NVP Software Solutions

Tag: Productivity

  • A few good crises

    Last week we mentioned how October used to be Quality Month and now has also been designated as CyberSecurity Awareness month. But the question that arises is how to get Quality accepted in your organization. One client once said that a “A few good crises” would aid Quality Assurance in being accepted. A very true statement and as an external consultant, that was true. However, the people inside the organization were not quite so thrilled with that thought. Clearly crises, were not a good reflection on their management since they should be helping avoid them.

    Our suggestion is to redo the statement as: A few good crises averted and see where you get with that. Start a log of what was averted by your work. Add it to the issue reports as a separate field. Clearly this is bundled in with Risk Management and needs to be attached to the Risk of something occurring. Something that was very low risk is not really a candidate for an averted crisis. However, something that is High Risk and was successfully avoided is a much better candidate for the list. Concentrate on those.

    What are you doing to avert crises?

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  • Why October?

    October was Quality Month at one time although we have not heard a lot about that designation recently. It is now also CyberSecurity month.

    We have to ask “Why October?”

    But ignoring the Why for a little bit, it does seem that October is considered to be a month when we are all supposed to look at the way Quality impacts our lives and take a second look at how we have been operating and see if it can be improved.

    Possibly the originators thought that October would give enough time for any improvements to be included into the following year’s budget and plans. However, with so many organizations having different year ends, that thought may no longer apply. Regardless, Quality considerations should not really be restricted to a single month. Continuous improvement is not continuous in name only. It has to occur all year around.

    What are you doing about Quality Month?

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  • Quality Assurance Article

    Following up to our presentation to PMC on September 1, a short article has been posted elaborating on some of the concepts from the talk. Please see the article at PMAC- Article

    Quality Assurance and You

    Using software as an example, in many more locations, we are dependent on it for our safety and well being. Couple that with the pressure for faster delivery and there is not sufficient time to do thorough testing at the end of development. Quality Assurance finds and utilizes the best places to do validation and verification and ensure a good product while reducing the testing cycle. Projects are delivered, faster, cheaper and with better quality.

    Takeaways:

    Three ingredients to delivering Quality.
    The Costs and Risks of Poor Quality.
    Six Steps to implementing a Quality Program
    Sign up today, this event will sell out!

    See the Article for more information or contact us at neil@nvp.ca

  • Quality Assurance Presentation

    If, as a project manager, you are called upon to implement a new process, software or WHATEVER, quality assurance is something you need to watch.
    On September 1, 2021 at 1PM EST, PMAC will be delivering a one time only professional development webinar for members:

    Quality Assurance and You

    Using software as an example, in many more locations, we are dependent on it for our safety and well being. Couple that with the pressure for faster delivery and there is not sufficient time to do thorough testing at the end of development. Quality Assurance finds and utilizes the best places to do validation and verification and ensure a good product while reducing the testing cycle. Projects are delivered, faster, cheaper and with better quality.

    Takeaways:

    Three ingredients to delivering Quality.
    The Costs and Risks of Poor Quality.
    Six Steps to implementing a Quality Program
    Sign up today, this event will sell out!

    https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcode6tpjktHtzrZPnQJLgRXEosgWwv3jTz

  • Quality Drives Productivity

    The Economist recently ran an article entitled “Unproductive production” indicating the difficulty of measuring whether Productivity in an economy had really increased. One of the points which was interesting was that as long there are more people in employment and they are building more items the economy will continue to grow. However, the main concern is whether these people are being put to good use. This is where (in the Software Industry) we look to have Quality Drive Productivity.

    There have been a lot of Productivity gains in the last few years in Software and in the Quality Control and Quality Assurance areas in particular. We have moved away from manual testing to automated testing and gained a huge jump in Productivity. We have refined our testing methods to improve the way we write and execute test cases and, in return, gained a positive ROI. We partnered with development and the user to make more effective use of the testing time we have and cut back on waste and inefficiencies. We have embraced completely new Software Development Methodologies stretching from one end of the process to the other and integrated Quality Control throughout. In the recent past we have outsourced testing to specialists who are experts in the field. And lastly, we have off-shored lots of testing to cheaper resources.

    Two questions remain after all this:

    1. Are there further Productivity gains possible under the current processes?
    2. Is the current methodology really increasing Productivity?

    By extension, there are probably some further minor Productivity gains under the current processes but to gain a real productivity increase will require a complete rethink of the process. So the answer to the first question is a qualified yes. For the second question, the answer is a little more difficult. If we take as given the first four items as no longer increasing productivity, then we are left with outsourcing and off-shoring as our current methodology for increasing productivity. This is where the referenced article raises the point as to whether these methods are really increasing productivity. The answer is probably no!