ISO certification

Closely on the heels of our first anniversary, we had planned for our ISO certification audit. We had this audit last Thu and Fri and the auditors have recommended us for the ISO certification. We didn't had any "areas of concern" or "non-conformance", though we got some very good suggestions also known as "opportunities for improvement". The goal was set in early March. We hired a highly experienced TQM consultant to guide us through the process and as usual had our task force. All these people ensured that no stone was left unturned, which resulted in the recommendation for certification. We are quality conscious and that certification is just the beginning of a never ending journey of excellence.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of certifications - ISO, CMM etc., I would rather spend my time try to influence folks to give the best they can and excel, rather than worry about audits. I have no problem with following processes, but the documentation in specific templates, book keeping, doing something just to keep auditors happy etc., are something that repels me. Before you get me wrong, let me quickly add that I've been an internal auditor for 7yrs and have taken very active role in ISO and CMM certification efforts in a few of my previous companies. Further, I also went thru PMI certification as a certified Project Management Professional. The grouse comes mostly when the people forget the "spirit" part and focus solely on the "letter" part and you get penalized and/or called to explain on things that were done so well, but auditors are not happy that some record is not in the specified template. Good number of folks, miss out on the big picture of "why certification?" and focus on conformity. Not for nothing Ralph Emerson said "Foolish consistency in the hobgoblin of small minds".

Hence, I do have mixed feelings. Glad that we were able to achieve the goal. But, now that we would be certified, just worried that conformity may take precedence over excellence. Worse, it might become an annual affair to "fix" records, just before the audits. However, we would move to metrics based management and hope to get some good metrics on all aspects of the operation.



Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com

1st anniversary

Our India subsidiary was formally started this day (6-Oct) one year ago when I along with my long time colleague joined on 6-Oct-2008 and the first task was to find an office space. One year has passed so quickly thanks to the pace at which we are running. We had our fair share of joy and frustration, pride and despair, excitement and anger, that are typical of any start-up. Though there would be always scope for improvement, I'm quite proud of things we as a team have achieved in the last one year and about the fact that we are moving as per the vision we have set for ourselves.

In this one year we now are completely responsible for the entire Software part, PMO, Customer Support, QA and Build & Release. We also have several finance and administrative functions (accounting, IT etc.,) now operating out of Bangalore.

Coming year looks even more exciting as we plan to add ASIC and H/w engg, expand the team and directly serve some of the biggest names in the Consumer Electronics space. Most importantly, the stuff that we have been working on this year would be out in the market - the biggest satisfaction for anyone into product development.

Thank you very much,


RamP!
ramp.ramp@gmail.com