New TC 176 SC2 Leadership Getting Good Marks from Attendees

In a bit of good news (for a change), the incoming ISO TC 176 leadership is getting some pretty rave reviews from a number of attendees of recent committee meetings.

I’ve been told the work done by new TC 176 Subcommittee 2 Chair, Sam Somerville, and SC2 Committee Manager, Dr. Beata Mroz-Orlikowska, has been top-notch. Their leadership, attendees tell me, was the reason the recent May 17th meeting on updating ISO 9001:2015 didn’t descend into backbiting and in-fighting, something that might have occurred since there were some strong opinions on both sides of the argument.

SC2 is the powerful committee responsible for writing the ISO 9001 standard; other SCs have other duties in support of the ISO 9000 family of standards, but only SC2 works on ISO 9001 itself.

Somerville and Mroz-Orlikowska kept the meeting moving along smoothly, allowed all voices to be heard, kept ample records, and ran a meeting the way they’re supposed to be run, I’m told.

If so, this is a welcome change. In the past, key figures have been able to dominate SC2 and other TC 176 meetings, pushing a single agenda and drowning out dissenting voices. I was at first suspicious, and then happily surprised, when I heard the May 17th meeting allowed folks who were critical of the push to update ISO 9001 to have their say, to the point that those pushing the agenda were left a bit deflated. That’s nothing less than stunning, since it’s those same four of five gadflies who usually suck all the oxygen out of the room.

If you haven’t seen much of these two on LinkedIn, that’s because they seem to be taking ISO’s rules of social media communications a bit more seriously. Prior leadership had… well, “problems” in this regard. Which is probably why they are prior leadership.

So let’s keep our fingers crossed that these two can continue to maintain momentum and keep this train on the tracks. As much as I criticize ISO, when key people do something right, they also deserve praise and support.