Future roles, methods and control instruments

By way of introduction, it should be remembered that the standard only specifies the requirement and thus determines the "what". The question of the method or the "how" is left free. The conditions attached to it merely relate to appropriateness, expediency, the size of the company, its goals, etc. And so companies with agile approaches also act entirely in accordance with the standard requirements and quality management principles, as long as there is a systematic approach to achieving the objectives.

Two points are interesting to observe. On the one hand, that well-tried methods are currently experiencing a formal hype. This is because instruments such as Kan-ban - an instrument that has become known from Lean Management (manufacturing process) - or other similar Lean tools are currently experiencing a hype. On the one hand, that well-tried methods are currently experiencing a formal hype. This is because tools like Kan-ban - a tool known from Lean Management (manufacturing process) - or other similar Lean tools originated in the industry and are closer than those of the software development world. The agile methods are therefore only a further (complementary) alternative for process and product development including tools. In this sense, the question should not be "which one is better", but rather the choice of method "what is the best way to achieve the goal of a change project".

Strategy development process
Once agility is understood, the desire to "become an agile organization" soon follows at management level - but where do you start? According to experience, with a three to five year strategic plan. This is a challenge for the future, because, as already explained, the working world has become "VUCA".

If agility means the ability to quickly and continuously adapt to changing conditions as an organization, it goes without saying that an enterprise strategy that is rigidly planned over several years neither reflects an agile organization nor has goals that take this dynamic into account and are therefore more realistic. Agile strategies continuously take these changing conditions into account. The essential difference in the agile approach as with the agilestrats™ framework is that the development of the strategy is planned in just such short cycles as the change allows. A procedure as well as an effect, which is also called a controlled process in quality management.

The advantage is obvious. The ability to react quickly to changes and thus successfully deal with uncertainties and risks is the decisive difference and success factor on the way to an agile management system and the successful achievement of corporate goals.

Quality controls/audits
In industry, everyday activities are quality controls/inspections in the manufacturing process. The purpose of these is to ensure that the product meets its test criteria (quality requirements) on a random basis. If, in the future, it can be said with the greatest probability on the basis of the process data that the process has run correctly, the product will meet the requirements and this inspection activity, which is carried out by people, will be automated.

Whereas in the past data was used more or less systematically as a control instrument for the achievement of objectives or CIP because it was not sufficiently structured and qualitatively reliable, in the future Business Intelligence (BI) will help companies to achieve a simpler overall view of quality objectives (improved processes, cost reduction, risk reduction, error rate/failure focus, increase in added value and ultimately higher customer satisfaction). The difference is that the overall picture and the need for action are understood in a more coherent way.

This transparency should make it much easier to control the entire management system, especially in a more integrated way. Optimization approaches will be understood from different perspectives through a more agile approach and can be implemented more holistically.

Future roles, tasks of the quality manager/assurer/process team
Depending on the industry, the distinction between the roles of quality manager and quality assurance manager will become more important again. As we have read in the previous chapters (parts 1 to 3), the assurance of product and service quality will be much more data-driven. Ensuring the necessary data quality does not exclude that the quality assurance manager will have more IT knowledge in the future. Alternatively, specialist orientations will develop within quality management, whereby quality assurance will come closer to product management, including controlling tasks, or will be absorbed into the production engineer.

It is also conceivable that the quality manager will act as a system manager and continue to advise and develop the organisation. More entrepreneurial and economic understanding will be demanded of him. Rigid quality methods will change, disappear or more flexible ones will be added. For both roles, skills such as data analysis and interpretation as well as the ability to act as a moderator in interdisciplinary teams may become a prerequisite. In terms of language, too, the current one, which is strongly influenced by industry, will change into a new one.

As far as the process teams are concerned, their tasks/competencies/responsibilities must be mandatorily empowered, for which a process-oriented role concept is required. In a fully implemented process organization, the process team is responsible for tasks such as the design and modeling, controlling, optimizations and also the management of processes. However, this is preceded by the much more important question of the degree to which an organization is willing and ready to leave these tasks to the team or to share them with functional management.

Monitoring and measurement resources
Under 7.1.5. in the chapter Support, the quality management standard requires that for the control of the conformity of products and services with customer expectations, the organization identifies the necessary resources and ensures reliable monitoring and measurement. The focus of the requirement is on the one hand on the suitability (related to the specific application) and on the other hand on the demonstrable maintenance, the upkeep of the resource in question. Until the revision of the standard, this requirement was limited to testing and measuring equipment and is likely to be extended by the designation "resource" to include IT instruments. If this requirement is transferred to the resource IT, it cannot be ruled out in future that the suitability for, for example, the maintenance of IT equipment will also be assessed.

