To suggest there has never been a management book like Surviving ISO 9001:2015 is an understatement; in fact, the book comes with an adult language warning. Written by the author of the world's first parody standard, Eyesore 9001, the book is hilarious and biting, but likewise brutal and uncompromising in its dissection of the ISO 9001 standard and the system that created it. Surviving ISO 9001:2015 first acknowledges the deep failures in the famous quality management system standard, and provides a stunning inside look into how these flaws came about as a product of collusion, conflicts of interest and corruption within the standards development process and surrounding certification scheme. Then, it describes how to implement the standard regardless, since many companies will be forced to do so by customers or Federal government contracts. The author presents an argument that only by understanding ISO 9001's weaknesses, and how they got there, can one truly understand how to implement an ISO 9001 quality management system that works for the benefit of the company, and not merely the benefit of the standard's authors or third-party auditors.

Surviving ISO 9001:2015 is broken into three parts, which can be read in any order. The first part ("Frankenstein Sets to Work") reveals the true and often damning history of ISO 9001, and how consultants and certification bodies (registrars) dominated the development process to leverage their own marketing and sales activities, at the expense of the users of ISO 9001, and at risk to health and safety of the public.

The second part ("The Creature Raids the Village") presents a clause-by-clause "beatdown" of the ISO 9001:2015 standard and its often confusing, labyrinthine requirements. Breaking down each requirement into "human English," the author then provides proven, practical and real-world implementation advice. Because ISO 9001 is still targeted at manufacturing firms, the author ensures that equal time is given to understanding and implementing the standard for service providers, as well. The methods here are based on actual experience with real clients, which is why the book was published much later than others on the market; it was necessary to build the experience using the standard before releasing a book about it.

The final part ("Bride of the Monster") acknowledges that implementing ISO 9001 in the sequence of its confusing clauses can cripple efficiency, so provides a detailed, step-by-step implementation plan that re-orders the steps into a proper sequence, eschewing the order of clauses as they appear in the standard. This also includes a handy checklist, so users can check off each step as they progress.

Despite tackling a complicated and vexing subject, the author presents the material with equal parts humor and outrage, always doing so in a manner that will benefit those that who would never understand the language of ISO 9001 otherwise.

This Second Edition provides some expanded content over the first edition.