Quality Assurance Methodology

Project Leadership Approach

DataArt assigns two leaders to its projects:

• Project Manager. Project manager is a technical leader for the project. He is responsible for the technical success of the project, he makes sure everything gets delivered on time and with high quality

• Project Coordinator. Project coordinator is responsible for all communication and documentation of the project. He is a single point of contact for all client communication issues – reporting, updates to requirements, status tracking and so on. All DataArt project coordinators are fluent English speakers. Project cordinator acts as an advocate of the client's team to the development team and visa versa. Concept of a dedicated project coordinator is unique to DataArt and has worked extremely well in many of our past project.

DataArt's project oversight committee, lead by senior management, monitors all project progress on a regular basis.
 

Process

• Envisioning
  During the envisioning phase, the team and the customer define or refine the business requirements and the overall goals of the project. Alignment of business and IT priorities in this phase is crucial, and the team will spend time understanding how the architecture will be used. During this phase, the team also begins identifying and mitigating risks. The envisioning phase culminates in the vision-approved milestone, which indicates that the team and customer agree on the project direction.
  
• Planning & Designing
  During the planning phase, the team plans the development and makes requirements more specific. The end of the phase is marked by the approval of the project plan by the customer.
   
  
• Developing
  During the developing phase, the team moves from project planning into the projects themselves.
   
  
• Stabilizing
  During the stabilizing phase, the team collects and integrates feedback on the released version, resolves project-related issues, enhances the architecture, and prepares for the next version.

We have standards in place for Configuration Management, Code Styles (all code produced follows coding styles) and Project Documentation.
 

Communication

Time Difference Management

• Project manager (technical leader) has at least 4 hours overlap with US business hours
• Coordinator (person responsible for all communications with the customer) has at least 5 hours overlap and is available 24 hours over mobile phone.
• Development team and QA team can work one after another, to take advantage of the time difference.

Requirements Management

Rational RequisitePro is used for requirements automation and tracking in many projects.
 

Requirements Change Management

Change Procedure Standards
DataArt follows certain fundamental principles when making any change:

• Making any change must not affect the integrity of the system
• The system must be consistent, both in the working procedures (i.e. data entry, reporting, etc.) and user interface. Therefore, all changes must be done in alignment with existing system style
• A change must be properly documented and change development must be planned and executed
• A list of changes must be traceable
• Software code repository must permit rolling back to any previous system version
• Deploying an updated system should have minimal or no affect on the normal work cycle

Document Sharing and Management

Project Tracking

• Services: Quality Assurance (QA)