The Software Quality Challenge's

WEEK -2
  The uniqueness of software quality assurance

 The environments for which SQA methods are developed

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 Introduction
• Why Quality Assurance?
• With all the methodology wars, numerous processes, huge
number of tools to assist in software development, why this
separate topic?
• What makes it important that it deserves separate
treatment?
• Why do so many companies add disclaimers to their
software?
– Don’t warranty the documentation…
– Not responsible for direct, indirect, consequential, loss?

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 What we are after; that is, we
want to be able to:
1. Identify the unique characteristics of software as a product
and as process that justify separate treatment of its quality
issues.

2. Recognize the characteristics of the software environment

where professional software development and maintenance take
place

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 • High complexity
– The potential ways in which a software product can be
used with different data / data paths reflecting different
incoming data is almost infinite.
– Manner in which industrial products can be used are
usually well-defined.
– Think about software: every loop with different values of
data reflects a different opportunity to see software fail.

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 • Invisibility of the product
– In an industrial product, missing parts are obvious.
• Something missing? Easily identified.
– Not so in software products.
• May not be noticeable for years – if at all!
• Cite: phantom paths product at AFDSDC!

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 • Opportunities to detect defects (“bugs”)??
• Consider:
– Product Development
– Product Planning
– Product Manufacturing

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 • Product Development:
– Industrial: test product; voltages; performance;
strength; size; ….ready to distribute to markets
– Computer Software: once prototype and system testing
are concluded, product is ready for deployment
• About the same approach
• Arguable: equal chance to discover defects?
– What do YOU think??

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 Product Production Planning:
– Industrial: Often need new tooling approaches, assembly
lines, new manufacturing processes.
• Results in additional ‘looks’ at products
• One could say that there is a better chance to discover
defects
– Computer Software: No real additional ‘look-see.’
• Packages shrink-wrapped, printed, distributed to
public
• No real chance to discover additional defects.

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 Product Manufacturing:
– Industrial: Usually defects uncovered here; easily fixed.
• Typical burn-in problems; another view of product;
stabilizes.
• These represent additional opportunities to discover
defects.
– Computer Software:
• We merely copyright, print copies of software and
manuals
• No real chance for additional quality views
• No real chance for discovering additional defects
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 Only Chance to Discover Defects:
• Best chance to really detect defects occurs during the
software development process itself!

• “The need for special tools and methods for the software industry is
reflected in the professional publications as well in special standards
devoted to SQA, such as ISO 9000-3, “Guidelines for the application of
ISO 9001 to the development, supply, and maintenance of software.”
• Another: ISO 9004-2: “Quality Management and Quality Systems
Elements: Guidelines for the Services.”

• These characteristics of software – complexity, invisibility, and limited

opportunity to detect bugs has led to the development of the ISO
Guidelines and an awareness of real SQA methodology.

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 • Important to note that quality issues seem to center around
software development professional activities undertaken by
development and maintenance organizations vice an individual.
• Quality issues govern professional software development.
• This is our focus: large scale development rather than individual
application development

• Here are some of our main environmental issues:

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 • Being contracted
• Subjection to customer-supplier relationship
• Requirement for teamwork
• Need for cooperation and coordination with other development teams
• Need for interfaces with other software systems
• Need to continue carrying out a project while the team changes
• Need to continue maintaining the software system for years

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 SQA Environment
• Being Contracted:
– Professional software development is almost always
contracted.
• Have requirements / supplied requirements (hopefully)
– But may have in-house customer representatives.
– Or, customer representatives available…
• Budget
• Time schedule

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 SQA Environment
• Subject to Customer-Supplier Relationship
– In professional software development, there is a
constant (hopefully) oversight between customer and
developer.
• Changes will occur;
• Criticisms will arise.
• Cooperation is critical to overall project success.

– Customer availability / relationship is essential and

often problematic whether reps are in-house or not.
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 SQA Environment
• Required Teamwork
– We need teams due to
• Time required for development.
– Workload is too much for a single person
• A frequent variety of experts needed
– Database; networking; algorithms; …
• Need ‘independent’ reviews to ensure quality (me)

– Who is ‘on the team?’

• Developers
• Clients / customers
• Others???

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 SQA Environment
• Cooperation and Coordination with Other Software Teams
– May be partially outsourced thus requiring cooperation
• Outsourced  overseas?
• Many potential problems here … and benefits.
– Laision?
– May be that specialized hardware requires cooperation.
– Other teams may have developed similar software for the client and
can offer tremendous help.

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 SQA Environment
• Interfaces with Other Systems
– Interface, link to, import, include other packages containing,
say, libraries of perhaps classes / packages to assist in
development.
– Standardization considerations in interfaces
– May need to cooperate with inputs coming from other systems
and outputs requiring special formats that serve as inputs to
other systems…
– Do you think Billing, Payroll, Accounts Payable are all distinct
systems???

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 Attendance
control
system

Input interface Monthly attendance report,

including overtime calculations
Salary
processing
system

Output interface Money transfers to employees’

bank account accounts
Bank
information
systems

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 SQA Environment
• Need to Continue Project despite Team Changes
– Team members leave, are hired, fired, take
unexpected vacations, transferred within the
company, and more.
– Maddening truism, but the development must
continue.
– You can count on disruption!

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 SQA Environment
• Need to continue Software Maintenance for an
Extended Period
– Whether external customers or in-house customers,
follow-on maintenance is typical and for many
years!!
– Highly desirable from management/enterprise
perspective
• SQA must address development, operations,
and maintenance! (next chapter)

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 Textbooks for Reading

Software Quality Assurance: From Theory to Implementation,

2012

This book covers several issues related to software quality assurance.

Some important chapters are: software quality challenge, what is
software quality, software quality factors, and software testing

Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering, 2010

This book is a reference in software metrics. It covers a comprehensive

breadth of measurement theory and software quality metrics

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