RE: ISO

I left a place that was going through the ISO certification process.
It is huge.  Every procedure has to be documented, approved and scheduled
for revenue.
There needs to be run books for everything.  If you don't have standards
then you need to develop them and you need to prove conformance to
standards. If you say that you keep SAVLIB tapes off site for 2 weeks and
SAVCHGOBJ tapes offsite for a week, the registrar  will go and look and if
they aren't there, then the entire company won't be certified.  It is not a
"if you complete 95%" you will be certified, it is 100% or nothing.  Here is
another example of how all-inclusive it is.  Let's say the registrar showed
up and you had a contract programmer working in the computer room.  Well
there better be procedures for you telling that contractor how to function
and he better know how to use the documentation.  Did you tell him where to
go in case of a fire alarm?  Does he know where the emergency exits are?
Did you tell him where the restrooms are?
Depending on the complexity of your shop, it will take a 1-2 person-years to
get the documentation finished.  Then, as I said, everything must be
reviewed and signed off at least annually and some of it every 3 months.
All of the documents then must be openly displayed and everyone in IS and
the users must know where the documents are and how to use them.

Have fun!
                -----Original Message-----
                From:   Cynthia M. Kovarik [mailto:ckovarik@bellsouth.net]
                Sent:   Thursday, February 04, 1999 6:27 PM
                To:     MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com
                Subject:        ISO

                Our company has just committed to getting our corporate
office ISO
                certified.  Our manufacturing divisions have already
received
                certification but not other various corporate departments.
Has anyone
                out there had any experience in "ISO-izing" an IS
department?  I'm
                thinking I can start with Service Level Agreements (both
internal and
                external) and analysis of Help Desk requests/completions to
ensure
                conformance to standards.  Any and all help would be greatly
                appreciated.

                By the way, many thanks to all of you who responded to my
earlier
                question on ACOM checks printing wrong.  Turned out to be a
problem with

                our software vendor's use of printer overrides.

                Regards,
                Cynthia



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