Running head: QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN 1

Quality Management Plan

Student’s Name

Institution Affiliation
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Quality Management Plan

Introduction

Parole and probation officers’ work is usually vital in the United States justice system.

The impact that their work has on American society is immense. Their work, however, is often

difficult when trying to assess the progress being made by those on parole or probation. The

offenders together with these officers have a series of specific needs that need to be well

documented and automated. Likewise, a huge communication gap exists among the officers

when they try to access the information available on the offenders. As a result, a project that

aims at developing and executing software that provides real-time information about offenders,

their needs, and those of their officers is proposed.

Purpose of the Quality Management Project

This plan documents the necessary information that is needed to effectively manage the

quality of the project. Through this plan, a definition of the project’s procedures, policies, areas

of application, roles, and responsibilities of key stakeholders are outlined. This plan has been

developed during the planning phase of the project. It intends to provide the project manager,

project team, and other stakeholders with the needed information and support to fulfill the

required quality standards and requirements (Skogmar, 2015).

Project Quality Management Overview

Organization and Responsibilities

The table below outlines the responsibilities of different team members in this project in

terms of quality.
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Role Quality Responsibility

Project manager Coaching and mentoring on quality

Team lead Performing quality audits

Quality assurance manager Perform quality control for the project

Goals and Objectives of Quality

Quality Goals

They are targets that are meant for improving quality. They have typically been

developed as part of the project’s quality assurance strategy. Moreover, they are required for goal

setting in terms of performance management. The following are the goals of the project’s quality

management plan.

Firstly, the plan aims at improving the quality control process. The quality management

team will aim to expand quality control to ensure that 30% of the system is accurately sampled

for quality management on a weekly basis. This will make sure that complete system control is

done on a monthly basis with improvements being suggested, proposed, and implemented.

Secondly, the project aims to conduct benchmarking activities to compare the software

with its competitors and the industry in general. Benchmarking will be done on the system bugs

and its responsiveness to user requests. The benchmarking process will be done on two

competitors operating in the software industry.

Moreover, the plan aims to make it easier to report information. When people use the

system, they expect to receive real-time information, with no delays. This requires the system to

be fast, regardless of the traffic. At the same time, the system is expected to report any defects or
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bugs to the technical team to ensure that everything is well handled. In cases where there are lots

of problems with the system, the technical team will be required to work hard in eliminating

them without interrupting the software or user experience.

Objectives of Quality

The objectives of this quality plan are the goals for the value of the software developed. The

following are the objectives of the plan;

 To ensure that the project lasts for over six months without any interruptions

 To increase the efficiency of the software by 30% over a period of six months

 To improve the on-time performance of the software by decreasing down-times by 50%

over a period of six months

Software Quality Standards

The standards of the software developed will follow the Capability-Maturity-Model

(CMM) approach. The CMM approach addresses the different levels of software standards. The

standards are grouped into five different levels as follows;

The initial level. Under this level, processes are often disorganized, sometimes chaotic.

Success in this stage depends on individual efforts and is rarely considered to be repeatable as

processes have not been sufficiently defined. As a result, only the most qualified and experienced

people are expected to work at the initial level of software development and execution.

The second level is the repeatable level. Under this level, there is an already established

quality management technique. Through the technique established, success can be repeated as
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requisite processes have already been identified. There is also excellent documentation of what is

expected from every team member in terms of quality.

Thirdly, there is a defined level. Under this level, the team will already have come up with

its own software quality standards through greater documentation, integration, and

standardization. Every person understands the prerequisites of quality and tries working towards

achieving them.

The fourth level is the management. Under this level, management will easily monitor and

control the processes through data assessment and analysis.

The last level is the optimization level. It is where processes are constantly improved

through monitoring of feedback to make the necessary changes. Innovations innovative

processes are also incorporated in the changes being made.

The software testing wheel below as per abstracta.us summarizes the different quality

standards for the software developed.

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Quality Assurance

Quality assurance is the process of ensuring that the software developed provides the best

possible service to its users. It focuses on the improvement of processes to deliver quality

services to users while at the same time improving the project’s deliverables. The project

manager has to make sure that there are effective and efficient processes as outlined through the

quality standards of the software.

To perform quality assurance for the software development project, the Deming cycle is

used. The cycle has four distinct phases i.e. plan, do, check, and act. Under the plan step, the

project team is expected to establish the process with related objectives and determine the

different processes that are required to deliver high-quality service. The do step involves the

development and testing of processes. The third step, check, involves monitoring the developed

processes, modifying and checking them to see if they meet the predetermined goals and

objectives. The last step involves acting or implementing the necessary actions to achieve the

required improvements (Manghani, 2011).

The quality assurance process involves four distinct activities. The first activity is

conducting quality audits. Software audits are necessary to ensure that the standards of quality

are being adhered to as required. The software requires auditing on a regular basis to make sure

that everything is in order. The second activity is the definition of processes. The manner

through which the software generates value to the users is defined. The third activity is the

identification and selection of tools used in quality assurance. The last activity of the quality

assurance exercise is the training of people on the quality processes and standards (Kwak & Ibbs,

2002). The four activities can be performed independently or together, depending on the nature

of the quality assurance needed.

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Quality Assurance Best Practices

 Simulating user accounts similar to a probation/parole environment

 Forming a dedicated performance and security testing team

 Prioritizing bug fixes based on the usage of the software

 Allocating appropriate time for each process

 Selecting release criteria properly

Quality Control

Quality control is the means through which the software is made to measure up to the

specifications determined in the users’ demands. It is more concerned with making things right

rather than coming up with new discoveries about the software (Kwak & Ibbs, 2002). Under

quality control, those actions that were made or done wrongly are also rejected.

Tools of Quality Control

The following are the tools used in the project’s software quality control

Inspection

This is a common method applied in quality control of services of the project’s software.

There are three elements of inspection i.e. software inspection, process inspection, and inspection

analysis. Software inspection relates to the final piece of software being released to users. The

main aim of this inspection is to make sure that the software being availed to the users complies

with the set quality standards. Process inspection is aimed at making sure that the process used to

come up with the software abides by a set of standards already determined. Inspection analysis,
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additionally, is used to pinpoint the processes and areas where faults exist or arise from (Khan et

al., 2008).

Statistical Quality Control

This is an advanced technique that can be applied to control the quality of the software

developed. It relies on statistical techniques to control the quality of the software. It can use

corrective measures, control charts, or analyses of the way the software prototype is working.

Stakeholders of the Project

The stakeholders that are included in this project are the project manager, software

designer, front-end developer, and quality controller.

RACI Chart

Project Software Front-end Quality

Manager Designer Developer Controller
Software Design and R R C I
Development
Quality Planning A C I C
Quality Assurance R I A R
Quality Control R I I R
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References

Khan, A. H., Azhar, S., & Mahmood, A. (2008, August). Quality assurance and control in the

construction of infrastructure services in developing countries–A case study of Pakistan.

In Proceedings of the First International Conference on Construction in Developing

Countries (ICCIDC–I) (pp. 4-5).

Kwak, Y. H., & Ibbs, C. W. (2002). Project management process maturity (PM) 2

model. Journal of management in engineering, 18(3), 150-155.

Manghani, K. (2011). Quality assurance: Importance of systems and standard operating

procedures. Perspectives in clinical research, 2(1), 34.

Skogmar, K. (2015). PRINCE2, the PMBOK guide and ISO 21500: 2012. London: Axelos.