Smart Quality Management Practice
The Quality Innovation SBU plans to periodically engage with you to discuss quality-related topics in the future. As today is the first day, shall we briefly talk about it?
What do you think software quality is?
You may have thoughts like these.
Software quality can be
- Excellence in degree
- Suitability for the intended purpose
- Fulfillment of all intended goals by the product or service
- Meeting explicit and implicit requirements, including consistency and fitness for the requirements that the product or service should possess.
Let me give you an example.
Let’s assume that the customer’s requirement is “Make a pigeon fly.”
The software engineer has created a pigeon, and now it’s time for this pigeon to fly. However, strangely enough, the pigeon is flying with its neck instead of its wings.
Do you think it’s okay to consider the program development as acceptable just because the pigeon is flying, even though it’s a mess?
However, the QA PIC(person in charge) may not understand the situation. The customer might also think it’s okay, just like the engineer, because the pigeon is flying. However, according to the definition of quality as “satisfying explicit and implicit requirements for consistency and suitability,” the explicit requirement is to make the pigeon fly, and the implicit requirement is to fly using its wings. No known pigeon flies with its neck. Leaving the wings designed for flying idle and flying with the neck could result in the pigeon not flying far and possibly dying.
Indeed, in modern society, there is hardly any place where software is not used. Therefore, the importance of software quality is becoming even more critical. The repercussions of faulty software can be substantial, as evidenced by examples from other companies.
In the United States, a misplaced comma caused a satellite to veer off course and disappear into unintended space, resulting in millions of dollars lost. BMW had a software design issue that caused their cars to fail emissions standards due to excessive operation of the exhaust gas recirculation system. Airbus also experienced a military surveillance aircraft crashing during test flight due to a software bug in the flight control system, costing billions of dollars. These may seem like anecdotes, but similar incidents could happen in our company as well.
If our faulty software causes damages to our customers, we may be liable for compensation. That’s why we prioritize quality assurance (QA) to plan and systematically manage all aspects of our quality processes, in order to instill confidence in meeting quality requirements. We also strive to perform broader activities for ensuring high quality from a customer-centric perspective, not only in our products themselves but also in our overall approach to customer satisfaction.
The following is the QA process for our ACE package, which undergoes these quality management activities before being released. It involves the dedicated efforts of many individuals.
Step1: Development
– Specification Writing
– UI/UX Design and Development
– Temporary Service Model Development
– UX Review
– UI Unit Testing
– License Registration
– Help Documentation
– Deployment Report
Step2: Request for Temporary QA Pass
– Processing Temporary QA Pass
– Deployment to QC Server
– Engineer Testing
Step3: Request for QA
– Creating QA Checklist
– Writing Engineer Testing Results
– Sending QA Request Email
– Responding with Expected Completion Date
Step4: QA
– Spec
– License
– Release Note
– Help Documentation
– GUI Functionality Test
– GUI Logic Review
– Text and Naming Review
– Multilingual Verification
– English Output Request
– English Output Development
– English Output Verification
– Writing QA Records
– Sending Completion Notification Email
Step5:Deployment
– Service Model
– Task
– Process
– Process Menu Creation
– Translation Request for Process Menu
– Creation of English Process Menu
– Customer Deployment
– Portal/CMS Sync
– Help File Upload
– English Help File Creation
– English Help File Upload
If we create a product without any thought, it will become a pigeon that flies with its neck. But if we pay a little more attention, the pigeon will soar through the sky with its wings. Even if I shout out today how important quality is, if the thoughts of those of you reading this don’t change, nothing will change. Ultimately, what matters is the mindset.
Whether it’s a project or internal development, schedules are always tight, and we often find ourselves barely meeting the deadlines. However, if we can improve the quality even just a little bit before it reaches the hands of the customer, it will reduce the chances of it coming back to us later. We all know how tedious it is to revisit something we thought was already finished. In that sense, how about trying to practice at least one activity below as an effort to improve the quality while working on our tasks today?
For Engineer:
– Use the phrases suggested in the YLW SoftLab service writing guide
– Write specs that are on par with actual development deliverables
– Pre-agree on message and column names with team members
– Follow the process from development to deployment
– Perform basic testing on the product before delivery, including tab order, search conditions, decimal points, etc.
For Consultant:
– Provide deliverables that are not only in the right format, but also helpful in practice
– Clearly understand and document customer requirements in I/O (Input/Output)
– Respond to customers in a friendly manner to facilitate smooth project progress
– Perform final quality check before delivering to customers
– Review if there are any contents that could be packaged for future use
It will be continued next quarter.
Thank you for your attention.
