Quality Manager

The Quality Manager is the person who strives his best to ensure the quality at all levels. For example the software Quality Manager is often a separate person from the project manager, although not always. On larger projects, there will almost certainly be a separate Quality Manager overseeing SQA in the project, but on small projects the overall project manager may also be responsible for assuring software quality and not separate Quality Manager.

In some companies, the Quality Manager will be a single person who is attached to several projects at the same time. What is described in the subsequent paragraphs applies equally to all these situations i.e. to whoever has the Quality Manager’s responsibility.

How does the software Quality Manager fit in with all the discussions about SDP models above? Clearly, the Quality Manager must be familiar with the development model chosen for the particular project being managed. But the software Quality Manager is mostly concerned with ensuring that the model is adhered to properly, rather than in managing each stage in the model.

The software Quality Manager must ensure that each stage in the model is properly carried out and documented, so that software quality may be demonstrated. There must be an "audit trail" to prove that quality was engineered into the product.

All this requires an approach which is known to all staff on the project. What is required is a Software Quality Management System, usually just called a Quality Management System (QMS). The QMS and in turn Quality Manager will usually include:

• A Software Quality Policy (what the organization’s policy is towards Quality issues) – written down in a document.

• A Software Quality Methodology (the general approach taken to SQA) – written down in a document.

• Standards and Practices (documents stating the desired standard ways to do various things)

• Quality Certification (awarded by a body external to the organization, to show others that SQA is an inherent part of the organization’s software development culture)