Comprehensive QA Initiatives Increase Quality Insight and Identify System Development Risks
Opportunity
The Child Support Division of the Office of the Attorney General needed multi-discipline expertise to provide comprehensive quality assurance (QA) service for their TXCSES 2.0 (T2) project. As a final piece of their business process reengineering initiative, the Child Support Division of the Office of the Attorney General is replacing their 1990’s vintage mainframe, Texas Child Support Enforcement System (TXCESES). When completed, the new system, TXCSES 2.0 or T2, will use different hardware, language, tools, and processes.
The Child Support Division sought competitive fixed bids for independent, expert assessment of the work performed by their design/development/implementation (DDI) vendor. RFD & Associates, Inc.’s (RFD) response to the statement of work built on deep experience with the as-is architecture and business processes, many of the new technologies that would be part of the mix and the new application development “playbook” to be used during design, development, and implementation.
Solution
With extensive prior agency experience in agency initiatives of every size, including application development and project and contract management, RFD was selected as the QA vendor. As a first priority RFD wanted to be an advocate for the agency, speaking with the benefit of knowledge and experience. Where RFD didn’t have core team members with the needed expertise, relationships were built with partners to fill those gaps. In all cases, RFD was able to work with partners who also brought Texas Child Support experience to the table.
Results
RFD fielded a team with deep knowledge of the business of child support, and the technical tools that Texas has used in the past and will use going forward in order to:
- Provide accurate and timely reporting on T2 project deliverable status and quality in support of agency management and decision making
- Automate data collection to provide ongoing insight on the status of deliverables and the number of open issues and comments associated with them
- Perform an expert review of architecture, requirement, and code artifacts