ITIL Services

In today's world, every process has a basic cost to produce a product or service correctly the first time. This base cost is known collectively as the Cost of Quality (COQ) and generally made up of the costs of quality assurance (requirements), the costs of quality control (testing) and the costs of failure (fixing defects). We all have heard that the cost of finding and fixing a defect in production is at least 100 times the cost of finding and fixing that same defect earlier in requirements.

Description
QA & Testing Process Assessment is uniquely designed to determine an organization's testing maturity level and team skills; the extent and coverage of the testing; the effectiveness of the testing efforts; the completeness and utility of the test reporting; as well as the effectiveness of an organization's risk and defect management efforts. The assessment evaluates the testing function within the SDLC (using CMMI, Test Maturity model, etc.) and the impact of defect definition, level and resolution.

Armed with this information, an organization will be positioned to make any necessary cost-effective improvements. These improvements include such things as proper requirements processes, and SDLC gate reviews on defect production have been found to significantly reduce cost in an IT organization.

Deliverables
Standard

QA & Testing Process Survey: Conducted from the desktop this broad-based survey is available to all related management and staff roles. The survey consists of over 100 questions in eight (8) dimensions with "open-ended" comments addressing the areas of Continuous Improvement, Team Skills & Responsibilities, Configuration Management & Infrastructure Standards, Testing Process Definition, Testing Execution, Training & Support, Risk & Defect Management, and Measurement Analysis & Reporting.

QA & Testing Process Assessment: Selected staff interviews are conducted on-site. Standard interview templates used to ensure consistent capture of information. The interviewees selected and the data gathered are correlated to survey participants and results.

Defect Study: Developed from client data delivered from test tool defect tracking or other sources, the study compares the client data to Industry Benchmark database. We use industry formulae to discover the Cost of Quality, the suspected defect origins and implications for savings. These defect studies are often startling in the percentage of IT budget that they represent and the savings opportunities that surface.

Full Integrated Analysis: The results from the QA & Testing Process Survey and Assessment and Defect Study are integrated and analyzed. The assessment results are compared to CMM/CMMI, the Test Maturity Model and Industry Benchmark database to identify and document the organization's current level, improvement path as well as any financial and process opportunities.

Optional

QA & Testing Process Baseline: Based on the QA & Testing Process Assessment we will develop a comprehensive metrics baseline for ongoing comparison.

Broader interview & survey participation: The extent of selected survey participation can be extended at the client's discretion.

Ongoing support: ITPMG offers analytical and research support for the QA & Testing Process Assessment results.

Target audience
CIO (primary), CFO, COO

The executive and management team(s) responsible for product testing will gain key information critical to cost-effective actions. This service will enable the management team to be sure that their quality and testing practices, processes and results are consistent with high performing organizations.