Often, we think of Quality Assurance (QA) as an approach implemented toward the end of a project, program, or  process. With a focus on efficient and fluid fulfillment, QA absolutely must be applied at the end of a work cycle to help deliver the intended product or service on time and within budget. However, an organization that embraces top-tier quality assurance will incorporate the tenets of QA into every aspect of its organizational structure and operations and into every stage of a project’s life cycle. The right time for quality assurance is now.

Read on for ways to incorporate this powerful approach no matter where you are in a business process.

Quality Assurance at the Planning Stage

The goals of QA include articulating, improving, and overseeing effective processes, preventing waste and mistakes, encouraging staff engagement and training, and effective communication of QA approaches. Not coincidentally, these same goals are characteristic of a well-planned business program.

When planning a project, particularly one that’s part of a larger strategic plan, you can build in QA by ensuring that all stakeholders are appropriately engaged in the process so that their needs and goals are met by the final result. Building regular assessments at the planning stage will help you analyze how effective and efficient your program is, from planning to concept to delivery. By focusing on SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound) within the plan, your planning team will naturally identify points for evaluation. Deploying automated collection and data processing can help you capture the return on investment (ROI) and progress evaluations in real-time without making significantly more work for the planning team or any single one of its members.

With adequate data and a well-designed benchmarking component designed into your strategic plan, the information you need for decisions is at your fingertips. You can use this information to determine the next steps and whether expectations need to be adjusted to keep your process on track. Staying on track with incremental goals is critical to delivering a quality result and building constituent satisfaction, the hallmarks of QA.

Quality Assurance at the Design and Testing Stages

Depending on your industry, the products, goods, or services you design will vary, but the commitment to excellence should not. Quality assurance ensures the stability and soundness of all parts of your business. This allows you to meet and exceed your customers’ expectations every time. Quality assurance includes:

• Sourcing quality parts,
• Providing relevant assembly training,
• Outfitting quality machinery,
• Enacting an overall efficient production system, and
• Conducting rigorous testing.

But companies that provide raw goods or tangible, physical products are hardly alone in their need to maintain consistency and customer satisfaction. Proper quality assurance is about authentic, people-first attitudes and step-by-step, satisfaction-ensured org processes. Any sector that deals with people will benefit from quality assurance principles throughout the development of a program or process.

Quality Assurance at Solution Delivery and Beyond

A meaningful design process and rigorous testing bake quality assurance into the solutions your enterprise offers to its stakeholders, but that doesn’t mean you can coast on the QA performed at the design stage. Applying the BA principle of solution evaluation empowers you to assess the performance of and value delivered by a solution once it is used by your enterprise. Solution evaluation also recommends removing or minimizing barriers or constraints that prevent the full realization of its value to end-users.

It is also essential to develop QA metrics that evaluate the success of a program long after it’s delivered. Is it still working as designed? Are stakeholders’ needs still being met? Have new conditions emerged that require a course correction to keep delivering the highest quality solution you can?

There’s Never a Wrong Time for QA

Quality assurance is as important for strategic reasons as your spreadsheets. You risk poorly functioning goods, inadequate services, and routinely disgruntled customers without QA. If you have poorly functioning goods and routinely disgruntled customers, you will have poorly performing and disgruntled employees.

However, when QA is applied, your employees benefit from a results-driven rather than job-driven mindset and a more positive work environment. Your organization benefits from a vibrant brand following, smoother regulatory audits, a culture of improvement and collaboration, better resource and asset management, a renewed focus on efficiency and productivity, and new models of production and innovation.

When is the right time for quality assurance? There is never a wrong time for QA. Looking for help identifying how to improve the quality of your programs and processes? Drop us a line. We’re ready to help you find the right QA approach right now.