|
The spectrum of IT staffing choices ranges from internal IT organizations to fully outsourced models. A review of the fortune 500 companies will reveal their IT sourcing strategy is scattered across the spectrum. Some choose to retain the select functions like business analysis and project management while outsourcing the software development function. Other organizations outsource 95 percent of their IT function and retain a small layer of IT management to facilitate delivery between the business and the IT supplier. Quality management, along with project management and software development, is one of the candidates for outsourcing. Before entering into a quality management outsourcing effort, organizations should consider the following do’s and don’ts: Do: Ensure the vendor understands the project’s business requirements How does the quality management vendor understand the business requirements and communicate them to the testing team? Does the vendor simply check for the existence of a quality management plan or does the vendor understand the content behind the quality plan and supporting test cases? Organizations have used outsource quality management teams to simply validate the existence of quality management deliverables and other organizations embed the quality management team as resources on the project team. The outsourced vendor will provide more value to the project if they understand the criteria for a successful quality management plan, as well as business content supported by the quality management plan. It is important to understand how the vendor will test and comprehend the business requirements. One company had a business requirement to display currency using the format: XXX,XX BLANK $. During testing, the application development team reported financial numbers in the following format: 345,28BLANK$. The testing team misinterpreted the business requirement and thought BLANK literally meant print the word BLANK before the dollar sign. Fortunately, the error was caught in user acceptance testing. The quality management vendor needs to ensure requirements are correctly communicated and understood. Do: Ensure the vendor understands your delivery methodology It is imperative for both in-sourced and outsourced IT functions to understand the company’s SDLC. The delivery methodology is the prescriptive roadmap that provides common language, tools and processes to deliver IT services. If your company follows adaptive lifecycles such as RUP, Agile or Extreme Programming and the vendor’s expertise is in predictive lifecycles like waterfall development, expectations need to be communicated and clarified. Project’s applying an iterative lifecycle will be expected to produce a complete set of test cases for the entire project despite only completing the first iteration’s design phase. Companies may outsource select functions, but the methodology needs to remain consistent across the in-sourced and outsourced IT organization. Do: Establish an internal requirements team to validate business and quality requirements are met for the business customer In a thin layer IT management function, business requirements still need to be validated. If the company opts to outsource business analysis and the quality management function, the internal IT organization needs a requirement management team to ensure the requirements are adequately defined, understood and delivered by the performing supplier. Otherwise, the company has no control over quality management since the IT supplier handles both requirements gathering and overall testing. Don’t: Assume the vendor’s quality management processes will result in a quality product During the sales cycle, impressive charts and presentations are often provided selling a vendor quality management capability. However, don’t assume the quality management process alone will deliver a quality product. The vendor may provide a team of quality management analysts, but the outsourced team may be staffed with junior developers or any available person independent of skill set. Validate the vendor provides an integrated testing team comprised of developers, process engineers and business analysts to maximize the coverage of tests written and executed. Don’t: Rely on the vendor to manage the entire testing cycle Project quality management is still a project management process. Don’t assume outsourced testing means out-of-sight testing. The project team needs to stay active in supporting the vendor with their testing efforts and be receptive to their questions in order maximize the testing benefit. The outsourced vendor may provide testing resources to execute test cases. However, the project manager needs to ensure a knowledgeable resource is managing all types of testing, not just unit testing, user acceptance testing or a volume test. The responsibility can be delegated to an internal requirements management resource or outsourced to the quality management vendor. Regardless of the sourcing decision, the project manager needs to understand all the quality management activities and responsibilities in the plan. Don’t: Outsource the quality management repository The quality management process produces several reusable project artifacts like quality management plans, test cases, test scripts and defect logs. The results of the testing cycle can be stored in MS-Excel spreadsheets or tools like HP’s Mercury Test Director or IBM’s Rational tool suite. These quality management artifacts are the company’s intellectual capital. The repository should be retained by the internal IT for future trending, analysis and regression testing. Remember: The outsource vendor can change at the expiration of the contract. Keeping these do’s and don’ts in mind will ensure your company maximize its outsourcing solution while maintaining the proper level of internal IT quality management and governance. This article was written by Andy Makar and originally published at http://www.gantthead.com/content/articles/235774.cfm
|
