procedures for procedures? -Reply

[William McCabe <WMCCABE@tnrcc.state.tx.us>]

What you're asking for sounds like fault mode, effect, and criticality
analysis, fault tree analysis, or cause and effect diagramming.  There are
brief descriptions on this subject in Juran's Quality Control Handbook, 4th
Edition (McGaw-Hill, 1988), pp 13.28, 16.42, and 21.17.  I think there are
even some NUREGs on the subject, though not necessarily geared
toward procedure reviewing and validating.  Give your quality manager or
QA people a call, they should be able to provide you with some good
references.  If not them, call somebody in engineering.

Bob Flood related an excellent experience about a good process gone
bad.  The procedure development process Bob described sounds a lot
like what is covered in Gary Born's book "Process Management to Quality
Improvement" (John Wiley, 1994).  From what I read into Bob's story, the
gone bad part of the process probably had more to do with its
management and/or implementation by all involved than the process itself. 
For instance, applying the process (and I mean the full-blown,
documented out the you know what process) to ALL procedures rather
than those affecting quality/safety may have been a bit much and
definitely results in the kind of problems that Bill Lipton talked about.  On
the other side of the coin though, spending the time analyzing, designing,
and developing the procedures (or anything) on the front end will save
you BIG TIME when it comes time to implement them, or even, recover
from them.

William J. McCabe, RRPT, CQA
Health Physicist, MC-131
Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission
P.O. Box 13087
Austin, Texas  78711-3087
wmccabe@tnrcc.state.tx.us
(512) 239-2252     fax: (512)239-6362

>>> <Douglas.Minnema@dp.doe.gov> 23 Jun 98  03:33 >>>
    
    Does anybody have a good process or procedure for reviewing,
validating, 

    and/or verifying procedures?  I generally see a lot of efforts that are 
    based upon walkdowns or committee reviews, but they don't always
seem to 

    have a set methodology that helps assure adequate coverage of the 
    procedure.  We observe problems with procedure implementation that
often 

    suggest that the review or validation process was not adequate.
    
    I recall from some training in Process Safety Management a few years
ago 

    a technique that was referred to as the "What if ..." method.  Each step


    of the procedure was reviewed against a standard list of questions,
such 

    as "what if this step was done before the previous step, or after the 
    next?" "what if this step was not done?" "what if the step was done 
    incorrectly?" ... you get the idea.  Anybody have any experience with 
    such a method, or can point me towards an appropriate document?
    
    You may respond to me directly, unless you feel that this is of general 
    interest to RADSAFE.  Otherwise, I would be happy to provide a
summary 
of 
    responses if there is an interest.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Doug Minnema, CHP
    Defense Programs
    US Department of Energy
    <Douglas.Minnema@dp.doe.gov>