Quality assurance is a process designed to give management and the customer confidence that an organization will deliver quality information technology products and services. In the context of software development, management needs to have confidence that if it allocates a significant amount dollars to developing custom information technology systems the IT group will do a good job. In the case of contracted software development, customers need to have confidence that a software development contractor will produce a product that will solve the problem, at a prespecified price, in a prespecified time period. This confidence needs to exist prior to the allocation of capital.

How then as a business person in search of a custom developed software product can you evaluate an organization you know little about and develop some confidence that they will produce a good result? The answer is to look into the way they develop software and seek out the assurance processes whereby they build quality into their product at all stages of its development life cycle.

Quality system assurance: Demonstrating that the quality management system conforms with established best practice as per ISO 90011 and any other standards required by a contract. This is achieved by quality management system audits and process improvement initiatives.

Quality Assurance Benefits:  Quality assurance is a proactive discipline. It supports the notion that defective products come from defective processes and that fixing the process will improve product quality. This philosophy yields the following real benefits:

Attract and keep customers: Organisations that can produce objective evidence that they consistently produce a quality product or service are much more likely to be commercially successful. Note that certification to ISO 9001 is a fundamental requirement in today’s business environment.

Find and correct problems early: Quality assurance identifies process problems and triggers corrective action before a defective process can produce a defective product.

Peace of mind for management: Management consultant Peter Drucker once commented that: “… the only thing that happens naturally in an organization is the descent into randomness”. An effective quality assurance function gives management confidence that the organization’s quality management disciplines are in place and operating.