ISO Certification for a software company.... who to go to first?

thekooman

Hi all,
I have completed some research into obtaining ISO 9001 or ISO 20000 for the company i work with.
I did contact a (consultancy) company in dublin with kicking off the process,e.g firstly a GAP analysis and then how we would go about changing our processes, training, etc. but have not heard back from them. Either very busy or very unprofessional!
anyways, im wondering would anyone have a recommendation of a consultancy firm that deal with ISO 9001 or 20000 with experience in the software industry?
they would be used to help our company get to ISO certification.

i hope someone can help. don't want to go picking names out of the golden pages when i don't know what the company is like.

thekooman

meant to say, if anyone has a recommendation they can send me a PM.

patftrears

thekooman wrote: »

Hi all,
I have completed some research into obtaining ISO 9001 or ISO 20000 for the company i work with.
I did contact a (consultancy) company in dublin with kicking off the process,e.g firstly a GAP analysis and then how we would go about changing our processes, training, etc. but have not heard back from them. Either very busy or very unprofessional!
anyways, im wondering would anyone have a recommendation of a consultancy firm that deal with ISO 9001 or 20000 with experience in the software industry?
they would be used to help our company get to ISO certification.

i hope someone can help. don't want to go picking names out of the golden pages when i don't know what the company is like.

http://www.cse.dcu.ie

http://www.cse.dcu.ie/cse_www/pdf/brochures/iso.pdf

not sure if this will do you, but have worked with these guys before, top quality and great guys to deal with.
Michael O'Duffy is the head out there.

thekooman

patftrears wrote: »

http://www.cse.dcu.ie

http://www.cse.dcu.ie/cse_www/pdf/brochures/iso.pdf

not sure if this will do you, but have worked with these guys before, top quality and great guys to deal with.
Michael O'Duffy is the head out there.

Certain looks good; many thanks. the specific relevance to the software industry is what im looking for. most of the companies i have talked with don't have much experience with software development but have with IT services' companies.

Elephant..

Hi I was just wondering if anyone knows any one in the construction industry that would be of any help with this? We are a small construction company and in the process of trying to become quality assured and want to know what the fastest and most efficient way of doing this is.

thekooman

Elephant.. wrote: »

Hi I was just wondering if anyone knows any one in the construction industry that would be of any help with this? We are a small construction company and in the process of trying to become quality assured and want to know what the fastest and most efficient way of doing this is.

hey Elephant,
I have began looking into this in more depth now and have contacted 3 different ISO consultants. i am yet to talk face to face with them. going by the research i have done it is a daunting task to implement ISO 9001. it will be worth it in the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BS_5750#Summary_of_ISO_9001:2008_in_informal_language

this wiki entry might give you an idea of what is entailed but its very "light"!.
if you want the names of the places i have contacted please send me a PM.

MediaTank

I'm coming in here a bit late, but I've been through the process. ISO 9001:2000 is not that bad, there are only 6 (or so) compulsary documents/processes required. What you have to show is that you manage your process (in this case the SDLC) and incorporate feedback at every stage of the process.

We found as many companies do, that you do all of this already, but in an informal way. Moving to a ISO model is really about documenting your processes formally and sticking to it and recording how you do.

One strong piece of advice is to eshew any paper based records and make it 100% electronic. We us web pages on an intranet for example.

MT

thekooman

MediaTank wrote: »

I'm coming in here a bit late, but I've been through the process. ISO 9001:2000 is not that bad, there are only 6 (or so) compulsary documents/processes required. What you have to show is that you manage your process (in this case the SDLC) and incorporate feedback at every stage of the process.

We found as many companies do, that you do all of this already, but in an informal way. Moving to a ISO model is really about documenting your processes formally and sticking to it and recording how you do.

One strong piece of advice is to eshew any paper based records and make it 100% electronic. We us web pages on an intranet for example.

MT

great to hear the feedback MediaTank. we have established processes already (agile SDLC) and would hope this would go a long way towards helping us but another section of our company don't have a Source control solution in place for code so that could be a downfall.

i don't think everyone in our company wants it as they all say "oh thats more work!" but longer term its for potential sales and us knowing that if we have a certain process we can be pretty confident of a good product in the end.

