Zero Defect Initiative - Quality Index Generator presented by Parthasarathy Mohanraj - Cognizant. The primary objective of the Zero Defect system is to bring in a scorecard system, to provide better learning plans for each and every individual, achieve Delivery Excellence through delivering work products with zero defects and to keep the team motivated throughout, through weekly rewards program.

1. © 2015 Cognizant
© 2015 Cognizant
ZERO DEFECT INITIATIVE – QUALITY
INDEX GENERATOR

2. © 2015 Cognizant1
Agenda
Cognizant Overview1
Cognizant Communications Business Unit2
Making our Client’s Business Stronger: What We Do3
Background & Objective4
Key Features5
Benefits of Implementation6
Challenges faced & Learnings from the Implementation7
Adoption Feasibility8

3. © 2015 Cognizant2
Overview
Founded in 1994
(CTSH, Nasdaq)
……………………….
.
Headquarters
Teaneck, NJ
……………….……
.
20,000+ Projects in
40+ countries
……………….…..
..……………………25+ Regional
Sales offices
1,255+
active customers
…………….…..
.
Market Capital
Over $35 billion
. . .
.………………….
.
.…………………….……..
75+ Global Delivery/
operations Centers in over
14 countries across 4
continents
.
As of December 31, 2014

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Cognizant Communications Business Unit
We collaborate with customers to build stronger businesses
Serve 7 of top 10 Communications Service Providers (Cable,
Wireless, Wireline) and Equipment Vendors
Strategic Partnership with Global IT Services, Product Vendors,
Network Equipment Providers and Consulting Organizations
Investments in R&D, Innovation, Mobility and IPTV Labs Non Linear
solutions such as Order Management as a Service (OMaaS)
Active members of leading industry bodies such as Tele Management
Forum and Quest Forum
Consistently top Customer satisfaction ratios and internal Business
results KPIs
Provide E2E OSS/BSS Solutions in Product Engineering, Consulting,
BPO and System Integration
Operate in 14 countries and engaged with over 50 customers
Wireless
Wireline
Broadband
Cable
Network
Equipment
Providers
Content &
IPTV
Communications
Business Unit

5. © 2015 Cognizant4
Making our Client’s Business Stronger: What We Do

6. © 2015 Cognizant
Background & Objective
 Our customer is one of the largest communication service providers in Germany with 10 million DSL
subscribers. The core business of the customer is to provide broadband double and triple play products over the
Gigabit Ethernet Platform. The quality of products determines their success in business. Hence, our quality
becomes crucial to our success as well.
 Three crucial success factors for delivery excellence include,
 Strong Architectural and Design Skills
 Excellent Development Skills
 Powerful Testing Processes
 There is no quantitative measure, which would clearly help individuals know their position and help them move
forward, particularly when it comes to design , coding and testing skills.
 The primary objective of this system is to
 Bring in a scorecard system, to provide better learning plans for each and every individual.
 Achieve Delivery Excellence through delivering work products with zero defects.
 Keep the team motivated throughout, through weekly rewards program.
Good
Design
Excellent
Coding
Powerful
Testing
Delivery
Excellence
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Key Features
Approach Towards the Initiative
 The quantitative measure suggested is “Work Product Quality Index” for each associate.
 The quality is measured across 3 different phases; Design, CUT and Pre-Integration Testing.
 The applicable stage for each associate, is chosen based on the role performed in the week.
 Every stage has defined sub parameters with different weightages based on the criticality of the parameter.
 A score is assigned to each and every parameter and a cumulative score is arrived for each associate out of 10.
 Each phase provides bonus score to associates, who display perfection towards the critical parameters.
 The final release ZD score is calculated based on the average of weekly ZD scores.
 Internal Review Comments
 External Review Comments
 Issues Tracked to closure
 Usage of Review Checklist
 Usage of TTRM
 Timeliness of completion
 C2 - Defects tracked to closure
 Reviewer score
 Internal Review Comments
 External Review Comments
 Test Coverage
 Rule Compliance
 Test Success
 Usage of Review Checklist
 Usage of TTRM
 Timeliness of completion
 C2 - Defects tracked to closure
 Reviewer score
 Pre-Integration Defects
 Build Failure
 Defect Count
 Timeliness of Completion
Design
Pre
IntegrationCut
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8. © 2015 Cognizant
Key Features
 A dashboard (with various key parameters), where
each individual can monitor his/her quality week
on week, month on month and release after
release.
 The scorecard is generated based on the inputs
from the reviewers on various artifacts.
 End to End coverage of all phases involved in the
project
 Top 3 leaders are announced every week.
 A ZD leader board is placed in the work place
displaying leaders who have strong focus towards
quality.
 Overall Zero defect Leaders are announced
towards the end of each release.
 Leaders are rewarded weekly.
Zero Defect Scorecard
Zero Defect Leaderboard
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9. © 2015 Cognizant
Benefits of Implementation
The benefits offered by the best practice includes,
 Continuous Reduction in Internal Defect Density & Improvement in Productivity
 The benefits realized by our team translates into lesser IT spend for our customers, which are acknowledged by
the customers themselves.
 Sustainability - Steady increase in revenue and head count, since our engagement with the customer from 2011.
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10. © 2015 Cognizant
Benefits of Implementation
The benefits offered by the best practice includes,
 Steady Increase in work share, that demonstrates the level of confidence, customers have on our work
products.
 Increased Work Share (Broader SDLC Spectrum)
 Increased Work Share (Broader Functional Spectrum)
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2011 20142012 2013
Low level Design
Coding & Unit Testing
Low level Design
Coding & Unit Testing
Low level Design
Coding & Unit Testing
Low level Design
Coding & Unit Testing
High level Design High level Design
Pre-Integration Testing Pre-Integration Testing Pre-Integration Testing
Load and Performance
20142011 / 2012 2013
Fulfillment Fulfillment
Operation Support &
Readliness
Fulfillment
Operation Support &
Readliness
NetTrade

