ISO 9000 is a standard for management. It doesn't specifically cover IT. IT has it's own ISO no. However since ISO 9000:2001 they change the tone from management to customer satisfaction. That touches everything. That touches IT even if you only handle door access (no am not talking bout door with uniform guy with a smile, am talking about door in shop floor, production, warehouses). It's a new western imperialization instrument if you ask me... but I know you won't.

Anyway...

ISO standard basically said that you've got to document everything and track it. Write what you do, do what you write. And here lies the salvation. You got to write what you do. Nobody else can cause they don't qualified. And don't worry about getting it wrong. Auditing only cares if you comply to what you write. It doesn't .. it can't.. judge the quality of what you write.

If somebody outside the IT dept tries to write it for you, let them... it will bound to fail and when it does... you can point this out. This is important cause the entire tip I'm about to share depends on it - They give you a job, they should let YOU do the job.



This tip could benefit Ilient too if they decide SysAid should help IT pro in complying with ISO standard in general.



When the company adopt ISO 9000 you will be expected to create and track :

1. Objective quality

2. Quality procedure

3. Quality work instruction



I will not explain what they are cause you'll get that from whoever in charge with the standard adoption. But I will propose how you map those requirement to SysAid :



1. Objective quality is SysAid reports

2. Quality procedure is the helpdesk category (cross divisional)

3. And Work instruction is SysAid helpdesk routing (internal procedure)



By aligning your quality objective (for instance, support response time or support rate) with SysAid analyzer you get to automate the whole tracking thing. All you have to do is generate the report periodically (which SysAid already provide the function of repeating report).



As for the procedure and or instruction treat it as a service but give them distinct category to differ them from the problem-related service. Your routing help you handle the service just like your work instructions are meant to make it easier for you to fulfil your cross divisional obligations. You can either print it as excel table or pdf for traceability and performance report. I prefer excel (read:pivot table).



Can you feel the power of SysAid side now ?

*Darth Vader's tone and look*



Bonus tip :

In ISO relationship among divisional often being seen as a smaller scale of the core business. Division which provide input to other division is seen as internal supplier, and division which use those input is seen as internal customer. For instance; Marketing division is a customer of IT division cause marketing inquire and IT provide.

Hence the user satisfaction form in SysAid is analogous to the customer satisfaction form of the company. Use it to foster the spirit to aligned IT with business. Continuing improvement will fall in place as the culture.