Chapter 14: Documentation Guidelines

Quality Assurance (QA) and the EPG

What is the difference between Quality Assurance (QA) and the EPG? Can we not have QA do process improvement too? Can we not just structure the organization so that process improvement becomes another QA initiative? No, that is a recipe for disaster. If you set up your process improvement effort as part of QA's duties , process improvement will be seen as just another QA task. It will not receive the attention from management and from the organization as a whole that it requires. Can QA people serve as part of the EPG? Of course! However, the EPG should be representative of your entire organization not just the QA department.

In addition, QA and the EPG serve different functions. QA reviews both the products built and the activities that occur on a project. The EPG is responsible for reviewing processes that occur across the organization. Therefore, there is some overlap; however, QA's primary role focuses on the projects while the EPG focuses on processes throughout the organization. The EPG does not concentrate on products that is QA's job.

What about standards? Does QA not review products to see if they conform to standards? Yes. However, one of the flaws of both the CMM and the CMMI is that the authors of both models assumed that organizations had standards in place and were using them. While some of the older, larger, more mature organizations did have standards, the smaller, younger ones did not. So before they could focus on process, they had to back up and devise some product standards. In their search for standards, they often just usurped the standards written for DoD (MIL-STD-2167A, MIL-STD-498, IEEE, NIST, FipsPub) or they just copied standards from a previous workplace. This is also not a good idea. Standards must fit the type of work done and the culture of the organization. Standards should be tailored to work for everybody mandated to use them. Otherwise, they will not be used.