What are Quality control and quality assurance? These two topics have very similar terms but different practices and meanings. These subjects apply to both classic waterfall project management and Agile methodologies. This article is published after the validity check of the Masters Project Management Body PM.MBA
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We now discuss how the quality criteria of a product created by a project are checked. Ideally, the project takes place in an organization committed to quality with standards already in place for certain activities. If this is not so, part of the project set-up will be the creation of the framework for managing quality.
The following are examples of good and bad quality criteria:
- All screen layouts should have similar layouts and use the same terminology.
- Screens should be user-friendly.
- The system should be able to handle 50 transactions.
- The system should allow for 20 users at any one time without degradation.
- The response time should not be longer than three seconds.
- Comment on the effectiveness of each of these quality criteria.
Table of Contents
Defining Maintainability and reliability in project management plans
Maintainability is defined as a quality characteristic. How can it be measured?
How can the reliability of a system be measured?
An organization that carries out many similar projects can usefully develop organizational standards for product definitions and quality practices applicable, with appropriate adjustments, to all its project work. This quality framework is called the quality management system (QMS). It may be based on the ISO 9000 series of standards.
Within the QMS, there will be a quality strategy and quality assurance processes. They are reviewed and, if necessary, modified to meet the specific requirements of each project.
Read more in our Quality Management in Project Management and Agile practices article.
Quality management system strategy
A quality strategy defines the QMS and includes:
- procedures and standards for creating a project quality plan;
- definitions of quality criteria;
- quality control procedures;
- quality assurance procedures;
- a statement of compliance with or allowed deviation from industry standards;
- acceptance criteria;
- allocation of responsibilities for defining or undertaking quality-related activities.
The methods for exercising quality control are discussed later, but generally, these are either practical tests or a review.
Quality assurance stands alongside quality control but is external to it. Quality assurance is an audit to confirm that proper procedures are in place and applied correctly. The correctness of a software component can be verified by running tests and checking the results. That is control. Assurance would involve checking that the testing has actually been done by looking at evidence such as copies of the expected and actual results of testing.
Quality control and project team’s work
Quality control would normally be an integral part of the project team’s work. The quality assurance activities, on the other hand, are usually carried out by people outside the project team who report directly to the steering committee/project board. This separation of responsibilities helps to ensure that the process is transparent and reduces possible conflicts of interest.
Quality criteria are specified for each component. As each component is completed, a control process is undertaken to ensure that the criteria have been met. This is followed, at an appropriate time, by an assurance process that confirms that the agreed procedures have been followed and that all products have undergone the necessary checks.
Systems development life cycle has a number of stages – for example, requirements analysis is followed by systems design, followed by construction and testing. Each stage contains quality control processes, usually reviews, and a quality assurance process takes place at the end of each stage. If proper quality control is found to be lacking, corrective action may be mandated. The quality control and, if necessary, the quality assurance processes are repeated until the quality criteria are met.
QUALITY PLANNING
The creation of a quality plan is vital to the success of a project. It specifies the particular standards that apply to the project. Ideally, they should be taken from existing organizational standards. These in turn may derive from industry standards. However, modifications to organizational standards may be needed because of the special characteristics of a project.
The plan also specifies how, when and by whom the quality control activities should be undertaken, the quality assurance processes to be followed, and who will carry them out. It may also include configuration management and change control procedures. The quality plan itself is subject to quality control and quality assurance processes.
It is common for the quality plan to be integrated with the project management plan. The BVOP suggests a quality control process in its project management certification program.
DETECTING DEFECTS
Quality control of software products tends to use testing to establish the quality of deliverables to the client, and reviews for the intermediate products such as requirements, specifications, and design documents. Software can be subject to both testing and review.
The V model
The V model is a useful model of the systems development process, in which the solid lines represent the forward progress of the project and the dashed lines represent the way in which quality control is exercised. PMA (Project Management Academy) presents detailed practical exercises in their project management course so every project manager should be prepared for this topic.
There are two quality control processes at work: one between stages and the other across the V. For example, the requirements specification describes the functions and quality attributes required in the system. This should include an acceptance test plan showing how the requirements are going to be assessed in the final system.
Using the acceptance test plan, testing can be undertaken to demonstrate that the final system to be delivered meets the requirements. This link between the requirements specification and user acceptance testing is shown by the dashed arrow between the two, identified as the ‘acceptance test plan’.
Simplified V model
Systems design follows requirements specification as shown by an arrow. Systems design has two dashed arrows: one across to systems testing and the other back to requirements specification. The horizontal arrow shows the systems testing that needs to be carried out to validate the design after it has been implemented. The arrow to the requirements specification indicates that the design process may discover errors in the systems requirements.
For example, gaps may be found in the definition of the requirements, or two requirements may be found to be inconsistent. The same kind of links to the previous source document and to the appropriate type of testing is applied to each stage of development.
Let me share my addition. I will give only basic points to the quality control process. I hope they will be useful in the development of any complex product.
Quality control
The inspection of the appearance, dimensions, the design will be performed by internal QA teams
Team leaders will check for quality.
Then the quality control team.
The project manager will then recheck.
Then the client will give a final opinion
The parameters will be measured, it will be checked whether they meet the customer’s requirements.
