11 Apr You Want What : Part One?

First of Series –

The IV&V Group® envisions itself an educator as well as a provider of premier IV&V services. This is the first

of a series that will help you articulate

what you want when you order IV&V services.

Many government agencies are looking at independent verification and validation (IV&V) as the panacea to all their ills – or at least some of their ills. This is driven by CIOs who understand the business value of IV&V and results in solicitations being issued for IV&V services. Unfortunately too many solicitations are either overly vague or overly detailed.

To help agencies ask for the services they want The IV&V Group® has developed a taxonomy of IV&V services. It contains only five categoeries of IV&V Services. These include: management and support; engineering documentation; test documentation and test witnessing; reviews and audits; and processes and procedures. Within each category we then list specific services which facilitates the acquiring agency articulating their needs and the supplier meeting those needs. This is a win-win for both.

These categories and their contents provide an orderly core set of IV&V services. First is management and support which contains verifications of:

• Statement of Need
• Program or Project Management Plan
• Configuration Management Plan
• Quality Assurance Plan
• Security Plan
• Master Test Plan (describes management of a large or complex test effort)

Each of these is verified both against the

applicable consensus standard and against best engineering practices. Additional services may include: verification of the transition plan, the project schedule, or an assessment of the Statement of Work (SOW) for

a non-IV&V solicitation, or the metrics for a Service Level Agreement.

The remaining categories will be discussed in future blogs.