Crowdsourcing to improve a standard. The ISO 9001 survey.

Here is a rare chance to experience and get insights into how an organization approaches their audience that buys and reads their kind of short books: standards.

Millions of organizations use ISO 9001, for example as a contract supplement for business-to-business transactions. The standard specifies generic requirements for a quality management system, aimed at enhancing trust a company can deliver what they promise. It mainly does this through specifying a few generic processes, through internal and external auditing and by continual improvement. The standard comes on 35 pages for some $120. No, I do not sell it and I do not benefit from its sales.

If you or your company is using or influenced by the ISO 9000 series of standards in any significant way, please take the ISO 9000 Survey. It takes about 30 minutes. The time you save may be your own, whether you read for interest, apply for improvement, get certified, audit for compliance, or consult for others. How? Imagine the ways this collaboration shapes the next revision of the standard.

Whether you think ISO 9001 improves quality of products and services or is an overall waste of time, go ahead and share your views in the survey. If you do not have 30 minutes, feel free to share your views in a quick comment below (or on the long version of this post).

ISO 9000 Use Survey Launched !

On 2010-11-11, iso.org issued their press release. The survey runs until January end of February 2011. Report on the results is planned for end of March 2011.

The survey uses an on-line web tool (Survey Monkey) and can be easily accessed via the web address (URL): http://www.iso.org/tc176/sc2/ISO9000UserSurvey

• The survey is available in 11 languages
• The survey will be open for completion from October 2010 until January 2011
• ‘Survey Leaders’ are being appointed from ISO’s members to coordinate this activity in as many countries as possible

Source: Document ISO/TC 176/SC 2/N 957

Well, the author of this blog is not a survey leader, he just completed the survey and expressed his views for the future of this standard.

More on the long version of this post on my new blog Stand On Standards.