IT Quality Control

Quality control in the IT world begins by following a twofold path :

• Sticking to well-known, widely established standards for the work that you do

• Setting up your initial environment in such a way that you are guaranteed success

Neither of these items are easy to quickly establish-they take buy in at all levels and a dedication to the process. Let's talk about each one separately so you can get a feel for what's involved.

Standards

When IT shops sit down as a group and hammer out standards, the result is almost always a more consistent way of doing business. Consider, for example, the following applications development standards:

• All new applications will be developed so that they run from a browser utilizing XML.

• All applications will utilize server-side Web services such as J2EE, not localized services.

• All applications will use Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) as the transport method from the application to the client.

These standards certainly aren't inclusive and may not be the standards that a given IT shop would set, but you can see that they are fundamental, simple to understand, and use commonly held protocols as the binding glue. By setting these standards, you have a firm way of controlling new applications enterprise-wide. If someone's entertaining the notion of bringing in a COTS software product, you can insist that the vendor(s) being considered are required to adhere to the standards.

In setting up a PMO that's going to handle IT projects, it's wise to get all the IT stakeholders in a room and see if you can generate a list of common standards that all groups will adhere to. These standards can include:

• Server burn documents-that is, how servers will be built

• Workstation installation standards-that is, the OS and office automation suite versions, patches and service packs , browser settings, control panel settings, profiles, etc.

• Application development standards

• Network operation standards, including acceptable network protocols

Standards Organizations

Standards organizations develop standards for almost everything you can imagine (from software protocols to street signs to wine glasses ). One organization is called the International Organization for Standardization (ISO-see www.iso.org). Specifically, ISO 9000 can be (and is) utilized by corporations for the management of their quality control. While ISO 9000 is a large thing, perhaps you can glean standards information by visiting the site and determining how ISO derives the standards and what standards are available.

Another is the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF-see www.dmtf.org). This organization acts to bring about ways to manage systems by a standardized interface. Microsoft introduced this standard into its Windows product through the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) standard, which utilizes a management interface and database on each Windows 2x computer and higher. WBEM is utilized by Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) for the purpose of gathering inventory information from PCs and uploading the data to a central database for the purpose of maintaining a centralized system inventory.

Another is the Institute of Electronic and Electric Engineers (IEEE-see www.ieee.org), an organization instrumental in producing widely adapted networking protocols. The wireless networking protocol suite 802.11 is an IEEE standard that has evolved out of hours of work by committee experts.

Another useful and interesting standards organization centers its philosophy on the best way to manage operations environment (servers, network infrastructure, mainframe, etc.) This organization, the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL-see www.ogc.gov.uk/index.asp?id=2261) has standards that will assist you in formulating great operational methodologies. ITIL is the entity responsible for saying that one must understand a business process flow before applying technology.

Another standards body is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI- see www.ansi.org). Interestingly, the PMI's A Guide to the PMBOK is an ANSI standard.

As you can see from these organizations, thought and effort has been put into developing standards whereby computing systems can 'play in the sandbox' with one another. So, at the very least, it's to your benefit to understand those standards and to insist that they're used throughout the organization as best practices.

Setting Up Your Environmental Processes

There are many good ways to get started in organizing a PMO that continuously puts out highquality projects. Perhaps the first place to start is to assess your organization to see just how healthy it actually is in terms of its ability to actually generate good-quality projects. A Capability Maturity Model (CMM) analysis might be in order. CMM was developed by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)-see www.sei.cmu.edu/cmmi/adoption/cmmi-start.html for more information on the various CMM implementations to date.

The idea behind any CMM is that five operational levels describe any given organization's project development efforts: Initial, Repeatable, Defined, Managed, and Optimizing.

Initial Processes are ad hoc and occasionally even chaotic . Does this describe your organization? It sure does some of the ones we've worked for! When a project is required, it just sort of gets thrown together. There's not really any commonsense pragmatism put toward the effort. This level is the lowest level of CMM. Organizations at this stage are CMM 1.

Repeatable At this level of CMM, an organization has established basic project management processes that serve to define the costs, schedules, and projected outcomes of any given project. At CMM 2, an organization is not considered to be 'project-mature,' but has definitely taken strides toward cleaning up its processes.

Defined At CMM 3, processes have been defined, published, standardized, and put into operation by some sort of project overseer entity-typically a PMO. All projects utilize standard documentation, project requests , approvals , and so forth to implement the deliverables. Organizations at CMM 3 are starting to get their stuff together, but they've got a way to go before they're fully functional.

Managed CMM 4 organizations qualitatively control the output of their projects. Any project is subject to strict quantitative scrutiny (in large organizations and projects this happens through Six Sigma techniques) to assess the quality of the outputs. Controls are tight, operations are well understood , and projects are cranked out in a uniform way with consistent quality. Understand that the operative word with CMM 4 is quantitative . At this level, we're applying quantitative measures and analysis to assure that our quality output is high.

Optimizing Like Abraham Maslow's top rung (self-actualizing) of his famous hierarchy of needs, an organization at CMM 5 is not only generating projects of consistent high quality and that are expertly monitored and managed, they're also constantly looking for ways to improve processes.

Note  

You may not work for a manufacturing entity or other concern that has a vested interest in quantitatively managing quality, but if you're good with math, especially statistics, you may find a large measure of success in your employment efforts by getting a Six Sigma 'belt.' Six Sigma ( www.isixsigma.com) is a program that teaches people how to monitor quality outputs through statistical analysis. The program uses the various colors of martial arts belts to denote how far you've gone in the program. There are Six Sigma green, brown, and black belts-the top, of course, being a black belt. Companies like General Electric (GE), Boeing, and others use Six Sigma types to assist in the management of their quality output.

The key to any IT undertaking lies in the ability of the IT organization to smartly implement project management methodologies and to undertake projects with consistency of action. By first understanding where your organization is at relative to its ability and aligning your efforts with good-quality, well-known standards, you have a very high chance of success.

Tip  

Remember that it is key that we always understand a business unit's process or flows before we apply technology. If you're careful to keep that order straight, all else should fall into place.