How a readiness programme runs
Nine steps, each one handing you something you keep whether or not you continue to the next.
- Steps
- Nine, each with a named artifact
- Stop points
- End of any step, keeping what you hold
- Documentation
- Within a week of the gap analysis
- Your time
- Process owners, half a day each in the build
- At handover
- A readiness pack for your assessor
A readiness programme runs from enquiry through gap analysis, plan, build, embed, internal audit, close out and management review to handover. Ownership moves from us to your team across those steps. At the end you approach your own certification body with a readiness pack.
Where programmes stall
Most readiness programmes do not fail at documentation. They stall at step five, when the documents exist and the records do not.
Writing procedures is the visible part and the easiest to buy. The part that decides an audit comes after, when your people fill in the forms, hold the meetings and log the checks. An assessor samples those records, and nobody can produce them after the fact.
So the method moves ownership to your side early. Process owners review drafts in their own words at step four, forms are designed to take seconds at the point of work, and the internal audit at step six samples your records, not ours.
The measure of the job is whether your next internal audit runs without us. If it cannot, the handover has not happened, whatever the pack says.
The nine steps
This is the readiness cycle, written out with the artifact and the owner at each step.
| Step | What happens | Who is doing the work |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Enquiry | Which standard, which sites, which deadline. | Us |
| 2 Gap analysis | We audit what exists against the standard, clause by clause. | Us |
| 3 Plan | The gaps sequenced into phases with owners on your side. | Us, agreed with you |
| 4 Build | Policies, procedures, registers and records built with your people, not handed to them. | Together |
| 5 Embed | Training, trials and the first real records produced by your own team. | Your team, supported |
| 6 Internal audit | A full internal audit run the way an external auditor will run it. | Us, or your trained auditors |
| 7 Close out | Corrective actions raised, actioned and verified. | You, verified by us |
| 8 Management review | The review meeting held and minuted to the standard's requirements. | Your management |
| 9 Handover | You approach your own certification body, holding the readiness pack. | You |
What you hold if you stop early
Every step ends with a document. That is deliberate, because a programme you cannot leave is a programme you should not join.
After step 2, the gap report
Clause by clause against what exists, with effort and dependency per gap. Useful to anybody, including a different consultant.
After step 3, the implementation plan
Phases, owners and dates. A team with its own quality lead can run the build from here and bring us back at step 6.
After step 4, the documented system
Your policies, procedures, registers and forms, inside your own document control.
After step 6, the internal audit report
Real findings, written in three parts, before anybody external sees the system.
After step 9, the readiness pack
Scope, sites, process list, document index and the evidence an assessor asks for, assembled the way they ask for it.
How an engagement is structured
- 01
Quoted once the scope is known
The proposal for the rest of the work is written after the gap analysis, when the size of the job is known, rather than over the phone.
- 02
A stop point at every phase boundary
You can end the engagement at the end of any phase, and the deliverable from that phase is complete and yours.
- 03
Named people
You know who is doing the work before you sign, because the proposal names them.
- 04
Handover is a deliverable
The measure of the job is whether your next internal audit runs without us. Dependency is a business model, not a service.
One programme, start to finish
A food distributor in Riyadh needs ISO 22000 for a customer contract. It has a quality lead with some time and no system.
Steps 1 to 3 are ours. The call sets the standard, the one site and the contract date. The gap analysis finds cold chain checks being done and never written down, and no hazard analysis at all. The plan names the quality lead and the warehouse supervisor as owners, with dates.
Step 4 is shared. We draft the hazard analysis and the prerequisite programmes with the supervisor on the warehouse floor, and the quality lead puts every document on the master list.
Step 5 is theirs. The team fills in the temperature logs, the cleaning records and the receiving checks. We review the records as they build, and shorten two forms that take too long to fill in at the dock.
We come back for step 6 and audit the system as an assessor would. The team closes the findings and holds its management review. At step 9 the quality lead takes the readiness pack to the certification body the company chose.
Questions about the engagement
What does it cost?
We quote by phase after the gap analysis, and we do not publish prices because the honest number depends on scope, sites, shifts and how much already exists. What we can tell you in advance is what drives it: the number of sites and their dispersion, how many standards are in scope, whether your records exist at all, and how much of your own team's time you can commit.
Can we do some of it ourselves?
Yes, and it usually works better. One shape: we run steps 2 and 3, your team runs 4 and 5 with us reviewing, and we come back for 6. It costs less and the system is more likely to survive.
Do you use document templates?
We start from a structure, not a blank page, and then the content is written with your process owners. A template arriving unedited on your server is how you end up with a procedure describing a factory that is not yours.
How long does the whole thing take?
Your documentation (manual, procedures, forms): within a week of the gap analysis. Then your team runs it. Before the certification audit, that means at least one internal audit and one management review, with the records to show them. You and your certification body set the pace.
We already have a consultant. Can you review their work?
Yes. A review against the standard is a legitimate piece of work and we will give you a straight answer, including when the answer is that the work is fine and you should carry on with them.
Will you attend our certification audit?
We can attend as an observer if you want us there. Your team answers the assessor's questions, because the system has to stand up when we are not in the room, which is the entire point of the method.
Start points
Gap analysis
Step 2, and the only step most clients should commit to on day one.
Read moreServiceInternal audit
Step 6, which is where organisations most often bring us back in.
Read moreIndexAll consult services
Every standard and service in this division, in one filterable list.
Read moreMethodWhat you hold at the end
Every document the programme produces, drawn as a specimen before you sign.
Read morePart of one system
Every division keeps records to the same standard, so the second one you need works the way the first one did.
Step 2 is the only commitment that matters
Book the gap analysis, read the report, then decide how much of the rest you want us for. The report is yours regardless.