Shankar Gurumoorthy, Senior Quality Leader, Bangalore, India

This paper details a maturity model for SQA services which has been developed during QMS implementation in the IT division of a large multinational European bank. The scope of the engagement was to establish a standard set of processes based on CMMI® and ITIL® Framework across four business verticals scattered in Europe, United States and Asia. The services of Software Quality Analyst (SQA) from different vendors were leveraged by the bank to facilitate implementation of the processes which was referred to as the Quality Management System (QMS). To co-ordinate and support QMS process implementation, a Software Quality Assurance Group (SQAG) was established at the organization level. The role of SQAs was to facilitate the deployment of QMS by mentoring and guiding practitioners through the software development and maintenance lifecycle, identify deviations and addressing the same, based on CMMI and developed to eventually conduct periodic process compliance checks to verify process implementation at pre-defined intervals, collate feedback from practitioners on challenges faced in implementation, identify process improvement opportunities and implement the same. Considering the large number of applications, the business verticals proposed that process implementation should be owned and managed by practitioners themselves so that the mass deployment of QMS can be achieved at a faster rate with the same SQA capacity. Considering that the process framework was developed by vendor and subject matter experts from the bank, it was important for practitioners to be trained and handheld on processes prior to being empowered with the accountability for adherence to QMS. The risk of reduced independent insight of management on process implementation was highlighted. Additionally, risk of implementing QMS without adequate training and experience of practitioners was also communicated. This called for a need to devise an innovative implementation solution before moving to a practitioner managed process implementation model. While there are process models and frameworks available in the market for establishing processes in an organization, there is no model that elaborates the activities to be performed by the SQA for effective implementation of processes. SQA service maturity model was proposed as a solution based on CMMI® and developed to eventually proceed towards a ‘Practitioner Managed Process Implementation’. This SQA service maturity model comprises of five levels. At level 1, no processes are expected. At level 2, basic SQA service management related processes are expected. At level 3, standard processes for SQA services are expected to be defined at an organizational level and adhered to. At level 4, SQA service related processes are expected to be automated. Additionally metrics baselines forSQA services are also required to be derived based on historical data. At level 5, Project Managers are expected to be empowered to play role of SQA as well and take accountability of process implementation. The type of process implementation at this level would be referred to as the ‘Practitioner Managed Process Implementation’ which would ensure institutionalization of processes at a faster rate. It was explained to the customer that the benefit of the aforesaid model in terms of mass deployment of processes can only be derived when the organization reaches level 5 of SQA service maturity model. It is recommended that the SQA service maturity model be used as a collection of best practices by organizations setting up a Software Quality Assurance Group (SQAG) to drive process implementation in a phased manner. The defined model will provide a framework to empower organizations to choose the appropriate level of SQA services for implementation and institutionalization of defined processes. While this model can serve as a reference model to begin with, practices at Level 4 and Level 5 would also help organizations to reduce cost of SQA activities.

Process Improvement, CMMI, ITIL, Practitioner Managed, SQA, Service Model