The internet is abuzz with the stupidity of some in the general public, as they go ballistic accusing Steven Spielberg of having killed an extinct triceratops, and then taking a photo of himself smiling, next to the carcass.

dinosaur

Stan Winston artists work a scale model of Triceratops for Jurassic Park. --- Image © Louie Psihoyos/Corbis.

Stan Winston artists work on a model of Triceratops for Jurassic Park.

The problem, of course, is that you can’t kill things that are already extinct, like dinosaurs, which roamed the earth some 70 or more million years ago. Kudos to the late effects wizard Stan Winston for continuing to fool folks into thinking his rubber robot is real, even more than 20 years after Jurassic Park was released.

But whereas we smug superior types can laugh at the stupidity of our mouth-breathing, internet brethren, are we guilty of the same kind of ridiculous assumption building? Especially when presented alongside an authority figure?

In the case of the Spielberg photo fiasco, the “trick” is simple: post an image and present it grossly out of its original context, but do so with an air of complete confidence. Enough people will co-process the visual information under the supplied context, assuming the authority of the presenter is valid, and allowing the presenter to fill in the logic gaps for us. Thus the assumption of authority shuts off the critical portion of the brain, allowing it to be filled with whatever the presenter wants.  Verification of facts takes effort — in this case, finding out that Triceratops died millions of years ago, and that the photo is just from a movie set — so rather than expend that effort, we yield to the programming provided to us by the authority figure, regardless of how batshit loopy it is.

Who Dares Disturb the Great and Powerful??!!

Enter Dr. Nigel Croft, he of the TC 176 team that developed ISO 9001:2015. In this case, he’s the authority figure with the bat guano.

In what appears to be a never-ending series of public appearances that rivals Will Ferrell’s Ron Burgundy promo tour, Dr. Croft is trotting out a claim which people are completely accepting at face value, without any critical thought or fact checking. But whereas it’s easy to spot pranking with a robot dinosaur, it’s not so easy to suss out bogus claims when you have to read through mounds of dry, stilted ISO 9001 language to get to the truth.

That’s okay. Once again, I’ll do the heavy lifting, don’t you worry.

Nigel Croft

Nigel Croft, another dinosaur.

In an apparent rush to prove himself as much a dinosaur as Spielberg’s rubber hornhead,  Dr. Croft says that ISO 9001:2015 has been updated to allow more flexibility in document control requirements for “modern” companies using latest-tech doc control methods, such as (in his words) “cloud.” The new standard, he insists, will give allow companies to use modern, online document control tools while remaining compliant to 9001.

This Nigelism (I call trademark on that term) is, as you might expect from my buildup, total and complete nonsense. It may even be a full and outright lie, if Dr. Croft has any actual understanding of what his subcommittee actually wrote. Otherwise we have to believe he’s a clueless, out of touch abuelo viejito. Take your pick, but neither is an optimum label for the world’s top QMS architect.

You see, the ISO DIS language of document control says nearly nothing about modern control methods, other than dropping in a few words to give the appearance of modern relevance.

I’ve Got a Big Green Curtain, Too

To make things easier, let’s map this out visually. Below is a comparison of the document control language from ISO 9001:2008, as compared to that of the DIS of ISO 9001:2015. Ignoring the problems caused by the 2015’s attempt to merge document and record control into one paragraph, we nevertheless can see how all the requirements of 9001:2015 were derived by merely rewording those of 9001:2008… which itself had language that had nearly no changes since the standard came out in 1987. Clauses from 2008 that are repeated in 2015 share the same color highlighting. (Click to enlarge):

 

isodoccontrolcomparison1

One tiny requirement stands out as having not been lifted wholesale from the earlier versions: a clause regarding document format. This says:

When creating and updating documented information the organization shall ensure appropriate …. (b) format (e.g. language, software version, graphics) and media (e.g. paper, electronic)

This is the “modernization” upon which Dr. Croft hangs his dinosaur hunting hat. He believes that by name-dropping “format” this somehow expands ISO 9001’s notion of document control outside of the 1950’s “big honkin’ binder” mentality, and pushes it into the 21st century. And many will be fooled, because, look! It has the words “media” and “electronic” in it, so it must be modern!

(Reading the responses to Dr. Croft’s video, it’s clear that not only were some fooled by this trick, but the overwhelming majority were. Come on, people! We evolved from apes for a reason!)

But consider this. While “format” has been inserted, none of the other requirements were then updated to give consideration of these “formats.” Instead, the old requirements for hardcopy binders have been copied over yet again, following a dogged adherence to the original ideas put forth in 1959’s MIL-Q-9858, and which decades later remain in place with Dr. Croft’s latest creation.