11. © 2015 Cognizant10
Benefits of Implementation
Customer
Impact
All releases made so far, right from 2011 were successful and no incidents of post-production
issues reported.
Improved productivity helps the team to deliver various value adds to the customer, in
a step towards further optimizing the processes.
Cognizant’s approach in delivering value-add at very frequent interval, has
brought in efficiency in operation at both Cognizant and customer ends. The
benefits are in terms of enhanced product quality and cost reduction through
productivity improvements. These benefits are realized by our customers and
are very much appreciative on the pro-activeness shown by the Cognizant team.
Zero defect initiative has brought down the delivered defect density to as low
as 0.03 per person day in the previous release. The density had come down by
25%, where it was 0.04 in the previous releases.
All these initiatives and strong focus on quality work products helped us achieve a CSS of 4.25
out of 5 in the feedback report from our customers.

12. © 2015 Cognizant
Benefits of Implementation
Customer Impact – Appreciations Realizing Benefits
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Appreciation from Cognizant Leadership Team
Appreciation from the Project Manager from customer side
Appreciation from the Release Manager from customer side
The Zero Defect initiative shows the high expertise by Cognizant’s developers and managers looking at sustainable processes that are
helpful for everybody in the team. This initiative is a really great motivation for the complete team, even for us.
From every important meeting, good and detailed minutes are created by Cognizant-colleagues that put together essential points. Even last
10 relase the motivation is still increasing !
Thanks for the strong effort and my congratulations to the ZD Winners for the Release [Release Number]!
[PM] had informed me on the ZD initiative after his return from his last visit. As the responsible Release Manager of [Release Number] I do
very much appreciate the extra effort to eliminate any mistakes right at the implementation level. Thanks to the entire team for competing
and ensuring best possible quality in the [Release Number] release.
For long I have wondered about feasibility of regularly benchmarking and reporting individual developer performance in a fair & objective
manner.
Glad to hear from Partha today about our initial progress in implementation this is in [our project]. Tracking 22 parameters, aggregating and
recognizing the top 3 developers weekly requires stretch effort (check xls)… worthwhile investment in projects where our customers
demand exceptional quality and we wish to nurture a high performance team.

13. © 2015 Cognizant
Challenges faced & Learnings from the Implementation
Challenges faced during Implementation
Learnings from the Implementation
 One initial challenge will be the additional time spent in collecting data for each individual team member to
compute the quality index. More the team members, higher is the complexity.
 Benefits overtake challenges – From our experience, it is worth to spend the additional time in computing the
metrics, considering the benefits that can be reaped from the initiative.
 Overcoming Challenges – The key to overcome the challenge is to plan the implementation of this best practice,
by creating an best-in-class team hierarchy and creating groups.
 To be able to achieve best in class delivery standards, each and every team member’s individual quality is very
crucial. It is very important to continuously monitor associates’ quality standards quantitatively and provide
continuous focus to individual team member’s learning.
 Delivery Excellence is possible only through continuous monitoring and strong governance.
 Zero NPR is an easy feat to achieve, provided we and our teams are committed to it and processes are followed
thoroughly. Zero NPR achieved will have significant direct benefits,
 Productivity of the team will considerably improve and help achieve 100% on time deliveries and 100% fix
response times.
 100% OTD and FRT are a result of our stable and capable processes. They will ensure we demonstrate
high levels of sustainability and result in new business opportunities.
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14. © 2015 Cognizant
Adoption Feasibility
 Adoption Feasibility – VERY HIGH, with little or no customizations
 The framework is very generic with parameters that are common across all the projects.
 The best practice can be directly adopted by projects with minor project specific customizations.
 No technologies involved
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15. © 2015 Cognizant
References
Recommendations for Institutionalization
 Potential areas of reuse
 All APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT projects are potential candidates for use of this best practice.
 Limitations and Potential Barriers
 There are no limitations or barriers in implementing the best practice..
 Changes Required
 The best practice can be directly adopted by projects with minor customizations to the parameters used for
evaluation.
 The weightage used can also be customized based on project’s need and criticality to product quality.
 The entire customization and adoption in other projects can be done independently within 2 person hours
(after initial analysis is complete from project end).
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16. © 2015 Cognizant
Thank You!