Rule One at SI-HQ is avoid working with Innovation Capability Maturity Level One organisations whenever possible. We now have a second Rule. It goes something like, especially avoid working with Level One organisations that also require their contractors to be ISO9001 Certified.

This new Rule came about as a result of a recent request from such an organisation. They wanted us, they said, to come and help them create ‘an innovation culture’. The fact that the response questionnaire their bean-counting Purchase people then forwarded to us nigh on dictated that we were only likely to get the work if we could demonstrate that we had the appropriate ISO9001 badge. ISO9001 is bad enough at its intended ‘quality management’ job – providing the perfect illustration that by setting a minimum standard, the world ends up with race-to-the-bottom quality management systems that succeed only in ensuring consistently poor quality – but to think that it has any relevance at all to the innovation story betrays a fundamental understanding of what innovation is. Funnily enough, ISO56000 looks set to do precisely the same thing and it was written precisely to help enterprises to manage their innovation processes. Fortunately, the prospective client didn’t appear to have heard of this ISO. Most likely because there’s no badge to collect yet.

Anyway, that’s another story. This story is about how we went back to the prospective client and told them our (polite version) thoughts about ISO9001, and asked whether our lack of badge would eliminate us from their consideration. ‘Not necessarily,’ came the reply, ‘providing you can send us a copy of your Quality Management System documentation’.

One step forward, one step back. We don’t have any Quality Management System documentation.

Irrespective of our feelings about ISO9001, however, this felt like a hole we needed to feel. We like to think we ‘do’ quality, but how do we all know what we’re doing? Or whether we’re heading in the direction of ‘better’?

It was time to document what we do to see how close to a Quality Management System it might be. Here’s the first version, now, for the moment at least, internally labelled, SIO9001. ‘SIO’ being interpretable as various things, starting with Systematic Innovation Operations, probably ending with Senior Investigating Officer (too much time spent watching Line Of Duty!), and passing through silicon monoxide and a small Danish island. Nearly all of which carry some kind of meaning.

Philosophy

1. Roots – the roots of SI were formed through fifteen years working in the aerospace industry at Rolls-Royce. The aerospace industry is simultaneously the safest and most innovative industry on the planet (at least until Boeing 737max was certified). As such it has recognised that ISO9001 and related certification standards represent a minimum standard that the industry is so far beyond as to make them irrelevant to the business. Simultaneously, Rolls-Royce has represented a global quality benchmark for over 100 years and as such every client SI has ever worked with subsequently has not attained RR levels of quality. We start, in other words, from very strong foundations.
2. AntiFragile – humans are the primary source of lack-of-quality in any system. In order to achieve the highest level of quality and safety, the only reliable means is to automate simple processes and remove humans from any and all safety critical position. Where humans are necessary (i.e. in any complicated or complex situation), it is important to build redundant, antifragile systems that ensure quality failures can, first, cause no harm, and, second, when inevitable quality failures do occur, the QMS learns from the failure and becomes stronger.
3. Qualityism – we are in the innovation business, and as such failure (a.k.a. learning) is an inevitable feature of our work. It is very easily possible to insist on quality measures that inhibit the ability to innovate and also, therefore, detract from the delivered quality. We need to be aware of this phenomenon and always strive to put in place the requisite levels of quality measures to simulataeously maximise overall quality and minimise impedance to innovation.
4. Humility – one of the biggest challenges to the pursuit of ever high quality is hubris. It is therefore necessary to be constantly challenging our current best practices, and to have the necessary humility to recognise when things are not as they should be. It is always painful to be ‘wrong’ about something, but that pain is an essential precursor to learning. We will actively look for quality-related contradictions and run towards them when they appear. Contradiction solving is the only meaningful way for any system to improve.
5. Self-Organisation – having now worked with close to 500 MNCs, NGOs and public sector bodies, our desire to always adapt to the needs of the customer, rather than have them adapt to us, has become a living reality. This also applies to QMS. Time is too precious to jump through nugatory certification hoops that add no value to either ourselves or our clients. Beyond that, because our foundations are built from the best experience on the planet, it is a relatively simple procedure to relax behaviours and conventions as and when client needs permit. Our main ‘products’ are innovation ideas, processes and education, and as such the most significant outcome of ‘poor quality’ is we deliver a bad idea. In which case, we don’t get paid. In which case, we learn not to deliver bad ideas in the future.

The SI Quality Management System

1. Use good judgement in all situations.
2. If you have any doubt what ‘good judgement’ entails, refer to your client Quality Principles and Practices
3.  If you have any doubt that the client’s version of ‘good judgement’ may be inappropriate to the innovation task at hand, refer to the SIN Handbook.
4.  If you have any doubt over the veracity or appropriateness of the SIN Handbook, raise a concern with the CEO, and the Company will review and evolve the Handbook and/or QMS as appropriate.
5. There is no 5)

  End