APO11 - Managed Quality

The systematic management of vital knowledge to create value for the organisation by capturing, sharing, developing and exploiting the collective knowledge of the organisation to improve performance, support decision making and mitigate risks. The development of a supportive and collaborative knowledge sharing culture to drive the successful adoption of technology solutions for knowledge management. Providing access to informal, tacit knowledge as well as formal, documented, explicit knowledge by facilitating internal and external collaboration and communications.

The development and operation of a measurement capability to support agreed organisational information needs. The planning, implementation, and control of activities to measure attributes of processes, products, and services in order to assess performance, progress, and provide indications and insights to actual or potential problems, issues, and risks. The identification of requirements, selecting measures and measurement scales, establishing data collection and analysis methods, setting target values and thresholds. Measurement can be applied to organizations, projects, processes, and work products.

The provision of leadership, advice and implementation support to assess organisational capabilities and to identify, prioritise and implement improvements. The selection, adoption and integration of appropriate industry frameworks and models to guide improvements. The systematic use of capability maturity assessments, metrics, process definition, process management, repeatability and the introduction of appropriate techniques, tools and enhanced skills. The delivery of an integrated people, process and technology solution to deliver improved organisational performance in line with organisation's strategic plans and objectives. The scope of improvement is organisational but may also be highly focussed as necessary for example software development, systems development, project delivery or service improvement.

The process of ensuring, through independent assessment and review, that appropriate working practices, quality control activities, organisational processes and quality standards are in place and adhered to and that best practices are promoted throughout the organisation. Quality assurance provides confidence to internal management and external bodies, such as customers or regulators, that quality requirements will be fulfilled. Quality assurance may relate to any area where quality standards are applied, including products, data, services and business processes.

Quality management establishes within an organisation a culture of quality and a system of processes and working practices to deliver the organisation's quality objectives. This involves the application of techniques for the monitoring and improvement of the quality of any aspect of a function, processes, products, services or data. The achievement of, and maintenance of compliance to, national and international standards, as appropriate, and to internal policies, including those relating to quality, service, sustainability and security.