Software Quality

Management

1
 Introduction
 How is a quality product
traditionally defined?

 Fitness of purpose:

A quality product does exactly

what the users want it to do.

2
 Fitness of Purpose
 What is fitness of purpose for
software products?
 Satisfaction of the requirements specified
in SRS document…

“Quality is conformance to requirements”

-- Philip Crosby, “Quality is Free” 1979

3
 Fitness of Purpose
 Basically user’s view…
 A satisfactory definition of quality
for many products:
A car, a table fan, a food mixer,
microwave oven, etc.
 But, not satisfactory for software
products.
 Why?

4
 Quality for Software Products
 Consider a software product:
 Functionally correct:
 Performs all functions as specified in
the SRS document.
 But,has an almost unusable user
interface.
 Would you consider it as a quality
product? 5
 Quality for Software Products
 Consider another example:
A product which does everything
that users want.
 But
has an incomprehensible and
unmaintainable code.
 Will you call it a quality product?
 Quality needs to described in terms
of a set of quality attributes. 6
 Product Quality Attributes
 Attributes of a good software:

 Correctness
 Reliability
 Efficiency:Software should not make wasteful use
of system resources (disk and memory space, CPU
time, etc.) and should satisfy response time
requirements
 Portability
 Usability
 Reusability
Maintainability
7

 Correctness
 When do you call a software
correct?

 Therequirements specified in the SRS

document have correctly been
implemented.

 Failures
do not show up during the normal
operation of the software.
8
 Portability
 When do you call a software to
be portable?
 If it can be easily made to work
 In different operating systems.

 In different machines,

 With other software, etc.

9
 Reusability
 When do you say that software
has good reusability?
 If different parts of the
software can easily be reused to
develop a new software.

10
 Usability
 When do you say that a software
has good usability?

 If different categories of users

(i.e. both expert and novice users)
can easily invoke the functions of
the product.
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 Maintainability
 A software product is maintainable:

 If errors can be easily corrected as and

when they show up,

 New functions can be easily added to

the product,

 Functionalities of the product can be

easily modified.
12
 Two Accepted Definition of “Software
Quality”
 IEEE Glossary:
 Degree to which a system, component, or
process meets (1) specified requirements, and
(2) customer or user needs or expectations

 ISO:
 The totality of features and characteristics
of a product or service that bear on its ability
to satisfy specified or implied needs 13
 Measuring Quality
 Measurement allows us to establish
baselines for qualities.
 Developers must know the minimum
level of quality required.
 The present level of quality of a
product needs to be evaluated:
 Can evaluate improvements due to some
quality initiative. 14
 Quality Models

 Boehm’s model Quality Model: A

model with the
 ISO 9126 objective to describe,
assess and/or predict
 Dromey’s Model quality.

15
 Boehm’s Quality Model (continued)

 Reflects an understanding of quality where

the software:

 does what the user wants it do

 uses computer resources correctly and

efficiently

 is easy for the user to learn and use

 is well-designed, well-coded, and easily tested

and maintained 16
 ISO 9126 Quality Model
 A hierarchical model with six
major attributes contributing to
quality:

 Each right-hand characteristic is

related to only to exactly one
left-hand attribute
17
 Dromey Quality Model

 Product quality depends on the

tangible properties of components and
component composition:

 Correctness properties

 Internal properties

 Contextual properties

 Descriptive properties 18
Software Quality Management System

 Also called quality system:

 Principal
methodology used by an
organization to ensure that its
developed software has the
desired quality.

19
 Quality Management Activities
 Quality assurance
 set of activities for ensuring quality of the processes by which
software is developed
 Quality planning
 selecting and modifying applicable quality standards and
procedures for a particular project
 Quality control
 series of inspections, reviews, and tests used to ensure
conformance of a work product to its specifications
 ensuring quality standards and procedures are followed by
development team
Note: Quality management should be separated from project
management to ensure independence. 20
 What is Quality Assurance?

 Quality assurance is a set of

activities for ensuring quality in the
processes by which software is
developed.
 Itaims to prevent defects by
focusing on the process used to make
the product.
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 What is Quality Control?

