SPA Process: Internal Product Assurance Report (PAR TOC)

The Short Story

The Product Assurance Report (PAR) is the formal mechanism of communicating the Product Assurance Activities status and results in the project.

For most QMS / SDPs it is mandatory at milestone meetings and can be used to report problems to upper management between milestones.

The Long Story

PAR Purpose

The main purpose of the PAR is to:

• Report the quality assurance activities being developed, along the project tailored life cycle, in order to assess the quality of the software development process (based on measured properties, verification undertaken, problems detected and problems solved);
• Present the current project status (this may include not only the on-process and on-quality but also the overall status of the quality of the product being developed);
• Report compliance to QMS and applicable standards for the project;
• Report metrics and conclusions on these metrics (if found necessary);
• Report of the verification results on the correct use of methods and tools in the software processes;
• Present audit reports for the audits planned in the QAP (these include audits from the annual internal audit plan - if any). Safety audits should also be present, if performed;
• Anticipate possible problems.

Example TOC for a PAR

Information to be included in the PAR (remember that this report can be produced several times during the project execution):

• Highlights of organization and key personnel changes.
• Assurance accomplishments and resulting software assurance program metrics for activities such as inspection and test, reviews, contractor/subcontractor surveys, audits.
• Subcontractor assurance accomplishments, including items listed above, plus summaries of acceptance and certification reports.
• Significant problems, their status, solutions, and preventive actions or corrections.
• Trends in software quality metric data (e.g., defect types, location, priority/criticality).
• Plans for upcoming software assurance activities.
• Recommendations and relevant lessons learned.

The final format of an Internal PAR can be diverse. It could range from an e-mail circulated internaly (to the project team and delivery / execution departments in the company) to full formal documents.

Final Notes

Sometimes you'll have to produce an External PARs (documents) to be delivered to the customer (in PDF format). Remember that it could be counter-productive to disclose all information being collected in the Internal PAR, or that the customer can have template / specific standard requirements that will make him ask for that extra deliverable (see the Proposal/Contract for the specific project).