Over the last two years or so I’ve been asked many times to write an organisation’s TQS application. On every occasion I’ve turned down the request. I always turn down these requests because the best people to write your TQS application are already working for you.
Of course, you can ask for guidance on how to shape and frame your work, how to make sure your application makes sense to an outsider, how to check that you’ve covered the requirements and so on – and I’ve done all of these tasks several times – but writing your TQS application is a job for you, for three reasons.
It’s your TQS journey
You have made a development journey towards readiness to be certificated. You know the details of that journey. You know about your successes and the areas where you have had problems. You know what you’re really proud of.
Most of all you know how all the different pieces in your jigsaw came together.
This is the story you need to tell, and no one can tell this story better than you.
You know where the evidence is
In your TQS application you make statements about how you address the different aspects of the standard. You then use evidence of how you work in practice to help you to prove your points.
An external writer – even a great writer – won’t have this sort of information to hand. Even in you give him or her lots of material to work with, it will still be difficult for an outsider to decide which items fit the requirements of the different parts of the standard best. It takes someone who knows the standard and knows your work to do that.
You will have to work with the assessors on the verification visit
When the assessors come on site to verify, amplify and clarify what is in the application you’ll have problems, if you don’t own your application.
If you don’t know why something has been written in a particular part of the application, or why a particular example has been offered, you’re going to struggle to have a meaningful discussion with your lead assessor about it. If you don’t know how the application was constructed and the rationale behind your choice of material, you will find the verification visit difficult.
It might look like you’re removing a problem from your over-long list of things to do in your very busy day by outsourcing the writing of your TQS application, but in the long run you’ll be making more work for yourself.
Do yourself a favour
Write the application in-house, but remember to leave plenty of time to write, edit, review and rewrite. In the end the secret of good writing is all in the editing and rewriting.
So, to make sure your TQS application is really well written, don’t outsource the writing, but do make sure you write several versions of the document along the way.
If you’d like to link to this post, please do.If you’d like to use it in your own TQS newsletter, then that’s fine, provided you acknowledge the writer and the source.
See also: T
QS Application writing - the five big mistakes
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