Create a clear mission

The ultimate mission of the IT quality must be to add value to the organization as a whole and, in particular, to improve IT quality in every aspect, including applications, the infrastructure, even the help desk. However, the IT quality cannot serve as the sole owner of quality; it must not try to resolve all quality issues alone. Further, it shouldn’t operate in an after-the-fact quality assurance mode. Instead, it should identify issues that impede quality and facilitate their rapid resolution.

Τhe mission of the ΙΤ quality must:

● Provide discipline and rigor to address quality improvements.

● Define top quality goals and measures.

● Drive consistent, agreed-to quality measures and corresponding management systems.

● Identify and prioritize IT quality issues from an end-to-end perspective.

● Serve as a focal point for an extended IT quality network comprised of end users and providers.

● Assign issues to owners for resolution, drive root cause analysis, and track results.

● Promote knowledge sharing of best practices relative to quality management in IT.

● Drive preventive defect activities so that quality does not become an afterthought.

Set specific objectives

Quality objectives need to focus, ultimately, on user satisfaction and key areas problematic to the IT area. They should answer the question, “What does the IT quality want to accomplish?" Sample objectives include: improve user satisfaction, control IT costs, reduce defects, improve IT infrastructure and application stability, and improve user perception of IT quality.

Develop simple strategies

Quality strategies should answer the question, “How will we achieve our objectives?" A simple strategy would be to address only broad, high-priority quality issues that affect the objectives. Or the quality function could focus on customer issues rather than internal issues. Another strategy would be to use a small quality team and an extended quality community rather than build a large quality organization within the information systems department.

To be effective, the quality function must avoid the tendency to grow a new bureaucracy. It must be committed to “staying the course" in creating a quality culture for the IT community.

The business executives, the CΕO and the IT quality leader must agree to a set of measurements that will track the progress of IT quality initiatives and issues. While consistency between groups is desirable, it is more important to relate the measures logically to the activities involved. The quality measures should reflect the items that remain important to users and those that drive user satisfaction. Each measure should include a target and time frame.

Take the next steps

Our Company is closely involved in ISO standards and we were one of the first ISO consulting firms to take a client to ISO 9001:2015. If you want ISO certification, let us explain the best approach for you.

Our ISO consultants have wide experience in ISO standards. We have over twenty years of experience in sectors ranging from service to manufacturing and through private to public to not for profit.  We have worked with multinationals and smaller organizations.

This gives us the experience to bring best practices from other industries to your organization.  The ISO standard is not just about getting a certificate it should also take out unwanted cost from your business. Past and present clients of Computech repeatedly speak of improved communications and greater efficiency.