Our company opens a new subsidiary and my task is to establish the complete QA (QA, not testing) from scratch. For Quality control (testing, reviews, audits etc.) I intend to adopt TMMi Maturity Level 2 with some changes. But for QA, I am not really sure - as QA deals with process conformance and improvement, I have no idea where to start. The standard IEE 730 does not really help as it is for projects and I need to set up organizational high level QA. I would be extremely grateful for some guidance, reference etc.
-
What test strategies, test plans, and test cases have you got? wiki. What source control are you using?– lloydCommented Jul 22, 2015 at 0:43
-
@lloyd The OP is asking about QA, not testing.– John VCommented Jul 22, 2015 at 6:19
-
I suggest you take a look at this answer sqa.stackexchange.com/questions/1900/…– SivaCommented Jul 22, 2015 at 6:43
-
You can look for the CMMI processes as they not project level, they are for Organization level.– DhimanCommented Jul 23, 2015 at 20:46
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
I've had the same request a few years ago indeed. The company I am working for decided to set up a dedicated QA dept. After an initial period of research we decided to adopt an international standard, in particular ISO 9001:2008 (we are now TUV certified). The standard is not a step by step guide and sometimes it is really difficult to understand how to match all of the requirements, but in the end it helped us a lot.
The standard is divided into 8 chapters but only the last 5 really explain how to create your quality management system.
My personal suggestion is to remember that creating a QA system is a really hard task and it never really ends because you need to work on a continuous improvement of the processes, and you'll be even required to deal with people not ready to change their way of working.
Having gone through the CMM adaptation I'll point out that it isn't just what is inside the QA process that matters. The QA process needs inputs and outputs and having a formal (written) process means that the inputs and outputs must be standardized as well.
Having QA is one of the first level of processes that needs to be developed when improving an organization's "maturity level." If you look at the wiki article on CMM Implentation you can get an idea of what process that the group together at different levels. The idea is that you can't go from one level to the next until all processes at the current level are under control.
You might partially implement a higher level process earlier, but the process can't be operating at the its "maturity level" unless all process at that level and below are working too.
Part of what I'm getting at is that QA and QC are really different functions. QA basically means that you checking to be sure that everyone is following the written processes. QC is a feedback for process control.
So consider measuring a hole which has been drilled. So the QC tech measures holes after the fact and finds that they are getting towards the minimum diameter, thus he tells the machine operator that the drill bit needs to be changed with a new one. The QA guy checks to see that the QC guy made the measurement, and that the machine operator changed the bit as required.
So all in all you need to think not just about not just your QA/QC functional but how the organization's overall maturity is changing.
Having formal processes is an uphill climb. There will no doubt be organizational resistance.
The beauty is when people start blaming the process instead of finger pointing.
I'll also add that adulation of the heroic is a sure sign of organization immaturity.
