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Gettin’ Better - Project Quality Management, Part 2: Quality Assurance
October 14, 2007 | Author: PM Hut | Filed under: Quality Management, Techniques
Gettin’ Better - Project Quality Management, Part 2: Quality Assurance (#2 in the series Project Quality Management)
By Alan Koch, PMP - Global Knowledge Course Director
Quality assurance (QA) is the application of planned, systematic quality activities to ensure that the project will employ all processes needed to meet requirements. . QA also provides an umbrella for another important quality activity, continuous process improvement.
Even with that quote from the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK®), many readers, seeing “Quality Assurance” (QA) in the title of this article, will expect to read about testing and reviews. Sorry! That will be next month when we talk about Quality Control.
Quality Assurance has nothing to do with testing or reviews. QA is the proactive things we do before and while we are building the product to assure that we will achieve our quality goals.
Proactive or Reactive?
There are many quality-related activities that we may be including in our projects. Why aren’t they all considered to be Quality Assurance? Don’t we include them in our projects to assure that our product will be of good quality? The difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control (which we will address next time) is that QA is proactive, while QC is reactive.
Testing, reviews, code analysis, and automated testing are all activities that we engage in after something has been built. The code must be written before it can be reviewed or analyzed. The system must be executable to run tests. And all of these things are designed to look at what was built to determine if it meets quality standards.
Quality Assurance activities happen before the product is built (or in some cases, as it is being built). They are proactive in that they alter what we build instead of just assessing it after the fact. They assure that quality will be built instead of checking to see if it was.
The reactive QC activities are important, and must always be included in any project. But they can only take us part of the way to our quality goals. To reach the level of quality that is required, almost all organizations must add QA to the mix and become proactive about quality.
Process Audits
As the PMBOK® alluded, one important QA activity involves process audits. For most people, this conjures up the image of the Process-Police looking over your shoulder and hitting you with a big stick (an audit finding) if you are being “bad.” While ensuring that processes are being followed is important, this is far from the only (or even the most important) part of process audits.
Process audits, when done well, are our primary tools for process improvement. When the auditor finds that someone is not following applicable processes, the first order of business is to find out why! Beating people into compliance is rarely necessary. There is usually a good reason why a person will circumvent an established process. If we understand the motivations, we can improve the process.
For example, if a person does not follow the proper process because he or she doesn’t know about it, or doesn’t know how to do it, then there is an opportunity to improve our training process. We need to find out why the training failure happened, correct the training process, and provide supplemental training to that person, and possibly other people as well.
If, on the other hand, the person knows the process, but found him- or herself in a situation where it would not work, or would be over burdensome, then we may need to improve that process. We should look at how the process applies in that sort of situation and figure out how to adapt it to meet those special needs.
If the person chooses to ignore the process because they see little value in it, then our education process may need attention. Have we clearly communicated why the organization values the process, and how it contributes to the organization’s over-all goals?
If the person simply refuses to adhere to an efficient process that they understand, only then is action directed at that person warranted. But those situations are rare, because most people are willing to do what is necessary to help their organization to thrive.
Process Analysis
From the prior discussion, it is clear that process analysis is at the heart of true QA. But those examples are all reactions to compliance problems. QA also must include proactive process analysis. This includes watching metrics to ensure that the processes provide the benefit they are designed for. Making sure they are as efficient as they can be. Ensuring that the proper methods and tools are available and working well.
This analysis can give rise to significant quality improvements. For example, if system design defects are costing the organization a lot of time, then perhaps the adoption of a new design methodology is in order. If regression testing is a burden, perhaps automation will help. Whatever challenges the organization is facing, addressing those challenges will likely require adaptation of our processes (and their handmaidens, methods and tools).
Making sure that our processes and tools meet our needs, and that we use them consistently and properly is the essence of Quality Assurance. It is our proactive way to assure the quality of what we build.
This article was originally published in Global Knowledge’s Business Brief e-newsletter. Global Knowledge delivers comprehensive hands-on project management, business process, and professional skills training. Visit our online Knowledge Center at www.globalknowledge.com/business for free white papers, webinars, and more.
© Copyright 2007, Global Knowledge. All rights reserved.
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