Quality Assurance in Services:
An ISO 9000 Workbook for Small Professional Service Firms

1. How to Use This Workbook
2. ISO 9000: A Synopsis
3. Making the Decision
   • Is ISO 9000 for you?
   • Applying for registration
4. Planning Your Approach
   • Orientation
   • Work plan
   • Communications
5. Designing your Quality System
   • Quality Policy
   • Gap analysis
   • Training staff
   • Management review
6. Managing Documentation
   • Principles
   • Quality manual
   • Supporting procedures
   • Quality records
   • Process audit
   • Document control
7. Getting Registered
   • Document review
   • Auditing yourself
   • Preparing for audit
   • On-site audit
8. After Registration
   • Visibility
   • Surveillance
   • Continuous improvement
9. Appendices
   • ISO 9000 documents
   • ISO 9000 resources
   • Article on ISO 9000 for small businesses
   • ISO 900 registrars in Canada
   • International accreditation bodies
   • Which clients require ISO 9000 registration
   • Using external assistance effectively
   • Sample audit preparation questions

1. Why get registered?
2. What are the consequences of not registering?
3. Should you register?
4. Should you register now?
5. What is your optimal timing for registration?
6. Registering to what standards?
7. Which sites to register?
8. The scope of services to be registered?
9. Shortlisting registrars
10. Evaluating registrar responses
11. Selecting your registrar
12. Briefing your staff
13. Preparation for staff meeting
14. Orientation staff meeting
15. Work plan time line
16. Assessing professionals' available time
17. Assessing your other resources
18. Assigning communications responsibility
19. Your best approach to communications
20. What to communicate about
21. Assessing your current quality policy
22. Communicating your quality policy
23. Comparing your quality system to the standard
24. Skills self-assessment
25. Training for internal audit
26. Effective peer review
27. Training staff in new procedures
28. Level of management review
29. Material to be reviewed
30. Recording the results of management reviews
31. Frequency of reviews
32. Reviewing external audits
33. Helping staff understand documentation
34. Basic guidelines for documentation
35. Structure of your documentation system
36. Common content in all documents
37. Purpose of the quality manual
38. Warnings about your quality manual
39. Structure of the quality manual
40. Layout of the quality manual
41. Identifying policy gaps
42. Policy text
43. Naming your "quality manual"
44. The purpose of procedures
45. Other levels of documentation
46. Identifying the procedures needed
47. Writing the procedures
48. Purpose of a quality record
49. Types of quality records
50. Filing quality records
51. Responsibility for quality records
52. Review of quality records
53. The purpose of a process audit
54. Conducting a process audit
55. Responsibility for document control
56. Understanding document control
57. Implementing document control
58. Document control of forms
59. Records of document changes
60. Is your documentation ready?
61. Completing the "desk audit"
62. Training your internal auditors
63. Conducting internal audits
64. Preparing a regular internal audit schedule
65. Determining the audit scope
66. Preparing checklists for your internal audits
67. Conducting an initial internal review
68. Normal audit procedures
69. Audit reports
70. Following up on nonconformances
71. Taking corrective and preventive action
72. Management review of results
73. Auditing your internal auditors
74. Are you ready for an external audit?
75. Becoming familiar with the audit team
76. Tidying up loose ends
77. Practising answering questions
78. On-site preparations
79. Meetings with the audit team
80. Tips for the "show me"
81. Addressing the auditor's findings
82. Becoming registered
83. Celebrating
84. Advertising your registration
85. Revising your promotional materials
86. Communicating with clients
87. Communicating with vendors
88. Taking advantage of registration
89. Guarding against sagging morale
90. Communication with your registrar
91. Surveillance audits
92. Re-registration
93. Continuous improvement
94. Using your problem logs constructively

The overall impression of the Workbook is that of an imposing body of "real world" research, beautifully organized, clearly and succinctly written, loaded with a wealth of practical tips, plus an eminent respect for the vicissitudes of Murphy's Law" - N.B. Ward, P.Eng, President, Bowen Industrial Equipment Inc.

I am convinced that the Quality Assurance in Services workbook will be an excellent guide for the service industries that are considering the pros and cons of ISO 9000 registration in the future." - Peter B. Dix, Manager, Quality Systems Registrations, Warnock Hersey Professional Services