Business Intelligence sources will be subjected to this Norman requirement in an even more targeted manner. It is likely to be exciting to see how this requirement is relevant not only to the procedure, but also to the qualification of the user who uses this tool. The relevant audit to check compliance with the standard as well as effectiveness will probably require a high degree of IT expertise in the future.

performance rating
Measures/criteria
The requirement from ISO 9001:2015 is: "The organization shall analyze and assess the relevant data and information resulting from monitoring, measurement". In addition, a systematic approach is required in dealing with corporate management and performance evaluation, which has made the Plan-Do-Check-Act control cycle a matter of course for organizations.

If this standard requirement is transferred to agile processes, it is likely to become more demanding for companies to meet. Because without concrete measurability of agility, the success of agile processes cannot be achieved in the first place. This can be compared to an athlete and his fitness. In order to draw conclusions about performance, you can measure how fast or how enduring the athlete can run (partial performance/output). And you can measure how much the athlete trains for his fitness (input). From this, in turn, conclusions can be drawn about the extent of the athlete's athleticism.

The agility of an organization is similar. One can measure which organizational and leadership principles enable a company to react flexibly to changes and new customer needs (innovative strength). Agility can be measured by an output in the form of adaptability and innovative strength in a "VUCA time" (external agility) and/or agility can be measured by an input, by organisational and planning principles that are practised in a company (internal agility).

The measurement criteria are reminiscent of the approach of the EFQM model. This model also assumes that so-called enablers are the drivers of results - in other words, how internal agility can promote external agility. This is probably another possible reason why so much attention is currently being focused on strengthening internal agility.

balanced scorecard
With so much focus on leadership, team, ma-nifests and so on, is the tried and true Balan-ced Scorecard still applicable for performance monitoring and control? Here the answer is easier. As long as the primary goal of a company remains profitability (profit or cost recovery), the answer to the applicability of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is yes. In order to be successful in the market, companies must develop, maintain and, as is currently the case, expand their ability to change. The BSC already serves as a management tool for this purpose. It is a target and measurement system for planning and implementing the strategy, for which the customer, process and entrepreneurial potential perspectives are monitored and controlled in addition to the financial ones. Due to its different perspectives, the BSC offers a holistic approach to also measure qualitative goals such as the effectiveness of an agile project or team. Consistency at the operational level is also ensured by defining specific measures for each goal and monitoring their operational implementation.

Internal audits
QM uses internal audits to check whether changes are effective and whether specifications are being adhered to. On the occasion of an audit, independent, mostly internal auditors check how effective a measure such as change, process or compliance with specifications are. For this purpose, the internal auditor prepares the audit objective, conducts the audit discussion, usually using paper checklists, reviews evidence and assesses the result in an audit report, which is also usually recorded manually.

The audit process will also be necessary in the future and independently of agile processes. However, the question of how these are carried out is likely to become interesting. With the automatisms and artificial intelligences that will find their way into companies, a software-based audit process is foreseeable. This automated form, which has long been established as the so-called "audit trail" in computer security, audits from the origin to the result (effect) and from the effect back to the starting point in a chronological sequence of actions, system states, traces and evidence. Through the simultaneous automation of processes, it is also foreseeable that the evaluability and corresponding deviations can be made more transparent.

Improvement
Whether in the Quality Management Principles (5) or in Chapter 10 Improvement, the requirement is to identify and select ways to meet customer needs and increase customer satisfaction. This does not only refer to the improvement of products and services, but also to processes in order to avoid undesired effects and to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the management system. This includes not only corrective measures but also continuous improvement. These requirements are fully met by agile approaches. And although CIP can also be carried out on different levels (strategic, operational as well as on the level of individual activities), it appears more integrated in agile approaches and seems to be more strongly anchored in the "Do".

The standard requirement for an opportunity assessment is also learned promptly in agile approaches during the implementation of project phases with a future-oriented view from the recent past. For example, in the Scrum method, checkpoints are provided per iteration in order to plan for the opportunity to pause, reflect, and derive improvements for the next phase. In this way, it particularly meets the requirement for effectiveness and efficiency in the management system. Because this phase-by-phase learning enables a continuously more precise planning, cost estimation and design.

Due to the constant gain in knowledge that is achieved in the agile process and the improvements that are possible as a result, the delivered product or service is of the highest quality, fulfils its conformity claim, purpose and takes into account all the changes that have occurred during the project.