Blog
5 Insider Tips to Get the Most Out of Jira for Complaints Management
Albert Einstein once said, “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Like Einstein, QA managers spend most of their time resolving problems (although lucky for them, nothing on the level of, say, solving for relativity). Jira makes managing issues much simpler, but it’s not a complete fix if day-to-day management is ignored. Luckily, Jira has excellent “out of the box” tools for managing a daily complaints process that makes tracking and resolving issues more straightforward than you might think. The problem with most complaints management systems QA managers...
Use Jira to Document Meetings, So You Can Focus on What Matters
Quality Assurance processes often require holding reviews and documenting decisions made by stakeholders. Common examples include CAPAs Review Board, Complaints Review Board, and Design Review. There’s a misconception that for regulatory purposes, the results of review meetings must be recorded as minutes. This is why many companies use the traditional method of capturing notes and decisions in either a “minutes” document or spreadsheet. Every time the team meets, the documents are updated, creating some inherent issues: The focus is on recording the review event — not the actual processing...
Why Jira’s Kanban Board is What Your QA Team Needs
One of the “free wins” that quality managers get when they put their QA processes in Jira is the opportunity to use Kanban boards. This agile project management tool helps teams visualize work and improve efficiencies. Where quality processes tend to be obscure with their dedicated lingo and long-winded SOPs, Kanban boards provide clarity to all stakeholders and make things concrete. To make the point more tangible, let’s focus on the example of “Kanbanizing” your Deviations/ Nonconformities and CAPAs processes: How Kanban boards can turn your team into QA management process ninjas There...
Is Now A Good Time to Change Your Quality System’s Platform?
Regardless of if you are currently managing your Quality Processes in Word or with an Electronic Quality Management System (eQMS), if you are considering changing the tool, then you need to make sure that the timing is right. Changing your Quality System software can be complicated, much like changing the rail tracks while the train is running. While some trepidation is understandable, not making a change when your organisation has outgrown your current tool may be an even bigger threat to your stability and growth. Let me assure you that a smooth transition is both possible and, in many...
How Agile Teams Can Avoid Being Victims of Their Post-it Habits
As an eQMS specialist who frequently works with agile teams, I often walk away from meetings thinking, “Boy, do I wish I owned stock in 3M, the original makers of post-it notes!” While post-its are famously used for design sprints, their versatility makes them a naturally powerful brainstorming tool for agile teams. It was at a recent design workshop with a high-growth, hyper-scaling startup when I realized that the humble post-it note is also a double-edged sword. At the meeting, everyone was buzzing about the next version of their software. I was there to help visualize the quality system...
The Gist of Writing Better Read And Understood Training Docs, Part 2
Read & Understood trainings are known both for what they do well — demonstrate compliance to auditors — and also for what they do not do so well: truly train employees. The truth is there’s no reason that you can’t achieve both goals by making it quick and easy for trainees and auditors alike to access key information. We’ve already explored how to craft a short and sweet gist section as a top way to increase the effectiveness of your Read & Understood documents. Because many trainings are procedures, work instructions or guidance focusing on a complete business process, it also...
What does eQMS success looks like?
A successful eQMS project is not simply about replacing a legacy tool with a shiny, cool new one. It’s also not solely about achieving regulatory compliance. While those are positive outcomes, they’re not the point of evolving your quality system. Just like smart phones weren’t only an upgrade of the dial telephone and commercial flights weren’t merely a faster version of ships, your new eQMS needs to go far beyond its old-school counterpart. The significant time, effort and resources that go into building and maintaining your eQMS should translate into a 10x impact on your business. Be...
The Gist of Writing Better Read And Understood Training Docs
Getting your team to confirm they’ve read and understood documents is only half the battle. Granted, it’s an important battle to win. It’s why we love getting feedback like this on our Read & Understood Training Genius app for Confluence: “It’s great — one of our developers was behind with 69 read & understood trainings. After I nagged her, she was able, using the Training Genius, to sign-off these 69 read & understood docs in one evening.” So while the developer was able to get through her mandatory trainings, it’s hard to imagine that she actually read and understood 69...
Why the Way to a Hellish Quality System May Be Paved With Best Practices
Standard operating procedures (SOPs) created according to “best practices” ideally should lead to smooth, coordinated operations, greater productivity, lower risk of errors and better compliance. But oftentimes, the reality is different. Regulations and standards tend to be obscure and boring. The temptation to find a shortcut and skip bits of essential learning just to get the job done is strong. Thus “best practices” can actually become a euphemism for cutting corners and taking an apparently easier way out. True best practices are bespoke — they have to be written to suit your...
How to Easily Integrate Radbee’s Read & Understood Training Genius With Comala Apps
If you are using Comala Workflows App to manage your controlled documents, then your “read and understood” rules should be aware of the workflow status of the page. For example, if you would like people to train on pages that have a new official version, which is about to or has recently gone into effect, you’ll want users to be notified. On the other hand, if your updates are still in the process of being authored, reviewed and/or approved, you want to be sure the system stays mum until it’s official. The easiest way to achieve this depends on whether you are also using Comala Publishing or...