Software Quality Assurance

Success? What defines success, how to measure success and what culture is needed to instill success? You will learn all about the key attributes for success and setting the stage on how to implement these into a successful quality program.

What concepts, way of thinking and ideas are integral towards achieving quality within the context of a project. Who is responsible and for what is also covered in the Lecture.

Various real world stories of successful quality are told by Ernie to help us re-frame our thinking about quality.

This lecture examines the terms and concepts in more detail. For example, the Baseline, Branch, CMMI, ITIL, Project Parameters, Refactoring, Death March and other terms and concepts are covered in the Lecture.

Individual and organizational competencies are discussed in this Lecture, Ernie pays close attention to leadership skills, team communication, systems thinking, ethics and knowledge sharing throughout this Lecture. Each competency is also measured in terms of the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). Ernie also talks about "Levers" and how to use certain "Levers" in reducing the resistance to change in organizations. Understand what the differences are between "Pulling Change" and "Pushing Change" models and how to use one or the other when motivating your people towards meeting quality goals.

Continuation of Competencies Lecture.

In particular, Ernie explains the "Exchange Model", "Organizational Currency", "Open and Closed Loop", "Systems Thinking" in helping you to motivate your team and moving your organization forward and achieving your project quality goals.

Conclusion of Competencies Lecture.

Overview of standards as the foundation of Quality. Ernie gives an overview of ANSI, IEEE, ISO, ITIL, CMMI, PRINCE2, ISO 9000 series quality system models. Included in this overview is the Quality of Service Strategy, Design and Operations.

In this Lecture Ernie describes how software quality practices are applied within the framework of the Software Life Cycle. He examines Project Management, Development (Requirements, Design, Development and Implementation) through Release and Support. Ernie also guides you through the different Life Cycles models including Waterfall, Spiral, Iterative and Adaptive/Agile.

In this continuation of Lecture 9, Ernie touches on some of the lesser known Life Cycle models, such as; Dynamic System Development Method, Evolutionary Project Management, Feature-Driven Development (FDD), Lean Software Development and Microsoft's Solutions Framework.

He also mentions how to select the Life Cycle that is best for your project!

The "Iron Triangle" of Project Management is examined where cost, scope and time need to come together and quality exist in the middle. Ernie explains this concept as it specifically applies to the unique characteristics of software; its development and release. Best or preferred Project Management practices are discussed at length within the context of the production of software and within the scope of the "dynamics" of a software project.

In this Lecture, Ernie discusses the role of the Project Manager and the characteristics of the role. He also discusses project tools and their features. The reasons for project failure are examined in the broader context of what pitfalls you will want to avoid in your projects.

What should we do once our project is done? Well, for one we want to take a project retrospective. Ernie discusses how to take retrospectives and how to apply them to your future projects. Additionally, Ernie discusses agile practices and how to bring those practices into your project.

In the Lecture 15 which is the final lecture on Project Management, Ernie discusses the adoption of project management practices to specific industries, such as, Construction, Engineering, Government, Utilities, etc. He also looks at the adoption of innovation over time and from a product perspective and "Projectification" that is moving knowledge into your projects. Project Based Organizations (PBO) are sited as examples along with several studies.

What drives quality in projects, products and organizations? What are the elements, ingredients and characteristics of quality? What are the dimensions of quality or in other words, what needs to be measured? What about planning for quality? What are the aspects of a quality plan? All of these issues are discussed by Ernie in this Lecture.

What are the outputs from your quality efforts? What is the cost of quality? Cost of non-conformance? Ernie takes a look at these as he talks about your Quality Management System in this 2nd part of Software Quality Assurance.