Introducing QUALITY as a key Practice Management topic
Charles Nelson, AIA, Guest Editor

The AIA Practice Management Knowledge Community Advisory Group has decided to focus on "Quality Management" for his edition, and has asked me to guest-edit this edition. We have a diverse, interesting collection of papers for your review: Dennis King, FAIA, writes about his perspective on the quality journey at Harley Ellis Devereaux, a firm that has been certified to ISO 9001 for about a decade. Kieran Timberlake Associates share their more recent experience, including a description of the process of certification. Robert P. Smith of CMMI looks at QM from the perspective of a practice that has considered the ISO 9001 route, but has (like so many others) decided to craft its own approach rather than embracing the rigors of the quality standard. Danny Kahler, active in the American Society for Quality, writes about a new "Book of Knowledge" that ASQ is preparing for the design & construction industry. Finally, I've contributed articles on finding expert help in setting up QM systems and a "best practice" guide note on the specific subject of substitutions.

You can count the number of architectural practices in the US that have gone down the ISO 9001 certification path on the fingers of one hand (two hands max). This is in stark contrast to the rest of the world, where certification is far more common. Japanese architects will tell you frankly that they couldn't get commissions if they were not certified. In Australia, probably well over 50% of practices are certified (including almost all of the larger practices), and have been for a decade or two.

When I talk to US architects about QM, the response I hear most often is "Well, we haven't been sued in the last ten years, so we must be doing pretty well, and probably don't need that". Despite the prevalence of this attitude, it is simply irrelevant. Yes, there is some relationship between risk management and QM – but the point of QM is not to prevent lawsuits! There is a very long distance between "world's best practice" and practice so bad that clients feel they must sue you – and QM is all about where the practice wants to be on that continuum. Do you want your practice to be "better" than it now is (however you describe "better")? If so, then working on a formal quality program, whether or not certification is part of your goal, is the way to achieve that change.

Charles Nelson, AIA, LFRAIA, is Managing Director of Building Technology Pty Ltd in Australia. He can be reached at cnelson@psmj.com, or via his website at www.buildingtech.com.