MediaTank

thekooman wrote: »

great to hear the feedback MediaTank. we have established processes already (agile SDLC) and would hope this would go a long way towards helping us but another section of our company don't have a Source control solution in place for code so that could be a downfall.

i don't think everyone in our company wants it as they all say "oh thats more work!" but longer term its for potential sales and us knowing that if we have a certain process we can be pretty confident of a good product in the end.

If you have an SDLC then you are half way there. You will need SCC as that is how you show you manage the codebase. There's lot's of free open source ones around, like lot's of companies we use Subversion for SCC and Mantis for bug tracking. Testing is a big part of ISO 9000 so that needs to be well covered.

Changing the mindset of someone who thinks it's more work can be tricky. What we found is that streamlining the process and putting it on an intranet adds no overhead to software developers, and in fact can have a beneficial effect in that their work is now fully traceable e.g. from a customer finding a bug to fixing it can be tracked all the way through the system.

MT

thekooman

MediaTank wrote: »

If you have an SDLC then you are half way there. You will need SCC as that is how you show you manage the codebase. There's lot's of free open source ones around, like lot's of companies we use Subversion for SCC and Mantis for bug tracking. Testing is a big part of ISO 9000 so that needs to be well covered.

Changing the mindset of someone who thinks it's more work can be tricky. What we found is that streamlining the process and putting it on an intranet adds no overhead to software developers, and in fact can have a beneficial effect in that their work is now fully traceable e.g. from a customer finding a bug to fixing it can be tracked all the way through the system.

MT

we're using SourceSafe for code and i use it as well for documentation such as usecases, testcases, test plans & procedures, test results, etc. We use Bugzilla along with the Testopia test management tool plugin for bugs and test management. I do think our department is in a good position for implementation but a customer online issue tracking tool is a must and the other development department will need a source control tool.

thanks for the pointers MT, its always great to hear some first hand experience on implementation.

thekooman

MediaTank wrote: »

Changing the mindset of someone who thinks it's more work can be tricky. What we found is that streamlining the process and putting it on an intranet adds no overhead to software developers, and in fact can have a beneficial effect in that their work is now fully traceable e.g. from a customer finding a bug to fixing it can be tracked all the way through the system.

MT

hi MediaTank,
do you use a out of the box system for your intranet or was it something that is a mish-mash of a few different systems to manage your processes in this way? would be great to hear what you are using for this as we have 2 offices in different locations and it may be hard for us to see what the other guys are up to. currently we use PivotalTracker for our jobs pool and for adding things as reminders.

Streamlining it would be important for us so as to have as little impact on the current mindset but also in tracking what is to do/been done. Im the QA guy so ill probably be put in charge of implementing the processes anyways in the other office as well, a sort of "champion" of the project!

MediaTank

thekooman wrote: »

hi MediaTank,
do you use a out of the box system for your intranet or was it something that is a mish-mash of a few different systems to manage your processes in this way? would be great to hear what you are using for this as we have 2 offices in different locations and it may be hard for us to see what the other guys are up to. currently we use PivotalTracker for our jobs pool and for adding things as reminders.

Streamlining it would be important for us so as to have as little impact on the current mindset but also in tracking what is to do/been done. Im the QA guy so ill probably be put in charge of implementing the processes anyways in the other office as well, a sort of "champion" of the project!

We just use an intanet/web pages to host the process documents. Simple as that. Latest versions of each doument are always available this way.

c1979

If you are developing software to meet the requirements ISO9001:2008 you need to use the guidence document 90000 - 3. Which is available to buy on www.iso.org

Also if you are going down the route of certification you need to ensure that the certification body you us is competent to assess you against the requirements of 90,000-3.v There are certifcation bodies in Ireland that don;t have a clue when it comes to certification for a software

I can recommend a good certifcation body so PM if anyone is interested

Elephant..

If any1 could help me on this.

Working in a small company and we have decided to go ahead with implementing a quality system ourselves without any consultants, and i am in the process of doing up a procedures manual with all our procedures. We have most of the required procedures in place but just have to document them properly.
We are doing up a procedures manual first, then from that documenting work instructions and making sure we have the right records in place. and when we have that done, we will do our quality manual. Is this the way we should be going about this?? has any1 started like this from scratch and if they have any advise they could give me as i am very new to this?

And what do we do next?

Thanks a million.

c1979

I would recommend you visit ISO 9001 to learn more about ISO 9001 quality management systems. There is also information on various other standards on this websites that may be applicable to your business.

PM if you have any other questions