Certified Woman & Minority Owned

Quality Practice


Process is key

Why VIVA

Relentless Commitment to Quality

CMMI Level 3
CMMI

VIVA is CMMI V1.2 ML 3 assessed for its US and offshore software delivery centers since 2009. We provide our clients the best level of software delivery at the lowest cost, while at the same time ingraining our quality assurance processes in our business processes.

ISO 9001:2015
ISO 9001:2015

VIVA has been ISO 9001:2000 certified in the US from May 2003 until 2010. Our auditors have commented that our Staffing and Software Development Processes are “Excellent”. We are currently certified for ISO 9001:2015. Our intranet incorporates all clauses of ISO and helps our staff members to incorporate quality and continual improvement in our customer service processes every day.

Project Management
Project Management

Our adaptation of PMBOK for project management and IBM Rational Unified Process model for software engineering helps us to apply the best practices of Project Management in our delivery. Our Quality Management System is built into the workflow of the software tools we use for managing our staffing and for software development services.

EVMS
EVMS

Earned Value Management System (EVMS) is at the core of our project execution for our client projects, especially, the cost-based projects for our Federal Government clients. We have incorporated an EVMS satisfying all relevant ANSI guidelines into our project management process.

VIVA QMS (Quality Management System) processes have been established based on the specific and generic practices attributed to the following 18 key process areas at maturity level 3 of CMMI V1.2 (Staged Representation) for software development constellation. Our QMS processes have been assessed at CMMI ML 3.

Configuration Management (CM) Integrated Project Management (IPM)
Decision Analysis And Resolution (DAR)Organizational Process Definition (OPD)
Measurement And Analysis (MA)Organizational Training (OT)
Organizational Process Focus (OPF)Project Monitoring And Control (PMC)
Product Integration (PI)Process And Product Quality Assurance (PPQA)
Project Planning (PP)Requirements Management (REQM)
Requirements Development (RD)Supplier Agreement Management (SAM)
Risk Management (RSKM)Validation (VAL)
Technical Solution (TS)Verification (VER)

Our QMS contains separate workspaces for these 18 process areas. For each process area, the QMS contains policies, comprehensive workflow guidelines, procedures, plan/form/document templates, checklists, tools, reference materials, model artifacts, training materials, risk database, and measurement repository.

The measurement repository facilitates the project personnel to perform the activities and to produce the deliverables pertaining to project activities such as business modeling, requirements gathering, requirements analysis, requirements validation, requirements management, architectural analysis, design, coding, testing, deployment, configuration management, change management, inspections, peer reviews, audits, training, project management, procurement, process definition and refinement, environment setting, system administration, network administration, emailing, and communication management, all in complete compliance with the CMMI ML3 requirements.

We will ensure that the standard processes deployed for our clients' projects are consistent with CMMI V1.2 ML 3 processes. The following table shows the mapping between the CMMI KPAs and client software engineering life-cycle (SELC) stages.

CMMI KPAs and SELC
Benefits

The CMMI V1.2 ML 3 process compliance will help our clients to operate with increased effectiveness, consistency, and customer satisfaction, and provides avenues to continually improvising their services. It will facilitate our clients to:

  • Demonstrate the ability to consistently provide services that meet customers' and applicable regulatory requirements
  • Enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customers' and applicable regulatory requirements

VIVA has established and implemented a Quality Management System (QMS) to help our organization operate with increased effectiveness, consistency, and customer satisfaction through continual improvement.

Quality Management System

VIVA has established and implemented a Quality Management System (QMS) to help our organization operate with increased effectiveness, consistency, and customer satisfaction through continual improvement.

Our QMS utilizes the Process approach and the eight Quality Management principles contained in the International Standards ISO 9001:2015 to:

  • Demonstrate our ability to consistently provide services that meet customers' and applicable regulatory requirements
  • Enhance customer satisfaction through the effective application of the system, including processes for continual improvement of the system and the assurance of conformity to customers' and applicable regulatory requirements

VIVA has developed and maintained a quality manual that includes documented statements of our quality policy and our quality objectives, standard operating procedures, work instructions, and quality records, as part of our QMS to facilitate continual improvement.

