A new job posting by Johnson and Johnson for a Product Quality Manager requires the candidate to have a “track record of risk-based thinking across many disciplines required.”
As we have already discussed at length, there is no such thing as “risk based thinking” because it was dreamed up by ISO Technical Committee 176 from thin air, to comply with a mandatory requirement imposed on it by ISO bureaucrats. The ISO Technical Management Board required TC 176 to include some language about risk, but since TC 176 did not want to tackle the complex field of risk management, they invented the term “risk based thinking” and included no actual requirements to support it. As a result, it’s just meaningless words on paper, impossible to implement, and impossible to audit.
In its defense, TC 176 has published a few incomprehensible articles in which they try to explain it, like this 12-slide PowerPoint that ends abruptly with a “to be continued” slide at the end. Another one tries to explain it in the context of crossing the street. Even they can’t figure out what they meant.
Not only has “RBT” never existed before, it has been derided by actual risk management professionals, including those on TC 262, the authors of the ISO 31000 standard on risk management.
The job posting is particularly hilarious because it is impossible for any candidate to show a “track record” of something that won’t technically exist until the ISO 9001 standard is published in September 0f 2015. Unless they have a TARDIS.
This is why TC 176 should be held accountable for impossibly boneheaded moves like inventing RBT on nothing more than a mandate from the ISO Technical Management Board, and a hangover from last night’s hotel lobby scotch. When they publish something, some idiot will think it is legitimate, and add it to a contract, a position description, or flow it down to a supplier. Then, since it doesn’t actually exist, the other party will have two choices: confront the fact that the requirement is based on nothing, or go along and pretend. No doubt Johnson and Johnson is getting many resumes that have been newly polished to include overnight retroactive experience in “risk based thinking.”
Well, we are already seeing ISO 9001 certification bodies re-branding themselves as overnight risk experts, so this isn’t surprising.
Christopher Paris is the founder and VP Operations of Oxebridge. He has over 35 years’ experience implementing ISO 9001 and AS9100 systems, and helps establish certification and accreditation bodies with the ISO 17000 series. He is a vocal advocate for the development and use of standards from the point of view of actual users. He is the writer and artist of THE AUDITOR comic strip, and is currently writing the DR. CUBA pulp novel series. Visit www.drcuba.world