 Quality control (QC) is a set of

activities for ensuring quality in
products.
 It focuses on identifying defects
in the actual products produced
and causes behind the defects.
22
 Process Assessment
 Use of standards and process models:
 High level guideline for Disciplined, controlled process
 Examples include:
 ISO 9001: standard applies to the organizations
engaged in design, development, production and servicing
of goods. Applicable to Most software development
organizations.
 ISO 9002: not design but only involved in production.
Not involve software industry.
-ISO 9003: organizations only involved in installation
and testing
 CMM
 CMU SEI, 5 levels

 SPICE

 A standard for software process assessment 23

 ISO joint committee, Europe, Australia

 Product Assessment
 Reviews, inspections, walkthroughs

 Specialized techniques available:

 How to review/assess requirements,
architecture, detailed designs, code
 …
 Testing
 Simulation
 Prototyping
 Formal verification
 Model checking, theorem proving
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 Quality Management System

 A quality system consists of

the following:
 Processes

 Managerial Structure
 Individual Responsibilities.
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 Quality Management System
 Every quality conscious organization
has an independent quality department:
 Performs several quality system
activities.
 Needs support of top management.
 Withoutsupport at a high level in a
company:
 Many employees may not take the quality
system seriously.
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 Quality System Activities
 Auditing of projects
 Development of:
 standards, procedures, and guidelines.
 Production of reports for the top
management:
 Summarizing the effectiveness of the
quality system in the organization.
 Review of the quality system itself. 27
 Quality System
 A good quality system must be well
documented.
 Without a properly documented
quality system,
 Application of quality procedures
become ad hoc,
 Results in large variations in the quality
of the products delivered. 28
 Quality System
 An undocumented quality system:
 Sends clear messages to the staff about
the attitude of the organization towards
quality assurance.

 International standards such as ISO

9000 provide:
 Guidance on how to organize a quality
system. 29
 Evolution of Quality Systems
 Quality systems have evolved:
 Over the last six decades.
 Prior to World War II:
 Accepted way to produce quality
products:
 Inspect the finished products
 Eliminate defective products.
30
 Evolution of Quality Systems
 Since World war II,
 Quality
systems of organizations
have undergone:
 Four stages of evolution.
 Many advances came from
Japanese:
 Helped resurrect Japanese economy.
31
Evolution of Quality Systems

32
 Evolution of Quality Systems
 Initial product inspection method:
 Gave way to quality control (QC).
 Quality control:
 Notonly detect the defective
products and eliminate them
 Butalso determine the causes
behind the defects.
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 Quality Control (QC)
 Quality control aims at correcting the
causes of errors:
 Not just rejecting defective products.
 Statistical quality control (SQC):
 Inspection
or testing of all products is
cumbersome and many times not
feasible.
 Quality of the output of the process
is inferred using statistical methods.
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 Quality Control (QC)
 The next breakthrough:
 Development of quality
assurance principles.

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 Quality Assurance
 Basic premise of modern quality
assurance:

 If an organization's processes are

good and are followed rigorously:

 The products are bound to be of

good quality.
36
 Quality Assurance
 All modern quality paradigms
include:
 Guidance for recognizing,
defining, analyzing, and
improving the production
process.

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Total Quality Management (TQM)

 TQM advocates:
 Continuous
process
improvements through
process measurements.

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 Business Process Reengineering

 BPR:A term related to TQM.

 Process reengineering goes a
step further than quality
assurance:
 Aimsat continuous process
improvement.

39
 Business Process Reengineering
 TQM focuses on reengineering
of the software process.

 Whereas BPR aims at reengineering

the way business is carried out in any
organization:

 Not just software development. 40

Total Quality Management (TQM)
 TQM goes beyond documenting
processes
 Optimizes them through redesign.
 Over the years the quality paradigm
has shifted:
 From product assurance to process
assurance.
41
 Process and Product Quality
 A good process is usually required to
produce a good product.
 For manufactured goods, process is
the principal quality determinant.
 For design-based activity, other
factors are also involved:
 For example, the capabilities of the
designers. 42
 ISO 9000
 ISO (international Standards
Organization):
A consortium of 63 countries
established to formulate and foster
standardization.
 ISO published its 9000 series of
standards in 1987.
43
 ISO 9000 Philosophy
 Document what you do
 in
conformance with the requirements
of the applicable standard
 Do what you document
 Record what you did
 Prove it
 maintenance of registration requires
audits every three years, with mini-
audits every six months 44