4.5.3T Use Quality Control to Validate the Quality of your Deliverables

(4.5.3T.P1)

Quality control activities are those that are focused on the overall quality of the deliverable being produced. Depending on the type of project, the following activities are examples of quality control activities.

  • Deliverable reviews / peer reviews / technical reviews / code reviews. See 4.5.1T Deliverable Review for more information.

  • Checklists to ensure that deliverables are consistent and contain all the necessary information. For an example see 4.5.4T Quality Control Checklists

  • Reuse of proven software

  • Standards to ensure consistency

  • Inspection of third-party materials and deliverables

  • Product measurements and comparison to targets

  •  Structured methods to ensure standard, proven processes are used

  • Thorough testing (unit, system, integration, acceptance). Testing is probably the aspect of quality control that is most used today. Even though there are many techniques that build in quality further up-front, the confidence you have in the overall quality most likely comes from your testing. For this reason, you cannot overlook testing. Testing is your last chance to ensure that the solution you deliver meets the expectations of the client. Generally speaking, testing is the way to ensure that the solution satisfies the requirements and is free from defects. However, at a lower level, testing is also as a way of:

    • Proving overall reliability

    • Making sure the solution will work in the exact environment that it will encounter in production

    • Ensuring the solution will not fail over time

    • Making sure the results produced are consistent and reliable

    • Ensuring that the results will not degrade over time