4.10 Documents Created During Quality Assurance Phase

Beta Plan ”Frozen. The Beta Plan is a document developed by Business Development and QA. The purpose of a Beta Plan is to define the roles and responsibilities that the people participating in the beta process are required to fulfill. The Beta Plan details the qualifications to become a beta site as well as the technologies and procedures the beta sites will be testing.

Beta Questionnaire ”Frozen. The Beta Questionnaire is a document that needs to be modified and updated for each project. This document should be sent to each beta user. Business Development should call each user to confirm the user site details.

Executive Sign-Off. This is a sign-off sheet the Project Manager presents to the executives in the phase review. At the end of each phase review presentation each member of the executive staff reviews the phase sign-offs, reflects on the information presented, and decides if he will allow the project to proceed to the next stage of the project life cycle. On the bottom of this document each executive signs his name and indicates whether he approves or disapproves of continuing to the next phase.

Announcement Plan ”Created. The Communications Manager is responsible for creating and monitoring the launch process. Items are delegated to the appropriate employees . Project Business Development is responsible for deciding user demographics and focus for the announcement. Communications is responsible for understanding press and analyst concerns.

Communications confirms that press and analyst deliverables are properly targeted . The Announcement Plan itemizes all the Business Development deliverables that need to be completed in order to announce a project.

Release Plan ”Created. The Project Manager is responsible for creating a Release Plan. The Release Plan identifies any hardware, software, or networking that will be needed, who is responsible for configuring the new equipment, and who will receive the equipment.

Phase Review Presentation. This is a sample presentation that would be filled in by the project team for the presentation to executive staff.

Phase Sign-Off. At the end of each phase, before the review presentation, each member of the project team reviews a document that contains information similar to that found in the Summary of Deliverables by Department. The Project Manager reviews this list in a team meeting and places the word complete or the date the deliverable will be complete by each team deliverable . The team then votes if they agree all deliverables have been met. Once the team agrees that all phase deliverables have been met, they can present the project status at the phase review. The annotated Summary of Deliverables by Department sheet is attached to the Phase Sign-Off Document. The Phase Sign-Off Document identifies the project and phase and has a place for each member of the team and each executive to sign if they agree the project meets the requirements of that phase and can move to the next one.

Help Desk Plan ”Frozen. The Help Desk organization develops a document that details how they will support the project, how they will track bugs , what services they will provide to users, how they will update users with fixes, and what educational services they will provide.

Team Minutes. The team minutes are a weekly updated document that provides details on commitments, status, issues, requests , and team decisions.

4.10 in a Nutshell

In Phase 4, the project is assured for quality. The following documents are created:

• Beta Plan ”Frozen

• Beta Questionnaire ”Frozen

• Executive Sign-Off

• Announcement Plan

• Release Plan

• Phase Review Presentation

• Phase Sign-Off

• Help Desk Plan

• Team Minutes