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The TickIT Scheme

TickIT is the UK and Swedish accreditation scheme, supported by the UK and Swedish software industries, for approving Certification bodies that operate ISO 9001 registration schemes in the domain of IT.

The primary aim

The primary aim of the scheme is to ensure that Certification bodies are competent to audit IT companies and that the Certification bodies work in a consistent manner. (It is not, as many people expect, about approval of software developers or products).

It's about quality

An important purpose of TickIT was was to stimulate software system developers to think about:

What quality really is in the context of the processes of software development
How quality may be achieved
How quality management systems may be continuously improved.

Although certification of compliance to ISO 9001 is a contractual requirement for software suppliers in certain market areas, it is intended to be a by-product of the more fundamental aims of quality achievement and improvement, and the delivery of customer satisfaction.

Certification objectives

With regard to certification itself, the objectives were to:

improve professional practice amongst quality management system auditors in the software sector
publish authoritative guidance material (the TickIT Guide) for all stakeholders
Improve the overall quality of quality management system certification in IT.