[INSERT PROJECT NAME] Quality Assurance Plan Executive Sponsor – [Insert Name] Business Owner -[Insert Name] Project Manager – [Insert Name] Original Plan Date: [Insert Date, Spelled Out] Revision Date: [Insert Date, Spelled Out] Revision: [Insert Number] Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 2 ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT This Quality Assurance Plan is to be used by projects to provide more structured and more detailed plans for assuring that that the planning, requirements gathering and structuring, along with the design, construction, testing and deployment of the product fulfill the goals and objectives of the project sponsor and business owners. The plan is meant to provide outside eyes into the project and product development process. The Quality Assurance process is established to provide objective perspectives on the project to overcome the typical project team’s intense involvement that causes them to overlook aspects that seem to appear obvious to an outside observer. This is part of human nature and does not reflect any fault or aspersions about the professionalism of the project team and technical experts. DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY QUALITY ASSURANCE WORKBOOK The Department of Information Technology Quality Assurance Template Workbook is intended to accompany this template and provide guidance and assistance with the completion of the template and the development of quality project management and a quality product. A POLICY STATEMENT All project activity is required to include QA activities as an integral part of processes used for the development and delivery of products/services. The policy supports: • Quality Assurance goals must be rational to be accepted and supported. • Continual improvement effort must be supported. • All quality control and quality measurement activities are documented. • A manager or management team will be designated to be responsible for Quality Assurance. • The Project Manager and the Project Sponsor/Business Owners will review Quality Assurance activities. • This project Quality Assurance Plan will be baselined and placed under Configuration Management control. • Quality Assurance will work to foster constructive communication, provide feedback to detect and prevent development problems, control risks, discuss alternative solutions, and ensure quality is built-in to all products/services. Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 3 REVISION HISTORY REVISION NUMBER DATE COMMENT 1.0 October 16, 2007 DoIT Project Management Office Revision 2.0 2.1 2.2 Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 4 Table of Contents ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT ................................................................................................................ 2 DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY QUALITY ASSURANCE WORKBOOK ...................................2 A POLICY STATEMENT...........................................................................................................................2 REVISION HISTORY......................................................................................................................... 3 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY................................................................................................................ 6 1.1 THE PROJECT’S QUALITY FOCUS .......................................................................................................6 1.1.1 SPONSOR AND BUSINESS OWNERS PROJECT OBJECTIVES ....................................... 6 1.1.2 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS ...................................................................................... 6 1.1.3 QUALITY STANDARDS ................................................................................................... 6 1.1.4 PROJECT AND PRODUCT REVIEW AND ASSESSMENTS .............................................. 6 2. SCOPE OF QA PLAN................................................................................................................... 6 2.1 SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES THAT WILL BE REVIEWED BY QA...........................................................................7 2.1.1 Project Management ................................................................................................. 7 2.1.1.1 Specific Project management Activities ..............................................................................7 2.1.2 Requirements Management...................................................................................... 8 2.1.2.1 Specific Requirement management Activities ...................................................................8 2.1.3 System Development .................................................................................................. 8 2.1.3.1 Specific System Development Activities...............................................................................8 2.1.4 Testing and Acceptance ........................................................................................... 9 2.1.4.1 Specific Testing and Acceptance Activities.......................................................................9 2.1.5 Transition to Operations .............................................................................................. 9 2.1.5.1 Specific Transition to Operations Activities ..........................................................................9 3.0 QA ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE ......................................................................................... 