ISO Mistake #7
Failing to properly define the formatting detail for each type of document – Headings, fonts, font sizes, colours, margins etc.
Documentation confusion can also exist on another level, especially when different people are developing different suites of documentation. Different people have different ideas on how to develop documentation and may go into significantly different levels of detail.
We found this out the hard way some years ago where one £40m turnover company had three different divisions with three different quality managers, and together we were attempting to create a unified management system across the whole group that reflected best practise and, which also “just happened” to, tick all the relevant quality, environmental and health and safety ISO systems boxes.
In developing the Group wide system, the quality managers each went their own way with regard to the detail, scale and presentation of their documentation.
- Document titles, headings and body text were all in different colours, sizes and fonts.
- Some flow charts ran top to bottom, some flow charts ran right to left, some were simple, others less so.
- Job titles were either Always Capitalised, sometimes Capitalised or never capitalised.
- Contrary to what I was taught at school, if you look at the FT and other broadsheet newspapers, it’s now very rare to see a job title capitalised.
- Some forms were placed in the procedures, some forms were set as appendices.
As might be imagined from the above, the first draft of the system was horrible. The content was great but it had a completely inconsistent “look and feel” when the aim was to create a suite of documents that reflected “best practice”.
As a result of the above, we created two documents which seek to outline and agree a style guide from the very beginning of a project. The first document is geared at bigger companies the second document is geared smaller companies.
Solution & resources
- Use the above definitions as a starting point.
- Workshop your definitions to ensure agreement across the implementation team.
- Create and share template examples of each type of document.
- Properly define your documentation process in a written procedure (which will be required by your standard anyway).
- Use the Statius IMS system checklist and style guide (for larger companies).
- Use the Statius IMS system checklist & style guide-Summary (for smaller companies).
