Ontrack is an ISO 9001 company with Total Customer Satisfaction
as its quality policy objective. It lays stress on processes
to constantly deliver value and satisfaction to its customers.
Well-defined and documented quality standards and procedures
have been laid down for project management, the entire Software
Development Life Cycle, monitoring customer relationships,
and human resources management. These processes have been
tested, refined and proven with each new experience and client.
Processes for recruitment, employee development and allocation
assure the quality of the people we recruit, the training
we impart, and the availability of people with the right skills.
In addition to an induction-training programme, every consultant
at Ontrack must undergo a mandatory six days of development training
every year. Besides covering technology skills, development
training also covers inculcating management skills and building
a perspective on quality.
The Processes are methodologies which form a matrix, where
the methodology defines the stages of a project and the processes
define the tasks performed at each of these stages.
During development we follow ISO 9001 procedures, which require
projects to ensure backup, recovery and risk mitigation strategies
as part of the project plan. The plans are subject to client
approval and periodic audits. As part of our company wide
disaster recovery strategy, we store periodic backups outside
the development center.
In keeping with the above philosophy, the effectiveness of
an Offshore Development Centre and its ability to meet the
success criteria would depend on well-defined and well-managed
processes:
The processes in place at Ontrack cover the following activities:
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Requirement Analysis |
|
Project Management |
|
Risk Management |
|
Client Relationship Management |
|
Quality Assurance |
|
Configuration Management |
Each of the processes have a set of activities as per the
following:
Project Management:
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Planning and Estimation |
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Planning and Monitoring of Work in terms
of Deliverables and Work Products |
|
Resources in terms of Individual and Group
Roles |
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Schedule in terms of milestones |
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Quality in terms of predefined standards |
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Configuration in terms of Tools and Techniques |
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Risk in terms of Correctness, Reliability,
Maintainability, Reusability and Schedule |
|
Completion |
Risk Management:
|
Identify Risks at the start of the project |
|
Assess Risks |
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Review and Update Risk Inventory |
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Manage Risks |
Client Relationship Management:
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Expectation Management |
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Project Progress Reporting |
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Regular written and oral communication |
Quality Assurance:
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Define QA Plan and Review Process |
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Define and Measure Quality Metrics |
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Conduct Reviews based on pre defined Checklists
and Review Forms |
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Testing Correctness, Completeness and Traceability |
Configuration Management:
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Build Current and Previous Configurations |
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Change Control |
Methodology:
The methodology used consists of stages, which broadly are the
following:
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Systems Study |
|
Planning and Estimation - Project Plan,
Test Plan, Configuration Management Plan, Risk Management
Plan and Training Plans. |
|
Project Kick Off and Start Audit |
|
Requirements Analysis |
|
High Level Design - DFDs, ERDs, Use Cases,
Site Map, Screen Shots |
|
Prototype |
|
Low Level Design - Technical Specifications
including Class Design, GUI Design and Database Design,
Use Case Diagrams |
|
Periodic Reviews for Compliance and Process
Improvement |
|
Construction (includes Unit Testing) |
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Integration and System Testing |
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Preliminary Acceptance Testing |
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Final Client Acceptance and Support |
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Project Completion Audit |
Project Reviews:
When planning for projects a set of milestones are defined
and at the end of each milestone a formal review is conducted
by both the development team internally as well as the external
QA team. The milestones vary from project to project and are
defined on the basis of the client expectations.
During the lifecycle of the project we have a number of formal
and informal reviews. As a general rule the formal reviews
are conducted at the end of client Deliverables or critical
Tasks. Informal Reviews are conducted at the end of each and
every task during the Life Cycle.
The Reviews are a combination of :
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External QA reviews |
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Peer to Peer Reviews |
|
Internal Reviews by the Project Manager
/ Project Leader / Team Leaders |
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Code Inspections and Walkthroughs |
Testing:
The systems developed are subjected to exhaustive tests. These
take the form of unit tests, integration tests, system tests
and acceptance tests. The Testing Process followed at Ontrack,
for each of the testing phases, is as follows:
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Testing resource identification and allocation |
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Test Planning and Review - Effectiveness
and Efficiency |
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Testing and Results documentation |
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Bug Fixing Work Allocation |
Metrics:
During the lifecycle of a project a number of metrics are
extracted to enable improvement in the following :
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Estimation Accuracy |
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Employee Productivity |
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Requirements Quality - Ambiguity, Completeness,
Understandability, Volatility and Traceability |
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Product Quality - Structure, Maintainability
and Reusability |
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Implementation Effectivity - Resource Usage
and Completion Rates |
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Testing Effectivity - Correctness, Completeness
and Traceability |
Project Execution:
The diagram below shows a broad concept-level pictorisation
of the structures, the modularity, and the concurrency of the
processes and the interaction between them. These can be tailored
to suit your needs.
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