ISO 9001:2015 - Your Mission, Vision and Values

Mission, Vision, Values and their relationship to Context 

​Following from last week's tip, let's look at determining the "organization's context".

​Until now, most Quality Manuals were very similar in nature: a paraphrasing of the ISO 9001 Standard with a cover page showing the Company Name and address, followed by a introduction or preface endorsed by Top Management.

​It was never a requirement of the ISO Standard for Quality Manuals to follow that format.  So now, there is no requirement for a Quality Manual - however, the organization has to determine its "context".

​The new ISO 9001:2015 Standard is very much aligned with strategic management concepts - finally an opportunity to put those business school concepts and theories into use.  Determining context is a great place to share the organizations vision, mission and values. 

• ​Vision is related to Quality Objectives - i.e. what it is the company wants to achieve.
• ​Mission is related to Context - i.e. what the company does, who the company does it for, etc.
• ​Values are related to the Quality Policy - i.e. what the company and its employees believe.

​So finally, strategic management  and quality management come together as one as part of determining the organizations context.