For example, one might not apply all of those controls to a “graphic” or an “electronic” document, because either it’s not practical given the limitations of the format, or the format has advanced sufficiently to prove that those requirements are ancient and obsolete.

yaycloud3Yay, Cloud

From the YouTube video, its abundantly clear that Dr. Croft doesn’t have the beginnings of a clue regarding “cloud,” other than how to pronounce the word. He clearly confuses “cloud” with anything “online” or electronic, and that’s not what the term means, and no doubt company IT managers watching his video are cringing, laughing, or cringelaughing.

Exhibit A: the popular cloud documentation solution known as Confluence, from Atlassian. Confluence is a Java coded cloud-based document management system that emphasizes collaboration, and has been adopted by many organizations as a means of streamlining document distribution, and providing real-time document updating by users.

But out-of-the-box Confluence cannot withstand ISO 9001 scrutiny, unless rewritten by the user or enhanced by purchasing a mishmash of plugins and addons. Why? The major problem with Confluence is that it allows anyone in a defined user group to make changes to a document, and while those changes are recorded and time-stamped, they do not then force the document to go through a new revision cycle. ISO dinosaurs will burst their eyeball juices at such sacrilege, but end user organizations see real and measurable advantages to this method. For one, documents rarely fall out of sync with actual practice, since they are updated constantly. Second, this collaboration ensures employees actually use and interact with the documents, rather than let them gather dust on a shelf. Third, it empowers employees in the ways that Deming himself had advocated, but which the would-be Adam Smiths at ISO can only envision as something as horrific as a zombie apocalypse.

tidecloudSimilar problems present themselves when clients adopt other online solutions, such as Dropbox, Box, Huddle, Alfresco, Wikis and even SharePoint if it’s not specifically tailored to comply with ISO 9001. The “approval workflow” modules in SharePoint get high marks from ISO auditors, but are loathed by users for being slow, for not allowing concurrent approvals, and for dragging document release out for weeks instead of minutes.

If, instead, Croft’s herd of therapods had done ten minutes of research using that set of tubes called “the internet” — or maybe reached out to someone outside of TC 176 with an Xbox instead of a 2400 baud modem, they might have been able to craft language that would have simultaneously met the basic intent of document control, while opening it up to the Post-Fax Era. Try this:

Information shall be updated as necessary by authorized personnel. The means of updating information shall ensure that updates are communicated to affected personnel.

No revision numbers, no approvals, no signatures and no goddamned, red-ink “Controlled Document” stamps. And yet the end result is the release of updated information to those needing it.  This leaves the methods and levels of control of information to the end user, which is what ISO 9001 is supposed to do anyway, and doesn’t prescribe a specific approach.

TC 176 representatives working on the latest ISO 9001 edits.

TC 176 representatives working on the latest ISO 9001 edits.

Mass Suicide as Self Extinction

ISO and Dr. Croft cannot imagine a world where workers are free and empowered to update their own procedures in a “perpetual redline” state. There will be no convincing them, nor their supporters, that this is antiquated, backwards and anachronistic. They will insist that this has worked for decades, and so shouldn’t be tinkered with. They will insist that allowing anyone but “top management” to sign documents is akin to a Communist plot.

But clearly they know something’s up, or they wouldn’t be trying to re-brand exhausted old ideas as “modern” concepts applicable to “the Cloud.” If only they could go a step further, and actually make them applicable for the modern world, then they’d be on the right track.

By continuing to shoot itself in the foot, TC 176 will only hasten the end of 9001’s relevance, especially when confronted with standards developers who “get it,” such as the CMMI Institute. In this way, the dinosaurs like Croft are making themselves extinct faster than that falling asteroid.

So while Dr. Croft can enjoy his latest fifteen minutes of fame, presumably coming before his swan song plunge into obscurity, the critical thinkers among us should push back, and tailor our quality systems to comply with what works, even if at times that puts it at odds with the antediluvian philosophies of ISO 9001. This will force TC 176 to modernize.

Unless they really want to wind up on the business end of Steven Spielberg’s hunting rifle.

(Images: © Louie Psihoyos/Corbis, ISO Google Hangout, Oxebridge, Microsoft, Proctor & Gamble. See usage policies.)

About Christopher Paris

Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 30 years' experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the author of Surviving ISO 9001 and Surviving AS9100. He reviews wines for the irreverent wine blog, Winepisser.

Advertisements

Free ISO 9001 Template Kit