Maximize QA’s contribution to successful project deliveries Grace Shi, PMP, MBA, MEng Project Manager BCIT, Thurs Sept 25 th, 2008

Agenda Quality Project Quality Project delivery lifecycle QA’s contributions Open discussion

Quality In business terms –Compatibility, interoperability, localization, internationalization –Competitive advantage comes from speed and flexibility: agile methodology –Key to maintain level of readiness –Key element of competition –Quality, as a perception and definition? –Quality, is it a tradeoff decision? Considering cost/benefit, time to market, etc

Quality Cont’d Principles of quality –Stability –Consistency –…–… What is Quality? –Capable of being used; –meet intended purpose; –customer satisfaction; –conform to requirements “Quality Management for Projects and Programs”, Lewis Ireland

Project Quality Project management methodology, e.g. PMI –Processes –Structures –best practices Deliverables –Code –Documentations –Changes/Revisions Who owns Project Quality? –PM, of course, but the next in line is QA!

Project delivery lifecycle Get the work Do the work Deliver the work Given –Skill-sets (resources available) –Time (if there is a deadline) –Money (budget)

What normally QA does Requirements signed off  QA plan and test cases  testing after the work is done  more testing  Project is delivered

Initiating The Work Executing Do it Do it!!testing!! ImplementingDeliver! Delivery Lifecycle

QA is just testing? Or, QA is Quality Assurance while testing is a means to achieve that? How can QA contributes more?

Requirements, Impacts, Design, QA plan, Dev/conf., Iterative, System testing, Regression testing, User testing, CR/fixes/revisio n UAT, Rollout/back validation, Pilot, Alfa/Beta, Deploy/cutover, Delivery lifecycle

QA’s contribution – 1 Project initiation -- –Requirements can be verified? –In addition to the requirements, what else need to be verified? (the impacted ones) –To meet the quality objectives, the timeline can be achieved? The budget is still ok? –What is the change management and control procedures? Version control? –(documents/codes)

Requirements Architectural Design Impact analysis QA Plan Signed off

QA’s contribution – 2 Project execution –Iterative approach, functional testing and coding in parallel, faster, find problems earlier –Do more system testing based on impact analysis –Involve users to do user testing whenever possible, especially in product testing –Engaged in change requests/defect fixes  loop back to QA plan, impact analysis

Which one would you choose? t 3 iterations

QA’s contribution – 3 Project Implementation -- –UAT (user acceptance test) support –Production change management –Production rollout and rollback validation

Have you validated rollout/rollback procedures?

Requirements, Impacts, Design, QA plan, Dev/conf., Iterative, System testing, Regression testing, User testing, CR/fixes/revisio n UAT, Rollout/back validation, Pilot, Alfa/Beta, Deploy/cutover, Delivery lifecycle

Open discussion How is it like in your organization? What does QA do? What are the QA’s contributions in addition to testing? In your experience, what else can be done by QA in the project delivery processes? What might be the roadblocks? Technical, resources, process related, organization structural, political, etc