PROCESS TASKS:
1. Establish QA organization or function
The PM appoints an individual or group responsible for QA. QA must have organizational freedom, authority, and independence to objectively evaluate and report on project activities. The QA Group maintains a reporting channel to senior management that is independent of the project.
2. Select QA tasks and assign responsibilities
The QA Group defines and assigns the tasks, work products and processes that will be performed, such as those listed below:a. Review products, tools, services, and facilities against requirements, standards and guidelines.
b. Audit project processes for compliance with standards, and established best practices.
c. Participate in peer reviews and project reviews (technical and management reviews) by providing status on compliance, problem areas, and risks.
d. Suggest methods, standards, guidelines, and tools to be defined for the project and verify they are documented in the project management plan or separate QA plan.
e. Report results of product and/or service evaluations and process audits to the PM, senior management, relevant stakeholders, and the project’s engineering process group (e.g. SEPG) as appropriate.
f. Collect and report metrics on the status of cost and schedule, product evaluations, project quality, and audits.
g. Collect improvement information on the QA processes and establish and maintain a description of the defined process.
The QA Group develops and documents QA plans in the project plan or equivalently in a QA Plan. Depending on the size and type of QA activities required, planning topics can include those listed below:
| · Quality objectives, in measurable terms · Types of test and verification and validation (V&V) activities · Entry and exit criteria for project lifecycle phases · Responsibilities of the QA group · Resource and training requirements for the QA group or function · Scheduling, budgeting and funding of QA activities · QA participation in development of project plans, standards, and procedures | · Process evaluations and audits to be performed by QA · Product and service audits and reviews to be conducted by QA · Standards and procedures used for QA · Documenting and tracking noncompliance issues, and the escalation procedure · Documentation that QA establishes, maintains, and controls over the life of the project through delivery · Method, audience, and frequency of providing feedback on QA activities |
4. Create and maintain QA procedures and checklists
The QA Group establishes and maintains the procedures, checklists, and work aids that describe how QA is to be performed.
The QA Group ensures that resources (tools, databases, work stations, etc.,) for performing the QA Process, developing the work products and providing QA services are adequate. Tools required to perform the QA tasks are identified based on project requirements.
The QA Group performs the tasks as defined in the project or QA Plan. Problems or non-conformances with requirements and standards are documented and reported to the PM or appropriate authority. The QA Group communicates the results of QA activities to relevant stakeholders for resolution. Senior management addresses non-compliance issues that cannot be resolved within the project.
6. Identify and select QA training
The QA Group identifies training required to perform the tasks identified in the QA Plan. Training includes training of the QA Group and QA orientation for the project team members.
7. Monitor and control the QA Process
The QA Group monitors and controls the day-to-day QA activities against the QA Plan, schedule and budget. Identify and evaluate the effects of risks on, and significant deviations from, the QA plan, schedule and budget. Take corrective action when requirements and objectives are not being satisfied or when progress differs significantly from the plan.
8. Place QA work products under CM
The QA Group places completed QA work products under configuration management (CM) in accordance with the project CM Plan.
9. Objectively evaluate the QA Process
The Objective Verifier evaluates the QA Group to provide credible assurance that the QA Process is implemented as planned, and adheres to its process description, standards and procedures.
QA activities, status and results are reviewed with the stakeholders, PM and senior management on a periodic and event-driven basis as designated in the QA Plan. The QA Group escalates unresolved or non-compliance issues and resolves them as necessary.
11. Collect improvement information
The QA Group initially reviews project QA processes and identifies improvements and efficiencies for future use. Suggestions for improvement of project QA processes are submitted to the project’s engineering project office for evaluation. Nominations for organizational standard best practices should be handled per the SSC San Diego SPA document, (submitted to SEPO, using Document Change Requests).
SEPO collects work products, measures, measurement results and improvement information derived from planning and performing the project QA Process to support future use and improvement as process assets.
SEPO establishes, collects and analyzes qualitative and quantitative measures of process variability to determine whether the processes are adequate for the intended function, satisfy project and organizational goals, and whether learning has been effectively shared.
12. Create and maintain a defined QA Process description
Working from SPI Agent and project nominations, SEPO and SPI Agents select and further refine QA best practice nominations into defined organizational QA standard process descriptions, templates and checklists for reuse as organizational process assets.
The QA Group then selects and tailors the QA Process assets from the process asset library according to the tailoring/scalability guidelines and the projects needs.
~SA
