Elements of Software Quality Assurance

ELEMENTS OF SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE

Software quality assurance focus on the management of software quality.

Standards: The IEEE, ISO, and other standards organizations have produced a broad array of software engineering standards and related documents. Standards may be adopted voluntarily by a software engineering. The job of SQA is to ensure that standards that have been adopted are followed and that all work products conform to them.

Reviews and audits : Technical reviews are a quality control activity performed by software engineers for their intent is to uncover errors. Audits are a type of review performed by SQA personnel with the intent of ensuring that quality guidelines are being followed for software engineering work.

Testing : Software testing is a quality control function that has one primary goal – to find errors. The job of SQA is to ensure that testing is properly and efficient conducted.

Error/defect collection and analysis : SQA collects and analyzes error and defect data to better understand how errors are introduced and what software engineering activities are best suited to eliminating them.

Change management : Change is one of the most disruptive aspects of any software project. If it is not properly managed, change can lead to confusion, and confusion almost always leads to poor quality.

Education : Every software organization wants to improve its software engineering practices. A key contributor to improvement is education of software engineers, their managers, and other stakeholders.

Vendor management : Three categories of software are acquired from external software vendors–shrink–wrapped packages (e.g., Microsoft Office), a tailored shell [Hor03] that provides a basic skeletal structure that is custom tailored to the needs of a purchaser, and contracted software that is custom designed and constructed from specifications provide by the customer organization.

Security management : With the increase in cyber crime and new government regulations regarding privacy, every, every software organization should institute policies that protect data at all levels, establish firewall protection for Web Apps, and ensure that software has not been tampered with internally.

Safety : Because software is almost always a pivotal component of human rated system. SQA may be responsible for assessing the impact of software failure and for initiating those steps required to reduce risk.

Risk management : SQA organization ensures that risk management activities are properly conducted and that risk–related contingency plans have been established.