9 2.1 GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE ..............................................................................................................9 2.2 QA TEAM ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES ........................................................................................11 2.2.1 Technical Monitor/Senior Management ................................................................ 11 2.2.2 Quality Assurance Team........................................................................................... 12 2.2.4 Technical Staff ........................................................................................................... 13 3.0 REQUIRED DOCUMENTATION/ARTIFACTS BY PROJECT PHASE............................................ 14 3.1 INITIATION PHASE ..........................................................................................................................14 3.2 PLAN PHASE ................................................................................................................................15 3.3 DEFINE PHASE..............................................................................................................................16 3.4 DESIGN PHASE.............................................................................................................................16 3.5 BUILD PHASE................................................................................................................................17 3.6 TEST PHASE ..................................................................................................................................17 3.7 DEPLOYMENT PHASE .....................................................................................................................18 3.8 CLOSE PHASE ...............................................................................................................................18 4. PLANNED QA ACTIVITIES ......................................................................................................... 19 4.1 BY DELIVERABLE ............................................................................................................................19 4.2 BY PHASE FOR TOLL GATE ..............................................................................................................19 Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 5 4.3 AS REQUESTED ..............................................................................................................................20 5.0 REPORTING METHODS ............................................................................................................ 20 5.1 QA CHECKLISTS ...........................................................................................................................20 5.2 VENDOR CHECKLISTS OR PROCESSES .............................................................................................20 5.3 NONCOMPLIANCE REPORTING PROCEDURES.................................................................................20 6.0 QUALITY ASSURANCE METRICS ........................................................................................... 21 Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 6 1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The Quality Assurance Plan for has been established to support the objective review of aspects of the project and its product development phases to insure that the purposes of the project are being met in the most productive manner. Quality Assurance Plan-Establishes the basis for reviewing and auditing of the products and activities to verify that they comply with applicable procedures and standards and to assure the production and operation of high quality products according to stated requirements. Quality Assurance – Management Aspect –Planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards. Quality Control – Technical Aspect – monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards, identifying ways to eliminate unsatisfactory results. 1.1 THE PROJECT’S QUALITY FOCUS Provide a brief summary of project from the Project Management Plan 1.1.1 SPONSOR AND BUSINESS OWNERS PROJECT OBJECTIVES Copy the Business and Technical objectives from section 3.1 of the Project Management Plan 1.1.2 CRITICAL SUCCESS FACTORS Copy the Critical Success factors from Section 3.3 of the Project Management Plan. 1.1.3 QUALITY STANDARDS Copy the Quality Standards from Section 6.7.1 of the Project Management Plan 1.1.4 PROJECT AND PRODUCT REVIEW AND ASSESSMENTS Copy the project and Product review and assessments from section 6.7.2 of the Project Management Plan 2. SCOPE OF QA PLAN The scope of this project QA plan covers the project activities and product development phases to meet the business objectives established by the project sponsors and business Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 7 owners. This includes but is not restricted to the following QA topics: • Organizational structure • Documentation required • Procedures to be enforced • Audits and reviews to be conducted • Process improvement • Problem reporting and resolution • Quality Assurance metrics 2.1 SPECIFIC ACTIVITIES THAT WILL BE REVIEWED BY QA The following five activities comprise the main aspects of the project. Each has subsidiary activities that will vary according to the type and complexity of the project. These activities combine to meet the project sponsor and business owner’s expectations as defined in the 1.1.Executive Summary Introduction which essentially copies these expectations from the Project Management Plan. The subsidiary activities are determined by the type and complexity of the project as established during the project initiation phase. 