Quality Assurance Process Improvement is the current topic in our Blog Series. We completed a series of 4 on Assessments because at the end of the Assessment process a lot of organizations won’t act on the Assessment results if they don’t have a plan for moving forward. This is particularly true if the Assessment has not been tailored to the particular company in question. A standardized Assessment process generates standard recommendations which may not be applicable. Make sure you detail your expectations at the beginning of the Assessment so you get value from the process and your expenditure of time.
Last time we looked at What Process Improvement is and now want to address the question of “Why do it”. We stated earlier that we needed to understand the intent of an Assessment and use it going forward. And that is after-the-fact in terms of the answering the question. Why do an Assessment and continue on with Process Improvement in a Quality Assurance environment in the first place?
The answer is that Process Improvement Saves Time and Money. We do not carry out any Process Improvement activity without the intent of saving money. The activities we do must have a positive ROI. This, however, is the more difficult question to answer since the positive ROI is not always in the current project. Putting in a defect management process; improving the review process; ensuring early involvement of Quality Assurance personnel in a project benefit the next project but not the current one.
The objective is to save the overall organisation funds; not just the current project. As such the results of an Assessment and the activities done as part of Process Improvement must be assessed at the corporate level and not at the project level.
Next Week: Scheduling Test Cycles