Purpose of an Independent QA Audit

March 25 10:00 2011 by Nataliia Vasylyna Print This Article

The Software Engineering Institute/Capability Maturity Model (SEI CMM) describes periodic independent audits of the QA activities and work products of an organization’s QA group. This is specifically stated in the SQA key process area of CMM under verification.

The intent of the Independent QA Audit is to examine the organizational QA activities and associated work products to determine if they adhere to the defined QA processes for the organization. The documented processes need to be defined to comply with the goals and supporting common features and key practices of the SEI CMM model for all QA activities of the organization. The CMM describes QA activities not only within the SQA Key Process Area (KPA), but also within other KPAs, where verification by the QA groups is indicated in Software Configuration Management and Software Project Tracking and Oversight.

Objectives of an Independent QA Audit

The objectives of an Independent QA Audit are to:

Confirm good QA process behavior
Provide assurance to senior leader that the QA Group is, indeed, adhering to the QA processes as defined for the organization
Provide an independent voice towards continuous process improvement efforts for an organization
Communicate the findings to affected QA groups and senior leaders in order for them to assess the QA process adherence and to take appropriate action towards process improvement

The Independent QA Audit is not in place to provide findings indicating achievement of or rejection of a particular CMM maturity level, or readiness of an organization to achieve a maturity level, but works in concert with other CMM verification activities. Maturity level judgement is only recognized and accomplished through an authorized SEI assessment such as a CBA IPI.

Criteria for these Independent QA Audits are modeled to map to the CMM, and have been created as an aid for use by Internal QA Auditors.