Tired of getting reports from your quality assurance (QA) consultant that are just a long laundry list of all the things that might go wrong with your project? We’ve seen 20 page reports with over 200 “risks” listed. The likelihood of many of those risks occurring is about the same as the likelihood of getting hit by a meteor while standing in your front yard. Some are so immaterial that even if they happen they won’t affect the successful outcome of your project. The long list of mostly irrelevant items overwhelms clients and erodes confidence in the QA process. Usually the laundry list just ends up getting ignored.
QA consultants often don’t understand their role or feel their role is simply to point out all possible risks. Sometimes they are on autopilot just working to a checklist. We’ve even seen QA consultants invested in a project failing because it validates all the things they’ve said in their reports. The real job of a QA contractor is to make your project successful. They should do this, in part, by advising you of the things that matter.
The first page of a QA report should give you the top three to five risks you need to attend to immediately. There should be a strong rationale for choosing the “front page” risks (usually magnitude of impact, likelihood of occurrence, and immediacy of risk are the factors used). The report should also provide pragmatic suggestions for managing or mitigating the top risks. Demand the top issues are brought to your attention in a concise and useful manner. Focus on resolving the most important things before you even look at the other 195 risks.