping with change. I found some of the principles helpful when dealing with change both at work and at home. In this series I will share with you some change concepts. I hope this will help you to organize your thinking about change and give you a few strategies to handle it. Read the rest of this entry »

Message from the QPI SIG Manager, June 23, 2006

This is a quiet time in the STC year. The annual conference is over, and preparations for the next conference are just beginning. Sharon Lynn and Elizabeth McQueen are leading our QPI SIG effort for the 2007 annual conference. We will work on a proposal for a progression or a panel, and plan face-to-face meetings with activities at the Sunday night welcome and hosts for the networking lunch tables.

The SIG is following a performance management system with some success. The tracking document will be posted as soon as it is stable. Our primary focus is publishing regular news and educational information for members. Reporting information of value to members on a regular basis is challenging. It’s not common to find substantive information on process, quality, and communication even though communication is essential to successful improvement efforts. If you know of things we can be reporting, or are interested in regular news on particular topics, please leave a comment.

This month we will start a long planned project to develop a customer satisfaction measurement survey to be used initially in the QPI and Online SIGs. We will also see if anyone would like to work on publicity and public relations for the QPI SIG. If you’d like to volunteer, please write to the manager. The address is on the Leaders page.

The “Documentation Checklist/Audit Form” by James Eiland supports a method of quality assurance for developing documents. The checklist was created specifically for Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). There are numbered sections which correspond to paragraph heads in a typical template for an SOP. However, the checklist could be made more generic and apply to any type of documentation, or be customized for other specific types. 
 
The checklist incorporates provisions from ISO 9000 for continuous improvement and client satisfaction measurement. 
 
How would you customize this checklist for use by your organization in assuring quality of documentation and satisfaction of your customers? Please leave comments, and the QPI SIG will aggregate the comments received in a more generic checklist to help guide authors, editors, instructors, and reviewers to verify and validate technical documentation efforts in a standardized manner. 
 
Please suggest in your comments also the points in the documentation life cycle where the checklist could be used. 

Short biographies of several gurus are presented on http://www.murtongroup.com/qgurus.htm. Each biography is followed by information about that person’s theories and tools.

Information about gurus and other personalities in quality, as well as a discussion forum, are found on http://www.qualitygurus.com

The W. Edwards Deming Institute, http://www.deming.org, was founded in 1993 by Deming. The site has information about Deming and the institute, the criteria for the Deming prize, and a newsletter. The site offers videos and books about Deming for purchase.

A short biography of Joseph Juran is on the website of the Carlson School of Management: http://www.csom.umn.edu/page1275.aspx

A New Zealand website offers case studies and examples from organizations that have improved using the criteria of the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award. The site also offers a primer on Baldrige, worksheets, a presentation on how to do a self assessment and tips on writing the award application. Please visit http://www.baldrigeplus.com.

The Society for Leadership of Change sponsors events, publishes a quarterly online newsletter, and has web resources including a change management bookstore, links, white papers and articles, a forum, a career center and “ask an expert” service. One year of membership is free. Please visit http://www.theslc.org.

Please welcome our 44 new members who joined the QPI SIG in May. The SIG now has 858 members, with 13,925 in STC.

Message from the QPI SIG Manager, May 11, 2006 

From 1991 to 2003, the QPI SIG published a newsletter which, after the first few issues, was called DocQment. Many issues are online on our static website, as is news and information published in 2005 and through May 5, 2006.

This site brings DocQment back as a continuously updated publication, and replaces the static site. News and features appear at the top of DocQment. At the bottom you will find our QPI SIG resource pages, developed in 2005. These can be expanded and updated as members leave comments.

We are using the WordPress open source content management software for DocQment. To start, we will use the default theme and its default characteristics, except for changes we can make in the administration panel without extensive editing of the PHP code. That allows us to post meaningful information quickly.

You are invited to leave comments. If you are a QPI SIG member, you are invited register on the site and become a contributor. If you’d like to be a contributor, please write to the manager, ann@annlwiley.com.