Quality Matters!

Punita Jasrotia/New Delhi

Traditionally viewed as a non-technical field and mostly shunned by IT professionals, ‘quality’ is gradually emerging as an en vogue stream. Never before has jargon like ISO 9000:2000, ISO 9000 and 14000, SEI-CMM, PCMM, Six Sigma, been so popular. Every company is going in for one quality process or the other. And, as per industry assumptions, this is only going to increase. The only hitch being the absence of proper training in India and lack of certifications for the requisite skills.

Experts believe that the reason behind the demand for professionals in this field is the growing importance of quality processes. Post-economic slowdown, quality control has become a part and parcel of the Return on Investment (RoI). With companies across the world becoming more cost conscious, the need for maintenance of quality at every level is being felt. Many companies have consequently gone for different standards to have a clear edge over their competitors. While Polaris was the first organisation in the world to be assessed at the highest maturity level—SEI-CMMI level 5, in October 2001, the company has also made its Quality Management System (QMS) compliant to the latest ISO 9001:2000 standards. Sudha Ramesh, senior vice president-quality of Polaris Software Lab, states, “Quality is no more an option. The option is only ‘do quality’ or consign an organisation to failure.”

Aptech uses the ISO 9001 framework for process management and Six Sigma for maintaining good quality and customer satisfaction. All this has only driven the need for ‘quality professionals’, who are the main force behind the implementation of processes and systems in an organisation. A ‘quality professional’ understands the nature of business in the organisation, it’s customers and their anticipated requirements, and also the needs and expectations of business partners and stake-holders.

Significantly, there has been considerable change in the profile of a ‘quality professional’. Traditionally viewed as an auditor, they are now an instrument in the growth of an organisation. Ajay Batra, consulting partner, QAI India, says, “What was earlier viewed as a punishment posting has now changed completely, with more and more people willing to opt for such a change. There is a lot of fun element attached with quality, which encourages people to opt for it. While traditionally, software professionals with three-four years of experience were taken as quality analysts, there are many who are ready to take this as a separate career option. Besides this, even companies are increasing the number of such professionals in their organisations or forming separate ‘quality groups’. To ensure that quality standards are followed across the board, some companies have gone ahead and made it part and parcel of their appraisal system. This means that before being transferred to a senior position, an individual needs to have some experience in the quality field.”

Those most suitable are professionals with knowledge of ISO, CMM, Six Sigma, and software engineering processes, with experience in software testing. Traditionally, most companies try to go for in-house software professionals (with a minimum of three-four years of experience) and an understanding of the business functions. Nilesh Vani, divisional head-new projects, planning and audit of Aptech Training, says, “He should be able to establish systems and processes for the organisation, guide and support the implementation, and look for both value for money and delight of the customers”. However, Gautam Sinha, the CEO of TVA Infotech, feels that there is a parallel demand for people who have done testing (products). “Familiarity and usage of automated testing tools is must along with the skill to write test cases/scripts,” he points out. The professional should also be well-versed with prevalent quality standards, should be able to invoke that passion for customer sensitivity amongst all members of the organisation and also provide value addition through process improvement and thus business growth.

The role extends beyond technical matters, as good management skills are also criteria in today’s environment. Good communication skills, analytical and interpersonal skills, perseverance, assertiveness, and understanding of current quality models, form an integral part of a quality professional. “Besides basic qualifications, a quality professional should have sufficient experience in quality assurance, quality control and data analyses. Skills like good presentation, negotiation and persuasion techniques, foresight and a keen eye for precision and objectivity are also important in his job,” informs Ramesh.

Finding a combination of all these skill sets is no easy task and consequently the industry is facing a shortage of quality professionals. Being a certification driven industry, required certifications in this field are a rarity. There are no certifications available in India, which are either US or UK based. Consequently, training is also restricted to very few people. There are only two popular certifications in the industry—Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA) and Certified Software Test Engineer (CSTE). This is however not considered sufficient by most experts. According to Ravi Kumar J, a senior consultant with the Organisation Process Group (SEPG) of Mastek, “The training industry has not been able to meet the emerging demand for right quality professionals. And, since certifications are given by different organisations, the standards also vary.” This has led to an increase in confusion, as many professionals have to go for multiple certifications.

The need of the hour is to recognise quality as a critical need by the training industry.

Quality Standards

CMMI: The Capability Maturity Model (CMM) Integration (CMMI) is for projects or organisations that want to use common, integrated, and improving processes for systems and software. It is a process improvement method that provides a set of best practices that address productivity, performance, costs, and stake-holder satisfaction.

Software CMM Consulting: The Software Capability Maturity Model (r) from the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is one of the world’s most popular frameworks for software organisations in building organisational maturity. IT helps in increasing productivity, quality and reducing cycle time through CMM based process improvement.

ISO 9000: The ISO 9000 series of standards is perhaps the most popular generic international standard in use today. Over 75 nations have already adopted and recognised it. Many organisations have utilised ISO 9000-3 as a standard to create their quality systems. ISO’s purpose is to facilitate international trade by providing a single set of standards that people everywhere would recognise and respect. The term ISO 9000 refers to a set of quality management standards. ISO 9000 currently includes three quality standards: ISO 9000:2000, ISO 9001:2000, and ISO 9004:2000. ISO 9001:2000 contains requirements, while ISO 9000:2000 and ISO 9004:2000 are guidelines.

SPICE: Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination is a suite of standards of software process assessment developed by ISO. The standards can be used by organisations in a number of ways, be it in the capability determination mode, the process improvement mode or self-assessment mode.

Six Sigma: Six Sigma is a disciplined data-driven approach, a customer-oriented management philosophy, a statistic that reads “3.4 defects per million opportunities to make defects”. It is a process of problem solving, starting with defining what your problem is, then measuring it, leading to analysis of the problem and coming out with an improvement solution.

Skills in need

• Software engineering practices and methods
• Process control techniques
• Planning, managing and monitoring software processes
• Technology transition (including technology transfer and change management)
• Process analysis and documentation methods
• Process modelling
• Selecting, collecting and validating process and product measurement data
• Principles of statistical quality control ( i.e. applying basic quantitative methods and analysis techniques)
• Planning quality commitments and goals for the product
• Tools and methods used by the organisation.