In a series of training that I was recently providing to
project managers, software testers, and business analysts, I found discussions
that focused on who was responsible for software quality in projects. The
project managers thought it was a QA department role. QA passed it back to requirements form
business analysts who then delegated to directions from the project managers. With so much literature on total quality
management, Six Sigma, capability maturity model, and organizational project management
maturity model, it dawned on me that it is this inherent lack of ownership for
quality is the reason why quality is suffering in many projects.
Basic requirements of quality are often
described as adherence to requirements and fitness for use. When you look at the key deliverable of this
statement, “requirements” stems from the project requirements. In traditional projects,
this requirement may come from the client, business analyst, project manager,
or the product owner at a minimum. In agile projects, this could be coming from
the product owner or client, scrum master or coach, and the team at a minimum. The
“fitness for use” stems from timely release of the futures to ensure that the
client can benefit from the release.
But does this definition unambiguously tell whose responsibility quality is? The Chartered Quality Institute comes to rescue as it defines
quality management as a company’s approach to “…understanding precisely what
customers need and consistently delivering accurate solutions within budget, on
time, and with minimum loss to society.” (“What is Quality”, n.d., para 1) This definition emphasizes quality within the
project constraints budget and time limiting the focus to the scope of the
project’s requirements but also to the needs of the society relating to the
fitness for use. A project manager is not developing the code or involving in
the execution of tests. But quality is the fourth constraint that is
compromised as the other project constraints are modified. Therefore, the project
manager is accountable for the quality. This is why Quality Audits are associated with the project manager (or product owner).
It reminds me of the famous parable on the virtue of
citizenship from the “Adventures from the Book of Virtues.” Many subjects in
the kingdom complained about many things in the kingdom and not taking true
ownership for improvement. The king hid a pot of gold beneath a big boulder and
waited to see who took leadership for removing the rock enhancing safety and quality
experience for the others that passed by.
Quality is the same thing as the citizenship requirement. It is everyone’s
job. The more structured approaches the organization uses in testing accuracy
through automation, test case development, and test execution, the more the
project manager becomes attuned to following through on quality, the more the
team members will become focused on providing quality by design rather than
expecting it to be accidentally evolving.
References
What is Quality?
(n.d.) The Chartered Quality Institute.
Retrieved March 28, 2013, from http://www.thecqi.org/The-CQI/What-is-quality/