2.1.1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT Project Management establishes the business and technical goals of the project, the project’s authority and organizational structure, the scope of the project, its deliverables and methodology, the work of the project, its schedule, project team, and the project monitoring and control mechanisms. 2.1.1.1 Specific Project management Activities Activity Description Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 8 2.1.2 REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT Requirements Management covers the business requirements for the project, the user and system as well as the operations specifications that derive from the business requirements. Included in these requirements are the end user training and documentation needed to insure the success of the end users with the solution. These requirements are elaborated in a set of documents which are then provided to the system designers and developers or assemblers of the system. A fundamental component of this area is tracing a requirement from its business purpose through to the solution that is designed, built and ready for deployment. 2.1.2.1 Specific Requirement management Activities Activity Description 2.1.3 SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT Within System Development are the activities that take the requirements specifications and build the design for the business solution. The system is then built to these specifications and tested within the development process. 2.1.3.1 Specific System Development Activities Activity Description Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 9 2.1.4 TESTING AND ACCEPTANCE Testing and Acceptance covers the user acceptance testing of the system, its administration, its documentation and its training classes and materials. The testing process insures that the product meets the various requirements established and refined during the project. 2.1.4.1 Specific Testing and Acceptance Activities Activity Description 2.1.5 TRANSITION TO OPERATIONS Transition to operations covers the planning for deploying the product, usually involving pilots that affirm the assumptions made in the development process, the transition of the product from the development teams to the operations teams that will be managing the developed solution, Transition to operations also covers the business continuity and disaster recovery planning for the product. 2.1.5.1 Specific Transition to Operations Activities Activity Description 3.0 QA ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE 2.1 GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 10 The QA function will be a separate entity and will maintain independence from the project management team by possessing a direct reporting function to the technical monitor/senior management. This structure will protect the QA team’s independence and objectivity concerning the assurance of high-quality, professional products and services. This team is responsible for the development of this Quality Assurance Plan (QAP) will be used to identify the roles and responsibilities of the QA team. ROLE RESPONSIBILITY NAME Project Sponsor, Business Owners Help define product quality expectation. Periodically reviews QA and resolves issues as necessary. Provides leadership for acquiring QA resources and keeps QA distinct from Project team. Promotes the objective verification of project activities toward meeting Business and Technical requirements. Accepts QA findings at Toll Gates Project Manager Ensures implementation of QA activities, Co-ordinates with Project Sponsors/Business owners the establishment of the QA function and resources. Co-ordinates resolution of Issues. Provides regular and timely communications. Manages the QA activities within the project Schedule and schedules Phase Toll Gate reviews. Ensures QA function maintains organizational freedom, authority and independence to objectively evaluate and report on all project activities. QA Manager Manages the QA Plan and activities, planning and taking responsibility for the documentation of QA activities in the project management plan, manages the QA schedule. Co-ordinates with the Project manager on the project documents and deliverables subject to the QA reviews. QA Team Audits and objectively evaluates project deliverables from a QA perspective. Reviews plans and deliverables for compliance with applicable standards. Provides guidance and assistance on process matters. Configuration Management Sees to the proper management of project configuration items, including the QA reviews. This entails appropriate naming of computer files, seeing to proper version controls under change management. Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 11 2.2 QA TEAM ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The role of the QA team is to assist the technical staff to continually improve the quality of their work products and services. The QA team is responsible for establishing processes and procedures that accurately verify and validate the adherence of desktop computer support and network activities to applicable standards, guidelines, and procedures. The QA team will be involved at the start of the project. They will participate in the development of the Project Management Plan (PMP) to establish their function within the project and to provide input into the project’s schedule and work breakdown structure (WBS) to ensure that QA activities are identified and that time is allotted for QA activities. Funding for the QA team members will be planned within the task hours and cost structure. The organizational responsibilities