"The perfect addition to your reference library, this book offers solid, how-to advice on how to overcome numerous obstacles while successfully implementing your quality management system." Richard Bechtold, PhD, President, Abridge Technology.

"Getting started is the hardest thing. In my professional experience with CMMI, Susan Hinkle has been the only person I've ever seen to successfully take companies from 0 to maturity level 2 and capability level 3 in a year." Joanne O'Leary, Lead Appraiser.

For many organizations, the time, effort, cost, and culture shock associated with implementing a Quality Management System can be overwhelming. With that in mind, I am hoping to share some of my successes so you can borrow ideas, and avoid some of the pitfalls I stumbled upon. This book includes several informative sections such as: the 'make or buy' decision, cultural change, deciding what system to implement and when, and return on investment which you may find exceedingly useful in your decision making and planning. The intent of this book is to explain the realities of what you could encounter when implementing a Quality Management System, and to discuss the things other books and consultants might not necessarily tell you. This book is intended for use by small commercial and government organizations outside the realms of IT, software development and systems engineering.