Continuous Improvement Projects in Certified Organizations in Iceland: Traditional Projects or not?

Globalization, new technology and competition make today's surroundings ever changing for organizations and customers’ needs and wants change rapidly, making customer retention and market shares an uphill battle. Benchmarking organizations place importance on continuous improvement and systematic approach to projects. There is an interest amongst Icelandic organizations to become certified according to the ISO 9001 standard. The standard is based on quality management principles, such as a customer focus, process approach, and continual improvement. In order for actions taken to continually improve the organization there has to be some kind of objectives and performance measures in place. This paper analyses how certified organizations support continuous improvement by studying what kind of process is in place to support continuous improvement; whether continuous improvement is handled like a formal project; who is responsible for carrying out continuous improvement projects; and which project management tools are mainly used for these projects.