Leadership understands what certification asks of the organisation and commits the money and backing to see it through.

Fix the boundary of the management system and note the internal and external issues and interested parties that shape it.

Compare what the organisation already does against every clause of the standard and state the honest distance.

Turn the gap into a dated plan with named owners, a budget and a realistic certification target.

Identify what could stop the objectives being met, and what could advance them, and decide what to do about each.

Write only the policy, procedures and documents the standard and the operation actually require.

Make sure the people doing the work are competent for it and know why the system exists.

Run the processes under the system long enough to produce genuine evidence rather than manufactured paperwork.

Audit the whole system against the standard, with auditors independent of the work they audit.

Put the evidence in front of top management and minute what they decide and what will change.

Close the findings at their cause, not their symptom, and prove the correction held.

Face the certification body in its two-stage audit and answer for the system as it truly is.