The product will be provided to 100 users for testing. They will use all the features daily for 3 months and after feedback with them to have repairs as needed.
There will be a daily online survey to be completed by each individual in the test group and based on it a quality assessment will be made at the end.
Verification of the additional functions will be performed by the teams responsible for their creation.
The project manager will then inspect the results.
They will be checked for bugs and whether the functionalities are working as intended
If low quality is found, the defects will be repaired. The customer will be notified of the delay and will be compensated in some way by negotiation.
After negotiating the quality requirements of our product between the client and the contractor, a quality management plan is prepared to ensure the quality of performance.
For this purpose, you need highly qualified technical specialists to check the quality of production processes and testing. You can also hire an external contractor for quality management. Thus, the risks of low quality are almost impossible because they specialize in this area and are less likely to get any problem. And if one appears, they will react in time.
There are eight main principles of quality management:
Customer focus
Leadership, unity of purpose, and company leadership
Engaging staff
Process approach
A systematic approach to management for better efficiency and effectiveness
Continuous improvement
An evidence-based approach to decision making
Mutually beneficial cooperation with subcontractors
The project quality plan must contain a list of materials or components used to make the product. Common quality materials include standards, guidelines, checklists, templates, procedures, user guides, and processes.
Agile companies can get a lot from the Waterfall method. Each stage is clearly explained. Also, the PM sets objects and stories for every step. If you create a comprehensive Quality Management Plan and an expert QA/QC unit, you are on the right path.
Waterfall is a universal strategy. PMP for instance, designed by the PMI presents complete methods and life cycle to strongly meeting your negotiations.
Also, Scrum teams lack clear rules. They understand the Scrum structure but they avoid the QC practices. The Scrum Master and Product Owner often don’t understand the QC doctrines. Also, they don’t have sufficient experience. The main purpose for this is that SM and PO usually come from a Software Development environment. They don’t get the QC and QA issues seriously.
Testing of the software and functionalities should be performed by QA specialists, the business analyst of the project, and the software engineer. They should write scenarios and test for the functionality of the software.
The tests and results should be described in detail and brought to the attention of the project manager. In case of software errors and failure to achieve the described characteristics of the software part, a working group with the Scrum Product Owner should be formed and the project manager should be informed about the maximum achieved results and possible scenarios for troubleshooting.
After making decisions by the product owner, the software is finalized and tested again by the team. In case of positive results, a prototype of the product should be prepared.
Any quality management plan is only effective when implemented. The monitoring (by the project manager) ensures that the set is carried out. It is good to have inspection indicators revealing the permissible values of the inspection results. It is known that once controlled raw materials are used in the project, the processing and identification protocols are also subject to supervision.
A Plan for discrepancies and unexpected (unforeseen) situations must also be available; especially in Kovid’s terms, this is already part of the standard. The Plan in question should describe in detail what is a “small” and “significant” defect, when it is necessary to interrupt a stage, etc .; it is also good to present descriptions of tests that need to be performed.
If a Quality Management Plan is prepared, the quality procedures should be formulated and documented. Part of the documentation may be contained in the Quality Manual. The quality plan is related to the documented procedures of the organization for the production of the innovative washing machine (to reach the quality required by the customer).
The main objectives of the quality plan are the testing and certification of satisfactory quality when using the innovative “Ina” washing machine.
The quality plan includes:
Testing the operation of all parts together to fulfill the main purpose of washing a wide variety of laundry, as well as interacting with other machines in the home
Testing in real life situations
Out of scope is:
Testing the durability and functionality of individual parts of the washing machine. This will be done by the functional team that is not in our department.
Responsible persons
Testing will be carried out by two teams of quality specialists – one for point 1 and a second for point 2.
Team 1 – Quality Testing Integration Team led by Peter James
Team 2 – User Quality Testing Team led by Sandra Smith
Testing procedures
Integration tests
Functional tests of the display
Do all display functions meet the requirements?
Acceptance testing – are the criteria met?
End to end testing – testing the entire process, going through all the steps
Performance testing – testing to the limits of requirements – humidity, bad internet, power outages, etc.
Stress testing – can we break the washing machine under extreme conditions – humidity, bad internet, power outages, etc.
Exploratory testing – we test beyond the criteria
Regression tests – whether already tested parts have not failed
Note: Unit tests will be performed by other teams outside our department
Quality Control – Quality Control
When defects are found:
These are recorded in Jira as defects under the Ina project
They are prioritized
This priority is reviewed by the team and the defect is assigned for remediation
It is checked whether the defect has been fixed
A general test is done to see if anything else has broken (regression test)
Quality assurance
Testing is distributed across the team in certain phases
First, the integration tests are performed, a certain period is passed for removing the defects and retesting
The work is divided into small tasks for a certain period of time (we work in small increments)
The allocation is made by the quality manager of the respective team
The quality manager organizes meetings, discusses problems, reallocates work and monitors the process, making corrections if necessary
Once a week, a general meeting is organized where problems are discussed. Issues are recorded and organized by a delivery manager, to whom they are submitted by queues and programmers respectively
The project manager tries to solve problems that block the work and ensure that it runs smoothly
A retrospective meeting is held, where, in addition to pointing out bad practices, ideas for their improvement are given
A team decision is made by voting to introduce a new practice from a relevant idea.