Quality Gate

Quality Gates are points in the course of a development project, who are judged on the basis of clearly defined quality criteria in advance of the release of the next project step.

Benefits and design

Quality Gates are a further development and refinement of the milestone technique.

Development processes are not fully predictable. You own, especially in the early phases of the project, creative or even open-ended share. This problem tries the stage-gate model to meet. Development risks and to fail certain ideas should be identified early. Quality Gates are set at such points in the product development process, are assigned to the resources. They are flexible in time, but formulates the content sharp.

For milestones, the time aspect is paramount: to set dates certain results must be achieved. In practice, this often means that milestones will be " run over ". Quality Gates, however, are synchronization points at which measurable quality criteria must be met. This is not the case, then the next phase is not to be started. A " crossing " is, according to the engineer scientist Thomas Prefi excluded.

According Prefi the term Quality Gates is also among employees and executives acceptance because it corresponded to their natural perception of quality.

Quality Gates are used for one of the quality control by setting quality-dependent synchronization points in the project, on the other hand the quality of measurement. For their design checklists can be used by product and process audits.

Quality Gates in industrial production

Quality -controlled phase models are typical for example in the automotive industry, aerospace industry and plant engineering. In the individual company quality gates find each specific expressions and terms. BMW uses the terms gateway and synchro point. At Audi, it is called Q- checks. General Motors was the terms Readiness Review and Moment of Truth, while at Daimler -Benz, the term quality gate is used as such.

The figure shows an example of quality gates as fixed points in the product development process:

Quality Gates in the software industry

In the example, a distinction is made according to internal and external quality gates. Internal gate check internal requirements, such as the load behavior or code quality. External gate check the fulfillment of customer requirements, such as robustness against incorrect entries or operability of the user interface.