Unlocking Success: Evaluate Maturity Level with Maturity Assessments

“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, and skillful execution. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives.” – Will A Foster

These days phrases like quality assurance and quality control (testing) are used interchangeably. However, it is important to make a distinction between the two.

Quality assurance and testing are both focused on improving the quality of software applications, but quality assurance enhances the quality via process improvement with metrics, continuous improvement, and finding bugs. Testing, on the other hand, prevents bugs in the first place.

For an organization to transition from a Quality Initializing (Level 1) to a Quality Expert (Level 5) Maturity Level, it is important to recognize that everyone, not only the quality assurance team, is responsible for quality. To facilitate this “shift left” mindset, it is important to create organizational alignment and demonstrate executive sponsorship. With the rise of remote and hybrid work models, organizations must now adapt their quality assurance processes to maintain effectiveness across dispersed teams. Virtual collaboration tools and remote testing environments have become essential in ensuring consistent quality standards, even outside traditional office settings.

Without executive support and enforcement, activities associated with quality improvement initiatives run the risk of being deemed unfavorable and will rapidly decay. In turn, different stakeholder groups will end up with elective guidelines, rather than policies. It is best to establish project scope and objectives by preparing a Diagnostic Portfolio Assessment (DPA).

Scope and Objective

The scope of a Diagnostic Portfolio Assessment consists of an evaluation of the following:

• quality assurance and project methodologies
• processes and practices
• toolsets
• capabilities
• test automation

The methodology behind the process starts with planning, investigation, analysis, and reporting.

After this kind of assessment, the next logical question is, “where do you think you are?”

Level 1: Quality Agnostic
50-75% Budget Overrun

• Limited focus on quality, with minimal or no automation in place.
• Processes are manual, leading to inefficiencies and increased risk of human error.
• No integration of AI or cybersecurity measures.
• Savings potential: None, as quality is not a primary focus.

Level 2: Quality Initializing
25-50% Budget Overrun

• Begins to recognize the importance of quality but lacks formal processes.
• Initial introduction of basic automation tools reduces manual effort, with savings of 5-10%.
• Agile methodologies and DevOps practices are explored but not fully integrated.
• Basic cybersecurity and compliance considerations start to be factored into processes.

Level 3: Quality Conscious
25+% Savings

• Leverages automation tools to streamline repetitive tasks and improve testing speed.
• Embraces Agile and DevOps practices to enhance collaboration and shorten development cycles.
• Incorporates AI-driven tools to identify and predict defects earlier in the process.

Level 4: Quality Savvy
40+% Savings

• Focuses on process efficiency, optimizing both resources and time.
• Incorporates cybersecurity and compliance as critical elements of QA processes.
• Emphasizes cross-departmental collaboration and AI to drive continuous improvement.
• Evaluates how well testing practices manage cybersecurity risks and regulatory compliance.

Level 5: Quality Expert
50+% Savings

• Fully integrates AI, automation, and continuous delivery pipelines to optimize quality processes.
• Leads the way in Agile and DevOps methodologies to enable rapid, secure, and reliable software releases.
• Ensures cybersecurity and compliance are deeply embedded within QA to safeguard against vulnerabilities.

It takes time to achieve this multi-phase level of maturity. The concept of quality, process management, and quality control quality assurance may be new to some companies. In time, quality assurance becomes second nature and a valued component to test software. The insights that QA Consultants has gained from dozens of quality assurance and testing assessments have established a correlation between the quality assurance and testing maturity level of an organization and its associated project costs. More specifically, unless an organization ranks at Level 3 – Quality Conscious, projects are rarely delivered on time, on budget, nor meet the customer expectations from a quality perspective.

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Maturity Assessment/Process Maturity Timeline

• 3-6 Months
  • Achieve Maturity Level 2
  • Quality initializing through integrated tools, streamlined processes, and a consistent approach to quality assurance and testing.
• 6-9 Months
  • Standardize on the right testing tools
  • Quality conscious and starting to realize cost savings of 25% and up through integrated tools, standardized KPIs, and optimized test environments.
  • Leveraging metrics for continuous improvement.
• 12-18 Months
  • Achieve Maturity Level 4
  • Quality savvy through centralization of best practices shared across projects and teams of comparable size and complexity.
  • Starting to realize cost savings of 40% and up.
• 18-24 Months
  • Achieve Maturity Level 5
  • Quality expert by moving towards DevOps and introducing automation across the complete capability maturity model lifecycle.

