!! 2007 Result Quality Ownership Poll
Printed From: One Stop Testing
Category: Quality Assurance @ OneStopTesting
Forum Name: Quality Methodologies / Streams @ OneStopTesting
Forum Discription: Any Good Testing Engineer must know about All the Quality Certifications & Methodologies like ISO, IEEE, CMM, PCCM, CMMMi, XP, Agile and many more.
URL: http://forum.onestoptesting.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=2644
Printed Date: 16Nov2024 at 6:48pm
Topic: !! 2007 Result Quality Ownership Poll
Posted By: tanushree
Subject: !! 2007 Result Quality Ownership Poll
Date Posted: 03Oct2007 at 12:10am
Quality Poll Ownership Results Comparison
Who Owns or Should Own Software Quality?
|
Spring 2007 |
|
Summer 2007 |
Selection |
Votes |
Pct of Total |
Votes |
Pct of Total |
Business Analysts |
0 |
0.0 |
1 |
1.7 |
DBAs |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
Help Desk |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
Lead Developer |
0 |
0.0 |
1 |
1.7 |
Management/Executive Team |
3 |
5.8 |
8 |
13.8 |
Network Administrators |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
Program Office |
1 |
1.9 |
0 |
0.0 |
Project Manager |
10 |
19.2 |
8 |
13.8 |
QA (defect prevention, inspections, reviews, etc.) |
2 |
3.8 |
3 |
5.2 |
QC - as Blackbox test team |
2 |
3.8 |
0 |
0.0 |
QC Test Team Lead |
0 |
0.0 |
1 |
1.7 |
System Analysts |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
System Architects |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
The head of Development - R and D |
2 |
3.8 |
3 |
5.2 |
The Whole Company |
32 |
61.5 |
33 |
56.9 |
Web Team |
0 |
0.0 |
0 |
0.0 |
Totals: |
52 |
100.0 |
58 |
100.0 |
|
|
|
|
|
New Voters between Summer and Spring Polls |
10 |
|
|
|
Number Voters Not Returning for Summer Poll |
4 |
|
|
|
Discussion
Discussion During Polling |
BJ: |
IMHO, the choice missing is 'the
management team.' I read an article a few years ago which stated if the
whole team 'owns' quality then nobody is really responsible. |
Cyndi: |
I honestly think that it is the
organization as a whole. If you ask my boss, he looks at it dependent
upon the definition of "QA". If he is talking about QA in the sense of
just testing then the responsibility lies with the QA Department; if he
is thinking of QA in the sense of defect prevention, getting involved
earlier in the process, etc then he feels it is the Development
Manager's responsibility. |
SQAF’s Most Senior Citizen: |
Jake, where is "All Of The
Above"? I guess "The Whole Company" will suffice. That's my vote. If
defective software goes out to the customers, the whole company's name
is besmirched, not just the Ba, or PM, or QC person, but the
"COMPANY'S" name. |
Jim Hazen: |
IMHO and based on experience
with some companies I have worked with the ultimate owner is Executive
Management. The QA/Test (both real QA & QC/Test)
group/function is an investigative unit for the company. Our charter
and responsibility is to aid in prevention, discovery and repair of
defects/issues with the SUT. The decision to do those activities and to
use the information from them is the responsibility of the EM. We give
them the information to make informed decisions. Thus the ultimate
responsibility and ownership is with them.
Unfortunately I have
only seen that in 2 companies I have worked for over the last 20 years.
It is the exception to the norm. But when it was done this way life was
a lot better for everyone involved and I felt that I was effective in
my job. We produced better products and we did not go grossly over
schedule when we did push beyond our target dates. Things seemed to be
under control. Funny thing is both of those companies got bought out by
competitors and then they quickly gutted the process. And yes, I left
not much later afterward. So it goes... |
Elfreide: |
"All of the Above" is missing,
which should exclude "the whole company." While low quality products
will reflect on the entire company, there are too many people employed
generally at a company who do not have any influence or cannot
contribute to the quality of a product or program, so we generally
can't say the entire company is responsible.
As a suggestion
to the earlier comment "if you make everyone responsible for quality,
nobody is," it is important that those who are responsible for and can
contribute to the quality of a product/program, know their QA related
roles and responsibilities (define and document roles and
responsibilities). |
Prtester: |
To have accountability you need
to name a person responsible and give that person the power to
influence the outcome. For any given project, the project manager
should be held accountable.
To say "the Whole Company" is just
too vague, too inspirational-poster-ish, it doesn't really empower nor
hold responsible anyone in the company, it's a feel good thing that
won't change the outcomes.
I do agree that the management team
should be held responsible. Especially these days with top executive
compensation in the news, I think people are ready for the highly paid
upper level to really feel the pinch of bad results along with the rest
of the company. |
Byron Goodman: |
My perceptions: People are held accountable - they are assigned accountability. People assume responsibility - they take it upon themselves.
So, the while company should be responsible. Accountability is determining who to blame if things go wrong. Typically, on a project, it's the PM. |
Shane M |
Much like Scott in the previous
poll, I have a lot of difficulty answering the question without a clear
definition of quality in this context. My current feeling is that
quality lies close to meeting and exceeding a broad range of customer
expections, so I voted for the BAs as the group closest to the
customer, but would liked to have ticked a few more boxes as well. What
about the trainers, tech support group, etc... Does quality end once
the product is shipped? Perhaps you could include 'the client' in
your list. If the client demands quality, can define quality, can
recognise quality, is willing to pay for quality, and won't accept
anything less than 'quality' than I guess that the client will end up
as the owner of quality. Where the client shops for their solutions, and whether they do business with your company, is a different question |
The Kid |
You can just as easily make the
statement that you are the "owner" for the task of delivering the car
back to the rental agency as it was prior to you renting it. like I
said....these terms can be mixed and matched.
in your example,
you're defining owner as the person who purchased the car or the gun or
the "x". Each project of mine has an "owner"...that person didn't buy
the software, nor the machines nor pays the salary of the people that
are on their project.
the web team and an executive assistant
and "x"; surely don't own quality. people would think i'm crazy if I
walked up to the head of Tech Support and said "the software for this
project isn't meeting quality guidelines..we've had to reject the
installer for the past 2 weeks because you can't install the software
on Vista.....please tell me what you're going to do about it". No one
would do this. You walk up to R and D and ask "what is preventing you
from delivering quality software" and in the situation where our
assessment of quality is missing key defects that are contributing to
lack of software quality I first ask R and D why their unit tests and
quality checks missed these defects and then I go to my team and ask
why our quality checks missed these defects.
If someone on my
team was regularly going to the web team and marketing to ask them, as
a contributor to delivering quality software, why the Installer
component for an app (as an example) was of such poor quality we've had
to reject builds for the last 2 weeks because of it my leadership
abilities would be in question and if I allowed this practice to
continue I can honestly say I'd be fired.
What would be
acceptable would be going to the marketing dept and asking them why a
marketing campaign, for example, had no impact on meeting revenue
goals.
If we were to ask who owns the task of bringing in
revenue to the company....then the appropriate response would be
"everyone" because an entire company is responsible for it.....R and D
to deliver high quality software to the QC team, QC to perform
additional checks to make sure it does meet expectations, PM to
properly define expectations in high-quality requirements docs, tech
support to deliver appropriate answers to customers....even down to
such seemingly trivial tasks as an executive secretary booking plane
flights on time for someone who is traveling to a prospective customer.
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