The top management of VIVA ensures effectiveness of our QMS through employee communication, compliance, and customer focus. Top management reviews our QMS at planned intervals to ensure its continuing suitability and effectiveness. VIVA has a dedicated ISO Management Representative to implement the processes needed for our QMS, and to ensure promotion of awareness of customer requirements throughout our organization.

Quality Policy

"VIVA is committed to achieve TOTAL CUSTOMER SATISFACTION by consistently meeting or exceeding customer requirements through continual improvement of our processes and services."

Top management of VIVA has developed strategic plans and Management Reviews to establish and review Quality Objectives continually.

Every employee of our organization understands and adheres to our quality policy and quality objectives, and is given adequate and continual training required for achieving these objectives.

We analyze feedback from our customers to review our quality policy and quality objectives for continuing suitability. Quality Objectives

VIVA's quality policy is implemented through the following quality objectives:

  • 100% customer approvals of all our deliverables in IT staffing and software development projects
  • Completion of projects on-time and under budget, every time
  • Timely and effective preventive actions on all possible business issues that affect our customers
  • Continual improvement of quality level of all VIVA staffing and software development processes

Most of the staff members (including top management) are certified in Project Management. We follow Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) guidelines for project management.

PMP / PMI Best Practice

Most of the staff members (including top management) are certified in Project Management. We follow Project Management Institute’s (PMI) Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) guidelines for project management. We promote awareness of standardized project management and software engineering processes within the company. Our recruiters have built a vast database of certified and pre-qualified PMO consultants who are available with short notice for client projects.

Project Management Methodology

VIVA’s Project Management methodology consists of the following four phases:

Initiation Phase
  • Selection of team members
  • Conducting Kick-off meeting
  • Bringing Operational and IT groups up to speed
  • Planning and discussion of PMO high-level deliverables
Transition Phase
  • Full set-up of PMO
  • Identifying and loading projects or portfolio into the PMO
  • Training appropriate IT and business users
  • Incremental addition of portfolios and re-training
  • Continual improvement of PMO set-up
Project Management Method
Analysis Phase
  • Consultative analysis and assessment of current PMO set-up (“as-is” state) and development of Documents of Understanding and plans (“to-be” states)
  • Development of strategy to design performance metrics and reporting
Construction Phase
  • Identifying pilot project
  • Implementing PMO processes and metrics in the pilot project
  • Tracking and monitoring progress
VIVA PPM: Our Project Management Tool

Our value to our clients is an innovative project management tool — PPM — which is currently helping VIVA and our clients’ Program/Project Managers to manage projects, schedules, tasks, costs, and resources on a project-by-project basis. It is scalable across various project sizes and is constantly evolving.

Salient Features
  • Standardized Project Management using PMI and RUP
  • Remote resource management, task assignment, & reporting
  • Streamlined Risk Management, Quality Management, and Change Management
  • Online centralized PMO organization of all projects for clients
  • Project Status Management and online information exchange
  • Problem reporting and corrective action management
  • Please click here for a presentation and demo of the VIVA PPM.

VIVA has in place a Project Management Information System (PMIS), which is a part of its quality management system (QMS) framework, and which has been developed in accordance with the guidelines of Project Management Institute's (PMI) PMBOK version 4, ISO 9001:2015 and CMU — SEI's CMMI V1.2 ML 3 (Staged Representation) for software development guidelines.

VIVA has in place a Project Management Information System (PMIS), which is a part of its quality management system (QMS) framework, and which has been developed in accordance with the guidelines of Project Management Institute's (PMI) PMBOK version 4, ISO 9001:2015 and CMU — SEI's CMMI V1.2 ML 3 (Staged Representation) for software development guidelines.

The PMIS contains comprehensive work-flow processes, associated tools, and artifacts to facilitate the pertinent organizational personnel to perform various project management activities in the pre-initiation, initiation, plan, execution, monitor, control, and operations and maintenance phases.