The objective of this quality management engagement is to identify gaps and inefficiencies in the current process for products and services. The next step requires recommendations that address some of the current quality assurance challenges and will facilitate a transition to a quality assurance program

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Quality Assurance Challenges

• Testing takes too long; the new framework cannot wait for four months for testing to complete
• All testing effort currently is conducted manually
• Test cases and production processes are not formally documented
• Execution of testing effort is heavily reliant on the SME of specific associates
• Since there is no automation of the testing effort, it is hard to support frequent changes
• Looking to introduce more rigorous automation and standardization into the regression testing
• Limited resources; lack of time, budget, or expertise can hinder the assessment process; Prioritize and leverage available resources effectively.
• Resistance to change; some employees may resist the changes suggested by the assessment findings. Communicating the benefits, involve stakeholders, and provide support to overcome resistance.
• Data overload; collecting excessive data can be overwhelming. Focus on collecting relevant data that aligns with your assessment objectives.

Benefits of a Quality Maturity Assessment

Conducting a software quality maturity assessment provides significant benefits to organizations seeking to improve their operations and achieve their goals. By conducting a software quality maturity assessment, businesses can make informed decisions based on data-driven insights, identify areas for improvement and growth, and enhance the alignment of strategies and goals.

Improved decision-making based on data-driven insights:

A software quality maturity assessment helps businesses gain a deeper understanding of their current state by evaluating their processes, capabilities, and performance against industry best practices. By collecting and analyzing relevant data, organizations can make more informed decisions, backed by evidence, rather than relying solely on intuition or assumptions. This data-driven approach enables businesses to identify strengths and weaknesses, prioritize areas for improvement, and allocate resources more effectively.

Identification of areas for improvement and growth:

Through a software quality maturity assessment, organizations can pinpoint specific areas where they can enhance their operations and achieve growth. By evaluating various aspects of their business related to software quality, such as technology, processes, talent, and culture, businesses can identify gaps, inefficiencies, or outdated practices that may hinder their progress. This assessment helps organizations identify opportunities for improvement, implement necessary changes, and optimize their performance and results.

Enhanced alignment of strategies and goals:

A software quality maturity assessment enables businesses to evaluate the alignment of their strategies and goals with their current capabilities. By assessing the maturity level of distinct functions or departments within an organization related to software quality, businesses can identify any misalignment or gaps that may exist. This assessment helps organizations ensure that their strategies are effectively supported by their resources, processes, and capabilities, leading to better execution and increased chances of success.

Next Steps

What’s next? After a company maturity assessment is completed and the structure is implemented, we devise a business-driven test management approach, including flexible and agile testing techniques.

Depending on the results, QA Consultants can:

• Apply industry best practices, methodologies, and knowledge of automated tools, frameworks, and accelerators. This involves the setup and maintenance of the hardware, software and testing services infrastructure including test environments, and tools.
• Evaluate existing resources and create a plan for additional staff and skillsets. Train testing teams and mentor the entire organization to apply process and organizational changes
• Measure the impact on test maturity after transformation using business-relevant parameters, such as cost and productivity
• Quantify the success of the TCoE against metrics and promote TCoE advantages internally
• Improve quality assurance processes through continuous innovation, short evaluation cycles, and realistic ‘how to’ recommendations for every phase of the transition

We help you mature your quality.

Every company environment is unique and requires an individual answer. At QA Consultants, our projects can range from a few hours (for on-demand needs) to multi-year sourcing arrangements. However, most of these engagements start with one or more advisory services.

Advisory services at QA Consultants are those that have a fixed duration and confirmed end date. Our services often have a deliverable that improves processes and teams. These are traditional consulting engagements that include time from our executive leadership and senior professional services teams.

Most advisory services are delivered under time and materials engagement models. This allows QA Consultants to be efficient and reduce the time needed. Most of these projects relate to some degree of assessment. When material, data, and resources are readily available, these projects can move smoothly and under budget.