Category Archives: defects

How to measure software quality – Starting out

Process quality has been very popular over the past two decades.  From CMM and ISO9001 to 6 sigma, Lean, BPM & beyond we have seen a large body of work produced on the premise that “the quality of the process … Continue reading

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Filed under agile, BPMN, CMMI, defects, Effectiveness & Efficiency, improvement, ISO9001, ISO9126, KPI, method, metrics, process improvement, product quality, productivity, quality, software quality

Managing Suppliers Effectively to Deliver Your Project Objectives – Quality and Assessment

I was recently asked about an effective method to manage multiple suppliers on a project.  The client had a number of potential suppliers to engage and wanted to know the best approach to ensure the suppliers deliver what was required. … Continue reading

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Filed under alignment, appraisals, attitude, checklist, CMMI, defects, Effectiveness & Efficiency, improvement, ISO9001, KPI, method, metrics, people, PMO, problems, process improvement, product quality, productivity, project management, quality, software quality, templates

Improve project efficiency and effectiveness by dealing with quality part 2

OK, so once you have defined the quality activities required for each deliverable, you are now in a position to start identifying quality requirements for the deliverables – hardware, software, documents, scripts. This is where many projects really fall down … Continue reading

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Filed under agile, alignment, CMMI, defects, Effectiveness & Efficiency, improvement, ISO9001, ISO9126, KPI, metrics, peer reviews, PMO, problems, process improvement, product quality, productivity, quality, software quality, structure

Top 15 Business Improvement Items for the New Year

The following is a list we put together to get someone started in improving their business. Hope you find it useful – they certainly did! 1. Do you have a consolidated list of your current projects?  Is it clear how … Continue reading

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Filed under agile, attitude, cashflow, checklist, defects, Effectiveness & Efficiency, improvement, innovation, ISO9001, leadership, manager, organization change, problems, process improvement, productivity, quality, strategy

Improve project efficiency and effectiveness by dealing with quality – Part 1

Despite industry efforts over decades of work, many projects and project managers have difficulties in managing quality. Quality management as a discipline has been with us for a long time.  The two best known project management methods – PMBOK and … Continue reading

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Filed under agile, audits, checklist, CMMI, defects, Effectiveness & Efficiency, improvement, ISO9001, ISO9126, KPI, manager, method, metrics, peer reviews, people, PMO, process improvement, product quality, productivity, project management, quality, software quality, structure, templates

Project Performance KPIs – PMO Effectiveness

Rather than some tirade on why metrics are so great for projects, let’s just list some critical ones: Schedule – Planned vrs Actual – preferably via Earned Value Functional – % designed, implemented, tested, released Delivery on Time – Milestones … Continue reading

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Experiences Reviewing KPI/metric Efficiency Part 2 of 2

C. What data is collected automatically (including tool integration) The only data collected automatically was the defects.  A Microsoft Access based tool was used to record and track defects encountered on the project. Everything else was recorded on paper and … Continue reading

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Filed under alignment, CMMI, defects, improvement, ISO9001, ISO9126, KPI, metrics, organization change, people, PMO, problems, process improvement, product quality, risk, ROI, software quality

Experiences Reviewing KPI/metric Efficiency Part 1 of 2

I’ve spoken a lot about metrics in the past and I was asked by a client to go through the steps involved in reviewing the efficiency of metrics with examples. Using our checklists is cool, but he also wanted some … Continue reading

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Filed under alignment, CMMI, defects, improvement, ISO9001, ISO9126, KPI, metrics, organization change, people, process improvement, product quality, risk, ROI, software quality

Peer Reviews Improve Product Quality and Project Delivery

Shock! They actually work! Peer reviews are an effective tool to improve the quality of deliverables – be they documents, code, tests, presentations, etc.  Yet they are still not used in many companies. Why not? People don’t have the “time” … Continue reading

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Filed under CMMI, defects, improvement, ISO9001, KPI, method, metrics, organization change, peer reviews, people, problems, process improvement, product quality, project management, ROI, software quality, Uncategorized

Reviewing Efficiency & Effectiveness Of Your Company KPI/Metrics Program

Most companies collect various metrics.  But are they the best ones to collect?  How do you know if you are getting good value for the effect expended in collecting and reporting KPIs/metrics? You can use this list to get a … Continue reading

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Filed under alignment, appraisals, CMMI, defects, improvement, innovation, ISO9126, KPI, metrics, PMO, ROI