The PMIS includes a Project Portfolio Management (PPM), an in-house project program and portfolio management tool that has been developed using Microsoft (MS) .NET framework and MS SQL Server, and a financial management System (FMS). PMIS helps the users to manage project, program, and portfolio activities such as requirements, traceability, change, risk, quality, metrics, resources, timesheet, schedule, work-flow/reporting standards compliance, financial and procurement management. This system has been designed to work in conformity with the prevailing universally practiced project, program, portfolio, procurement and financial management domain guidelines, and is constantly evolving to be in line with the changes that are happening in these domains.

The PMIS has detailed guidelines pertaining to the earned value management (EVM). In the planning process, Portfolio/Program/Project/Finance/Technical/Process Managers develop Work Breakdown Structures (WBS), Organizational Breakdown Structures (OBS), Budgets, Schedules, Control Account (CA) Plans, and other artifacts necessary to establish Performance Measurement Baseline (PMB) based upon contract requirements. Work packages (WP) and unique identification numbers are assigned to various organizational units involved in the assignment. Necessary information is captured and stored so that pertinent organizational personnel can analyze the data as the project progresses.

Cost-capture work-flow processes described in the PMIS ensure that all cost data are entered into the FMS and PPM and made available for the pertinent organizational personnel. Typically, the project personnel use hours as the “budget currency” and derive schedule and budget variances based on the progress towards schedule completion and total hours used. Schedule progress is captured and maintained in the PPM.

Reports are generated on a monthly basis to review project progress. Variances are examined. When variances exceed established tolerances (±5%), formal analysis is conducted. When warranted, corrective action plans are created to ensure a return to established norms.

Estimates to Complete (ETC) are updated on a monthly basis based on project progress, current performance, and an understanding of the current risk scenarios in the project.

The PMIS contains comprehensive change control procedures. All baselined elements (scope, schedule, budget, and PMB) are kept under configuration control and supervised by the project Change Control Board (CCB), which includes members of VIVA and the client agency. Project progress and expenditure data are also monitored, and any changes made are elaborately documented in change logs. The CCB reviews these logs on a regular basis to ensure the integrity of the process by verifying that the procedures are fully complied with.

A schematic representation of the PMIS is depicted below.

Program Management Information System (PMIS)
Earned Value Management System Mapping

VIVA has conducted a mapping of its project management guidelines in the QMS according to the 10 core ANSI/EIA 748A guidelines using the format found in the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) Program Management Systems Committee (PMSC) ANSI/EIA-748-A Standard for Earned Value Management Systems Intent Guide (Intent Guide), dated November 2006. The following sections provide a description of how these project management guidelines comply with each of the 10 core guidelines.

ANSI Guideline 1

Define the authorized work elements for the program. A WBS tailored for effective management control is commonly used.

ANSI Guideline 2

Identify the program organizational structure, including the major subcontractors, and define the organizational elements in which work will be planned and controlled.

ANSI Guideline 3

Provide for the integration of the company’s planning, scheduling, budgeting, work authorization, and cost accumulation processes with each other and as appropriate, with the program WBS and the program organizational structure.

ANSI Guideline 6

Schedule the authorized work in a manner that describes the sequence of work and identifies task interdependencies necessary to meet the requirements of the program.

ANSI Guideline 7

Identify physical products, milestones, performance goals, or other indicators that will be used to measure progress.

ANSI Guideline 8

Establish and maintain a time-phased budget baseline at the control account level, against which program performance can be measured. On government contracts, if an over-target baseline is used for performance measurement reporting purposes, prior notification must be provided to the client.

ANSI Guideline 16

Record direct costs in a manner consistent with the budgets in a formal system controlled by the general books of account.

ANSI Guideline 22

On a monthly basis, generate the following information at the control account level for management control using actual cost data from the accounting system:

  • Comparison of the amount of planned budget and the amount of budget earned for work accomplished. This provides the schedule variance.
  • Comparison of the amount of the budget earned with the actual direct costs for the same work. This provides the cost variance.
ANSI Guideline 27

Develop revised estimates of cost at completion based on performance to date, commitment values for material, and estimates for future conditions. Compare this information with the performance measurement baseline to identify variances at completion.

ANSI Guideline 28

Incorporate authorized changes in a timely manner, recording the effects of such changes in budgets and schedules. In the directed effort prior to negotiation of a change, base such revisions on the amount estimated and budgeted to the program organizations.

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