Software Quality Assurance

UNIT 1: Chapter 3
SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE (SQA)
 Software Quality Assurance

The degree to which a system components, or process

meets specified requirements
The degree to which a system, component or process
meets customer or user needs or expectations
 Required SQAP Sections

Purpose
Management
Documentation
Test
Training
Risk Management
Media Control
Supplier Control
 Types Of Standards

Documentations
Design
Code
 Documentation Standards

Define the proper content for planning and control.

It provides the consistency throughout the
development life of a project.
 Design Standards

Defines proper form and content of the design

product.
It provide rule book for and corresponding method
for translating and software requirement .
 Code Standards

It specify the programming language in which source

code can be written.
It also specify various constraints that should put for
usage of language feature
 SQA PLANS

Documentation section
Standards, practices and convention section
Review and Audit sections
Test Section
Management Section
 Documentation section

Project Document like plan of the project

Various models like ERD and different classes
Technical document like test plan or specification plan
User manual for helping user in operating product.
Standards, practices and convention
section

Coding Standards
Document Standards
Review Guidelines
 Management Section

Configuration Management
Contract Management
Control the change
Maintain the Record
 McCalls Quality Model
One of the models for these factors is the McCall
Quality Model. McCalls model is composed of eleven
factors and grouped into three perspectives. Jim
McCall produced this model for the US Air Force and
the intention was to bridge the gap between users
and developers. He tried to map the user view with
the developer's priority.
 ISO 9126 Software Quality
Characteristics

Functionality
Reliability
Usability
Efficiency
Maintainability
Portability
 Functionality

Functionality is the essential purpose of any product

or service. For certain items this is relatively easy to
define, for example a ship's anchor has the function of
holding a ship at a given location
 Reliability

Once a software system is functioning, as specified, and

delivered the reliability characteristic defines the
capability of the system to maintain its service provision
under defined conditions for defined periods of time.
One aspect of this characteristic is fault tolerance that is
the ability of a system to withstand component failure.
For example if the network goes down for 20 seconds
then comes back the system should be able to recover
and continue functioning.
 Usability

Usability only exists with regard to functionality and

refers to the ease of use for a given function. For
example a function of an ATM machine is to dispense
cash as requested. Placing common amounts on the
screen for selection, i.e. $20.00, $40.00, $100.00 etc,
does not impact the function of the ATM but
addresses the Usability of the function. The ability to
learn how to use a system (learnability) is also a major
subcharacteristic of usability.
 Maintainability

The ability to identify and fix a fault within a software

component is what the maintainability characteristic
addresses. In other software quality models this
characteristic is referenced as supportability.
Maintainability is impacted by code readability or
complexity as well as modularization. Anything that
helps with identifying the cause of a fault and then
fixing the fault is the concern of maintainability. Also
the ability to verify (or test) a system, i.e. testability, is
one of the subcharacteristics of maintainability.
 ISO 9000 Models

ISO 9000 is a set of international standards on quality

management and quality assurance developed to help
companies effectively document the quality system elements
to be implemented to maintain an efficient quality system.
They are not specific to any one industry and can be applied
to organizations of any size.
ISO 9000 can help a company satisfy its customers, meet
regulatory requirements, and achieve continual improvement.
However, it should be considered to be a first step, the base
level of a quality system, not a complete guarantee of quality.
 Continues Model

Level 0: Incomplete
Level 1: Performed
Level 2: Managed
Level 3: Defined
Level 4: Quantitatively Managed
Level 5: Optimized