Getting Value From Quality Management

Two weeks ago we provided A How to on Quality Management?  This week we want to look how you get Value from Quality Management.

We often hear people questioning the value of Quality Management, and rarely hear the same question on the value of Software Testing. Testing has a tangible and more immediate outcome. Quality Management, on the other hand, doesn’t always show its value and activity immediately even though it provides longer term and larger rewards. The key to getting value from Quality Management and Quality Assurance activities is that all findings must be acted upon. If they aren’t, value isn’t achieved and efforts will be wasted.

So, if getting value fom Quality Management means you have to act on the results, how do we measure the value we have obtained? The only effective way to do this is to benchmark where, note the changes that need to happen and then measure all changes that have occurred.

Examples of Measurement

Here are some examples of measurements we might take before Quality Management has been applied, the action we might take, and the improvement we’re aiming for:

1. Length of time to do a process; Cut out extra steps; Measure the time to do the process again
2. Number of attempts to set up a test environment; Document the setup process; Count the number of attempts again
3. Number of defects found post-production; Root cause analysis and elimination; Count the number of defects found post production

In all cases we are setting up a baseline, making a change, and measuring again.

Without all three steps it’s impossible to identify the value from Quality Assurance process improvement. We show where we are now (since it is not always obvious) and then what improvement has occurred. It is always critical to measure the correct items.

Discussion Questions

• What do you value in Quality Management?
• Is that accepted by your peers?
• Can you increase the value?

Next Week: Final meetings of 2016