QUALITY MANAGEMENT PLAN
 

Quality management monitors the consistency, correctness and completeness of all work products and deliverables. Our detailed Quality Control Plan (QCP) will be incorporated as a component of the final Project Management Plan and will be maintained, throughout the duration of the Seport e Task Order; incorporating functional requirements as agreed to by the Task Order Project Manager and COTR. The main role of Quality Management is to create both an environment and a set of attitudes leading to the creation of high-quality products. The quality of deliverables directly impacts Navy Agency Executives’ assessment of whether the ISI Team is on schedule (since a poor quality deliverable requires time-consuming and/or costly rework, affects team credibility and momentum, and delays completion of subsequent tasks).

Quality Management

The ISI Team’s Quality Management consists of two parts: 1) Quality Control, and
2) Quality Assurance. Quality control pertains to the Team’s control of deliverable quality, while quality assurance pertains to the coordinated, after-the-fact review of deliverables with navy ordering agency project executives. The figure above represents the proposed Seaport e Quality Management Approach the ISI Team will utilize in managing quality on this project.

For Quality Control (QC), the Team will establish an infrastructure with deliverable standards and guidelines. Clear acceptance criteria will be defined for each. Expectations will be “SMART” in that they will be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Quality control involves the formal and systematic use of measurement and a precise definition of what quality means for acceptance of a deliverable.

The ISI Team controls quality at several levels with:
1) Carefully selected staff;
2) Best practice and proven processes (methodologies, tools and management); and
3) Deliverables created with systematic design, development and review processes.

Quality Control establishes deliverable standards and tests for attributes that fall below those standards. Quality control tests against the expectations for each deliverable attribute but does nothing to improve the quality of those attributes. This challenge is met by the ISI Team’s QA process. QA describes the enforcement of quality control standards and a method for working towards improving the processes used in producing deliverable products.

Quality Assurance (QA) goes beyond mere quality control to closely examine the processes that create and shape the product: quality assurance looks at the quality of output, as well as at the quality of the input. The ISI Team, takes quality very seriously. To us, quality management is not a mere sentiment from a carefully worded commitment statement, but is a series of measured actions with proven results through both the quality control and quality assurance processes to ensure successful acceptance and use of each program deliverable.

Project Deliverables will be “Quality Assured” through advisory reviews made up of Ordering Agency Executives and Subject Matter Experts. In addition, the ISI Project Manager will review and provide final approval of all deliverables. Our industry standard methods will be used for identifying and preventing defects in the quality of products supplied to the Government in support of the Seaport e Task Order efforts.

Define Quality Control Criteria. The ISI Team Project Manager will define Quality (quality criteria) for the project. The following are a few sample categories with single examples of quality criteria:

Performance: How quickly is a result delivered to a user after they have requested the result? For example, for executive reporting to answer business questions using the knowledge repository, the desired response time may be documented in seconds, minutes and hours as opposed to the duration of waiting for data call analysis to be performed over days to weeks.
Format: How user-oriented is the model or executive view for each user type? Have the modeling standards and reporting structures been followed?
Completeness: Does the deliverable meet all desired attributes? For example, does the deliverable capture each of the ordering agency business functions to the expected level of detail?
Consistency: Are the deliverables that make up the performance of the Task Order consistent? (Focuses on the relationship of one deliverable of the program being evaluated with other deliverables to assure coherence.)
Reliability: Does the deliverable perform its functions correctly all of the time?
Correctness: Does the deliverable meet the criteria specified and approved in the Quality Control Process? Has the information been validated with the Navy ordering Agency representative(s)?

Specific criteria will be developed to establish clear expectations for quality, completeness, and consistency of each deliverable.