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IT Management- IT management must plan for quality and develop an IT policy that documents the objectives for the quality function.

Management committees(also called Process Management Committees) are composed of middle managers and/or key staff personnel, and are responsible for deploying quality management practices throughout the organization. One or more committees may be needed depending on the organization’s size and functional diversity. Committees should represent all the skills and functions needed to work on the specific processes or activities.

The users of the processknow the strengths and weaknesses of the process; they know the type of process changes that can facilitate the use of the process.

Quality Assurance Managerassures the overall process to maintain quality. He/she also manages and maintain a group of quality assurance professionals who have the task of maintaining quality and assuring quality.

Quality Control Function- The method used in your IT organization to acquire tools is two-fold. First, tool vendors send you information about new tools and/or call to explain the tools to you. Second, requests from IT staff members are an important input in determining whether or not to acquire tools. Once acquired, the determination for tool usage is left to the project and/or individual.

Both the business staff and the quality staff should be involved in IT planning. Involvement is in both strategic and tactical planning.

The objective of this single planning cycle is to ensure that adequate resources and time are available to perform the quality activities. The net result is that the individuals executing the business plan cannot differentiate the quality planning from the business planning. For example, if business planning calls for a quality review prior to the end of each phase of software development, the business staff will assume, that is a logical part of the software development process. If it is not integrated, the review is owned by the quality professional and may not be adequately supported by the IT business staff, such as, system designers and programmers.

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The figure gives an example of business planning and an example of quality planning. While the blocks show that strategic and tactical business planning and strategic and tactical quality planning occur, the end result is a business plan that incorporates quality activities.

Level 1 – Controlling

The role of the quality professional at this level is to assure that the people in the IS function do what management wants them to do. At this level, the quality professional is frequently viewed as an inspector or police person.

Level 2 -- Defining

The role of the quality professional at Level 2 is to create and improve individual work processes. The quality professional should maintain an inventory of work processes, determine which processes are more critical to accomplish the mission, and then develop and/or improve those processes in the sequence of importance. There is normally an infrastructure established to do this, which may be called a process management committee or a standards committee.

Level 3 -- Aligning

The role of the quality professional at Level 3 is to create an environment, which is focused on meeting organizational needs. In other words, the quality professional must help the IS function define their core competencies. These competencies should be based on the needs of the organization as normally expressed by the user of the IS function. At this level, the energies of the quality professional will be directed toward ensuring that those competencies, which support the IS mission, are supported effectively.

Level 4 -- Adapting

The role of the quality professional at Level 4 is to emphasize adapting the processes to the specific project needs. In other words, prior to commencing a project, the processes will be customized for that specific project. This is equivalent in automobile manufacturing to rearranging the production line to build a specific automotive model. The quality professional will assist in creating the processes and skills needed to adapt the work processes to specific product needs.

Level 5 -- Champion

The role of the quality professional at Level 5 is to champion innovation and creativity in the way work is performed. Professional work processes are a combination of the skill sets of the individual, plus the detailed step-by-step procedures in the work process. In the start of a new work process, the procedures are minimally defined and thus the success of a project is heavily dependent on the skill set of the individuals. However, over time the combined learning of the individuals performing the process can be incorporated into the process. Thus, as processes mature they move toward more emphasis on the process and less emphasis on the need for highly skilled individuals. By the fourth level of maturity, the processes are highly optimized.

There are three COQ categories:

Prevention- Money required preventing errors and to do the job right the first time is considered prevention cost. This category includes money spent on establishing methods and procedures, training workers and planning for quality. Prevention money is all spent before the product is actually built.

Appraisal– Appraisal costs cover money spent to review completed products against requirements. Appraisal includes the cost of inspections, testing and reviews. This money is spent after the product or subcomponents are built but before it is shipped to the user.

Failure– Failure costs are all costs associated with defective products. Some failure costs involve repairing products to make them meet requirements. Others are costs generated by failures, such as the cost of operating faulty products, damage incurred by using them and the costs incurred because the product is not available. The user or customer of the organization may also experience failure costs.

The following figure shows a few examples of the three costs of quality that illustrate the types of activities in each of the categories. Experience has shown that a small group of knowledgeable people can develop estimates for the COQ categories. The estimate does not have to be highly precise because the amounts will be so large that even errors of plus or minus 50% would not affect identifying the actions that need to be taken to reduce the COQ.

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Industry accepted definitions of quality are “conformance to requirements” (from Philip Crosby) and “fit for use” (from Dr. Joseph Juran and Dr. W. Edwards Deming). These two definitions are not inconsistent.

Meeting requirements is a producer’s view of quality. This is the view of the organization responsible for the project and processes, and the products and services acquired, developed, and maintained by those processes. Meeting requirements means that the person building the product does so in accordance with the requirements. Requirements can be very complete or they can besimple, but they must be defined in a measurable format, so it can be determined whether they have been met. The producer’s view of quality has these four characteristics:

Doing the right thing

Doing it the right way

Doing it right the first time

Doing it on time without exceeding cost

Being fit for use is the customer’s definition. The customer is the end user of the products o rservices. Fit for use means that the product or service meets the customer’s needs regardless of the product requirements. Of the two definitions of quality, fit for use, is the more important. The customer’s view of quality has these characteristics:

Receiving the right product for their use

Being satisfied that their needs have been met

Meeting their expectations

Being treated with integrity, courtesy and respect

In addition to the producer and customer views of quality, the organizational infrastructure also includes a provider and a supplier view. These views are as follows:

Provider view– This is the perspective of the organization that delivers the products and services to the customer.

Supplier view– This is the perspective of the organization (that may be external to the producer’s company, such as an independent vendor) that provides either the producer and/or the provider with products and services needed to meet the requirements of the customer.