Boston Stock Exchange
Quality Assurance: Establishing Processes to Ensure Tangible Business GainsAbout the Boston Stock Exchange
For more than 170 years, the Boston Stock Exchange (BSE) (www.bostonstock.com) has valued its reputation for creating a secure, stable trading environment marked by execution quality, reliable technology and outstanding customer service. The BSE provides a powerful and diverse range of floor-based and remote trading solutions to regional, national and international broker-dealers who serve retail and institutional customers.
Business Challenge
Recently, the BSE made a concerted effort to enhance its technology throughout the enterprise. Its executives realize the importance of efficient, integrated systems in today’s economy, and in that of the future. As a result, they embarked on several initiatives to achieve those ends. As part of this cultural shift, the BSE hired its first CIO, who has spearheaded numerous initiatives to improve operations.
Collaborative’s Role
The BSE’s technology enhancements require world-class quality assurance processes. As such, it engaged Collaborative to perform a QA Process Assessment. The initiative was designed to accomplish two goals: First, it needed to determine the BSE QA organization’s “initial future state”—a desired end. Second, the BSE needed a Roadmap to achieve that future state.
The project comprised three major project elements: assess QA and testing; validate findings with BSE’s CIO; and improve the BSE’s short-term QA while supporting long-term goals.
To assess the BSE’s QA processes, Collaborative used a version of the universally recognized and comprehensive Testing Process Maturity Model. (The 300-question TPMM has been used in QA initiatives at more than 100 organizations around the world.) The assessment identified the maturity of QA processes in 20 BSE “key areas,” including Test Strategy, Estimating and Planning, and Metrics. The team shared these findings and conclusions with BSE’s CIO and prioritized next steps.
Moreover, Collaborative identified nine key areas as candidates for maturity level increases. For each area, the team developed a preliminary project plan involving people, process and products to improve the BSE’s QA activities.
Benefits
As a result of Collaborative’s QA Process Assessment, the BSE placed itself in excellent position to tackle the numerous IT enhancements it plans in the near future. In addition to an accurate assessment of the maturity levels of 20 critical QA processes, the BSE has a clear picture—a step-by-step Roadmap—of what it must do to ensure success in its future technology endeavors, in both the short and long term.
The BSE still faces several large-scale challenges in its efforts to compete in an increasingly “electrified” trading environment. However, with sound QA processes in place, it can count on reliable solutions to meet its business needs.