as they relate to QA are: ROLE RESPONSIBILITY NAME FUNCTIONAL AREA 2.2.1 TECHNICAL MONITOR/SENIOR MANAGEMENT • Provides management support, supervision, and oversight for the QA function • Ensures the independence of the QA function • Makes available staff and other resources as needed to support QA • Ensures resolution of problem and concern issues • Reviews QA audits and reports Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 12 ROLE RESPONSIBILITY NAME FUNCTIONAL AREA 2.2.2 QUALITY ASSURANCE TEAM • Develops and maintains the Quality Assurance Plan • Ensures work products adhere to the appropriate standard • Conducts audits and reviews • Develops audit and review procedures for QA activities • Ensures the QA processes and procedures adequately control project quality • Ensures the QA activities accurately measure the product, service, and process quality • Reviews and approves specified deliverables for release to customer • Promptly reports results of audits to the project task leader • Periodically reports unresolved noncompliant items to technical monitor/senior management • Maintains an on-going dialogue with the technical monitor and QA support staff to establish a common understanding of quality assurance activities as they apply to QA services and products • Ensures that the expectations of QA activities are identified and understood between the technical monitor, task leader, and the team members • Collects and analyzes metrics produced from the results of the QA process • Recommends changes in procedures to improve processes ROLE RESPONSIBILITY NAME FUNCTIONAL AREA Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 13 ROLE RESPONSIBILITY NAME FUNCTIONAL AREA 2.2.4 TECHNICAL STAFF • Implements task level quality control based on QA standards, policies, and procedures • Participates in reviews and audits • Performs corrective actions or process improvements in response to QA findings • Manages and controls defects/errors and corrections • Tracks the status of defects/errors until closed ROLE RESPONSIBILITY NAME FUNCTIONAL AREA The effectiveness of the QA team’s effort depends on the support and commitment of the technical staff and all levels of management. All affected groups should be trained in the principles of quality assurance and be committed to the proper inclusion and performance of QA activities within their work efforts. Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 14 3.0 REQUIRED DOCUMENTATION/ARTIFACTS BY PROJECT PHASE Projects create documentation and other product development artifacts such as code and other items not classified as formal documents. Where the word document is used the project should understand that this includes both documents and other artifacts. All required documents will follow the appropriate Department of Information Technology standards concerning content and format. Department of Information Technology standards for some project management areas may not be available. When Department of Information Technology standards are not available, the QA team, along with input from the project team, must develop the standards or adapt documents developed by other groups to use as standards within the project. The project activities are to be implemented according to customer requirements. The required project templates and documentation necessary to ensure activities are planned, monitored and controlled will be used to verify the adequacy of the actual processes and procedures used to develop and/or deliver products/services. Required documentation, while tailored the specific project type and complexity, includes: • Project Management Plan • Configuration Management • Change Management • Communications Management • Risk and Issues Management • Work Breakdown Structure • Project Schedule • Business and System Requirements • System Design Document • Transition to Operations Document • Business Continuity Document • Testing and Acceptance Documents • Systems Administration Manual Document • End User Training Requirements and 3.1 INITIATION PHASE The Initiation Phase establishes the foundation for the project. The key document is the project charter which lays out the scope and governance structure for the project. The Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 15 Initial Risk Assessment required by the “IT Project Oversight Process Memorandum” serves as a walkthrough of the various aspects of the typical project and suggests area that should be addressed in the project planning and management process Document Focus Reviewers 3.2 PLAN PHASE The Plan Phase builds on the foundation of the Project Charter’s establishment of the role of the project manager, and the establishment of funding for the planning required by the project. The key elements of the Plan phase are the initial Project Management Plan, the establishment of the business requirements for the project, the development of initial depolyment and support documents and the development of the required IT contracts for the project including the Independent Validation and Verification for the project as required by the State of New Mexico project certification process. As per the Project Oversight Definition, “Product development life cycle” is a series of sequential, non-overlapping phases”, the Plan Phase and the rest of these phases has a “Toll Gate” review that must be done before the project starts on the next “sequential, non-over phase.” Document Focus Reviewers Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 16 3.3 DEFINE PHASE The Define Phase builds on the business requirements of the plan phase, and builds or “defines” the user, system, and operations requirements necessary to support the business needs of the