PROCESSES

Project Methodology

All projects executed by SCMC follow a well-defined project and process methodologies. For each process, a variety of life-cycle methodologies are defined. The methodology depends on factors such as product engineering, time-to-market, and customers' direction. SCMC adopts the following methodologies:

• Waterfall Methodology
• Iterative Methodology
• Incremental Methodology

Project Management

SCMC QMS covers all the key areas of project management activity. The areas relevant for Project Management are covered by the following functions:

• Team management
• Technical management
• Planning, monitoring and control
• Progress reporting and
• Client management

The quality assurance function, though an integral part of the Project Management function of SCMC, has been dealt with in a separate section. SCMC’s project management approach has successfully managed and delivered a number of projects. Quality assurance is based on the principle that all deliverables from the project shall be independently reviewed. All deliverables are subject to an independent review to ensure that defects are identified and corrected as soon as possible, in order to:

• Eliminate defects before being released
• Minimize the cost of rework and quality assurance
• Minimize the cost of testing
• Permit reliable reporting of progress and prediction of outstanding work

Project Monitoring

A Project Management Plan is mandatory for all SCMC projects. The plan is prepared by the SCMC Project Manager during the initiation of the project and monitored and maintained throughout the project. It is reviewed regularly, and the plan is amended and reissued at the end of each stage, if required. The Project Management Plan will document how this project will be conducted in all its respects, including the progress reporting to the client.

Project Management Plan

The Project Management Plan documents, among other things:

• Key responsibilities for project management, quality assurance, and configuration management
• Client responsibilities within the project
• Basis for internal and external communications in the form of meetings, reports and distribution of information
• Quality assurance procedures
• Deliverables and their acceptance criteria
• Standards for documentation and software components
• Procedures for management of change orders

Quality Assurance (QA)

The Quality Assurance Team performs a key role within the project. The responsibilities of a Quality Assurance Team are to:

• Ensure standards and checklists are available on the project
• Plan reviews for all deliverables and check that reviews take place
• Ensure all corrective actions arising from reviews are tracked to closure
• Regularly review and report on the quality status of the project
• The standards to be followed during the stages of the project should have been identified and agreed in the Project Management Plan and made available to the team.

Change Management

This is another important role, which is necessary to control the changes identified while the project is in progress. The following controls are established for efficient and effective Change Management:

• Agreeing to Change Management procedures during the onsite stage and documenting these procedures in the Project Management Plan
• Ensuring that the changes are estimated, and their impact on the current project estimates and schedules are assessed
• Ensuring that the changes are authorized and approved before incorporating them into work in progress
• Monitoring the progress of changes as per the schedules
• Assess the cost implications and variations to the agreed commercials as applicable

Configuration Management

Configuration Management ensures that accidental modification or loss of the right versions or lack of version control and tracking mechanism does not compromise the quality of software components. The Configuration Manager:

• Prepares an identification scheme for software components under development
• Ensures that only approved deliverables are released for acceptance, and that changes to those are authorized
• Ensures that the software components are secured against accidental loss or damage
• Maintains the status of all intermediate and final deliverables