2.8 Software quality management  (Page 5/11)

SQM processes consist of tasks and techniques to indicate how software plans (for example, management, development, configuration management) are being implemented and how well the intermediate and final products are meeting their specified requirements. Results from these tasks are assembled in reports for management before corrective action is taken. The management of an SQM process is tasked with ensuring that the results of these reports are accurate.

As described in this KA, SQM processes are closely related; they can overlap and are sometimes even combined. They seem largely reactive in nature because they address the processes as practiced and the products as produced; but they have a major role at the planning stage in being proactive in terms of the processes and procedures needed to attain the quality characteristics and degree of quality needed by the stakeholders in the software.

Risk management can also play an important role in delivering quality software. Incorporating disciplined risk analysis and management techniques into the software life cycle processes can increase the potential for producing a quality product.

Software quality assurance

SQA processes provide assurance that the software products and processes in the project life cycle conform to their specified requirements by planning, enacting, and performing a set of activities to provide adequate confidence that quality is being built into the software. This means ensuring that the problem is clearly and adequately stated and that the solution’s requirements are properly defined and expressed. SQA seeks to maintain the quality throughout the development and maintenance of the product by the execution of a variety of activities at each stage which can result in early identification of problems, an almost inevitable feature of any complex activity. The role of SQA with respect to process is to ensure that planned processes are appropriate and later implemented according to plan, and that relevant measurement processes are provided to the appropriate organization.

The SQA plan defines the means that will be used to ensure that software developed for a specific product satisfies the user’s requirements and is of the highest quality possible within project constraints. In order to do so, it must first ensure that the quality target is clearly defined and understood. It must consider management, development, and maintenance plans for the software. Refer to standard (IEEE730-98) for details.

The specific quality activities and tasks are laid out, with their costs and resource requirements, their overall management objectives, and their schedule in relation to those objectives in the software engineering management, development, or maintenance plans. The SQA plan should be consistent with the software configuration management plan. The SQA plan identifies documents, standards, practices, and conventions governing the project and how they will be checked and monitored to ensure adequacy and compliance. The SQA plan also identifies measures, statistical techniques, procedures for problem reporting and corrective action, resources such as tools, techniques, and methodologies, security for physical media, training, and SQA reporting and documentation. Moreover, the SQA plan addresses the software quality assurance activities of any other type of activity described in the software plans, such as procurement of supplier software to the project or commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS) installation, and service after delivery of the software. It can also contain acceptance criteria as well as reporting and management activities which are critical to software quality.