product. Out of the requirements comes the system architecture that will also be used in the design phase, and the foundation of the training for end users and support staff, and the initial test plans that will be implemented in the build phase. Document Focus Reviewers 3.4 DESIGN PHASE The Design Phase takes the defined requirements and system architecture and builds the design for the product. Through these phases the project must maintain a requirements traceability matrix which enables it to trace each element of the product’s design back to previously defined technical requirements each of which serves the business requirements of the project. Paralleling the technical design process is the establishment of the training curriculm and test cases that will be used to train the support and end user community and be used for testing that the solution meets the required functionality. Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 17 Document Focus Reviewers 3.5 BUILD PHASE The Build Phase is the point in the project that the product gets built, and assembled. Again the project performs traceability to ensure the requirements are actualized, and also performs the various testing processes of what is being built. Insights as to how the product is to be traing and deployed and should be administered are added to previous initiated documentation. Training Materials are developed that synch up with the actual product. Document/Artifact Focus Reviewers 3.6 TEST PHASE The formal test phase is used for the development of the acceptance testing that is required to move into the deploy phase. Again the project performs traceability to ensure Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 18 the requirements are actualized, and also performs the acceptance testing processes against the business and user requirements which had formed the rationale for the project. Document Focus Reviewers 3.7 DEPLOYMENT PHASE The Deploy Phase leverages the various deployment and support documents that were initiated in the Plan Phase and updated during the subsequent development phases. Ideally the Deploy Phase will include a pilot population that will be used to ensure that all the planning assumptions have been accurately turned into project deliverables. Document Focus Reviewers 3.8 CLOSE PHASE Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 19 The Close Phase of the project includes formally transitioning the product to operations support, and signing what ever accptance documents are contractually requiered. The project then requests formal close out from the Project Certification Committee. Document Focus Reviewers 4. PLANNED QA ACTIVITIES In this section the Quality Assurance activities for this project should be identified with target date. 4.1 BY DELIVERABLE DELIVERABLE NUMBER DELIVERABLE Q A REVIEWERS SCHEDULED REVIEW PRJ-DEL-001 Project Management Plan (PMP) 4.2 BY PHASE FOR TOLL GATE Refer to Department of Information Technology Quality Assurance Workbook for details on the toll gate process. Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 20 PHASE DELIVERABLES Q A REVIEWERS TOLL GATE SCHEDULED DATE Plan Project Management Plan (PMP) 4.3 AS REQUESTED QA reviews can be requested by Sponsors or Business Owners, Project Manager or by the Department of Information Technology 5.0 REPORTING METHODS Errors, defects, issues, deviations and noncompliance items identified in the QA activities must be itemized, documented, tracked to closure, and reported by the QA team. The QA team must verify all problems were tracked to closure and must provide continuing feedback to management and the technical support team concerning the status of the problem. 5.1 QA CHECKLISTS The QA Checklists will be used to identify issues with each deliverable and document/artifact/process. These checklists will identify the reviewer and the steps necessary to bring the item into compliance with QA standards. 5.2 VENDOR CHECKLISTS OR PROCESSES With the approval of Project Oversight and Compliance Division of Department of Information Technology vendor checklists or processes established contractually with the lead agency may be used. 5.3 NONCOMPLIANCE REPORTING PROCEDURES 1. Problems are resolved with the direct producer or the appropriate task leader, when possible. 2. Problems that cannot be resolved with the technical team or task leader are elevated to the project manager. Quality Assurance Plan for Page | 21 3. Problems that have been referred to the project manager are reviewed weekly until they are resolved. Items that cannot be resolved by the project manager within six weeks are elevated to the technical monitor for resolution. 6.0 QUALITY ASSURANCE METRICS The QA team will work with the technical support staff to identify indicators and their associated measures (Metrics) that are needed to control performance and predict future status of processes used to produce products and services. The metrics will be used to help determine when and where a problem is occurring and what type of impact it will have on the product or service. The metrics will be used to base decisions concerning the selection of best practices to implement in the project. Metrics that are necessary to monitor the effectiveness of QA processes and procedures are: 1. Number of reviews (QA activities) conducted 2. Number of changes to project schedule and milestones 3. Status of non-conformance items identified 4. Status of action items open/closed/on-hold 5. Number of days to correct and close a non-conformance item 6. Customer satisfaction levels relating to product and service quality 7. Trends for process improvement 8. Lessons learned

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