Chapter2 (Unit-1)

Software Quality

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Quality:

Conformance to explicitly stated and agreed functional and nonfunctional requirements, may be termed as quality for the software product offered to customers/final users from their perspective.

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Constraint of software Product Quality Assessment

Requirement specifications are made by BA& system analyst. Testers may not have the direct access of the customer and will get info through requirement statements, queries answered etc. either from the customer or BA/SA. There are few limitations of product quality assessment are: SW is virtual in nature: product cannot be seen, touched or heard. Our normal senses & measuring instruments cannot capable of measuring quality of SW .

SW is unique in nature: requirements, designs foundation, architecture, code etc. will be completely different for different product. Way of SW design, coding & reusabilty 3 may differ from productJyotsna product. to Anthal/Chauhan

Huge communication gap between users of SW and developers/testers of the product.5-8 agencies are involved between these 2 ends and if an avg. communication loss of 10% at each stage is considered the huge distortion is expected from users perspective of requirement and actual product. All aspects of SW cannot be tested fully as no. of permutation & combinations for testing all possibilities tend to infinity. Exhaustive testing is neither feasible nor justifiable in terms of cost. SW program executes in same way when its executing some instruction. An application with problematic code executes wrongly when it is executed. It makes a small defect turn into a major one as the probability of defect occurrence is 100% when the part is executed.
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Customer is a KING

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Customer is the most imp. Person in any process of developing a product and using it.
All SW life cycle processes such as development, testing maintenance, etc are governed by customer requirements.

A satisfied customer is an imp. Achievement for an org and is considered as an investment which may pay back in short as well as in long term.
Org should implement some of the following measures to achieve customer satisfaction.
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FACTORS DETERMINING SUCCESS

Internal customer and internal supplier: Internal customer satisfaction philosophy is guided by principles of TQM. External customer and external supplier : customers actually paying for getting their needs served and External suppliers are the entities who are external to the org and who are supplying to org

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QUALITY & PRODUCTIVITY RELATIONSHIP

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Quality improvement is concerned about the quality of the processes used for making such product not only product quality.
If the processes of dev & testing are good, bad product will not be manufactured in the first place.

It will reduce inspection, testing, rework and cost/price.

Quality must improve productivity by reducing wastage. Must target for doing first-time right

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Improvement in Quality directly leads to improved Productivity

Hidden factory producing scrap, rework, sorting, Repair and customer complaint is closed. Effective way to improve productivity is to reduce scrap and rework by improving process Quality improvements lead to cost reduction

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Employee Involvement in quality improvement: management must include employees in quality improvement programs at all stages.

Proper communication between management & employee is essential Employees participate & contribute in improvement process Employee shares responsibility for innovation & quality improvement

(Assignment) difference between invention and innovation

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Requirements of product

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Different categories of requirements are:

Stated/Implied requirements

General/ specific requirements

Present/ future requirements Must & must not requirements or primary req (P1) Should be or should not be req. or secondary req(P2) Could be or could not be req(P3)
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Organisation Culture

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Quality improvement programs are based on the ability of the org to bring about a change in culture. Philip crosby has prescribed Q improvement for cultural change. Q culture of an org. is an understanding of the organisations virtue (asset, good quality) of people, customer, suppliers and all stakeholders.
Q org are more quality conscious and q org is less quality conscious.
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Difference between Q org & q org.

Quality culture is Q
Believe in listening to customers & determine their requirements. Concentrate on identifying cost of quality & focusing on it to reduce cost of failure which would reduce overall cost & price Doing things right for the first time & every time is the motto of success. Concentrate on continuous/ continual process to eliminate waste and get better output. Believe in taking ownership of processes & defects at all levels. Demonstrate leadership & commitment to quality & customer satisfaction

Quality culture is not q

Assume that they know customer requirements. Overlook cost of poor quality & hidden factory effect. They believe in more testing to improve product quality. Doing things again & again to make them right is their way of working. Inspection, rework, scrap etc are essential Work on the basis of finding & fixing the problem.one time fix for each problem after it occurs. Try to assign responsibility of defects to someone else Believe in assigning responsibility for quality to others.
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Shift in focus from q to Q

Quality control

Quality assurance

Quality management

As the org grows from q to Q there is a cultural change in attitude of the management & employees towards quality & customer. Above fig shows an improvement process where focus of quality changes gradually.
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Quality control approach (finding & fixing defects)

Org are at the higher end of q believe in finding and fixing defects to the extent possible as the way to improve quality of product before delivering it to the customer & achieving customer satisfaction. Works on correction attitude involving defect fixing, scrap, rework etc. Work on the philosophy that a product is good unless a defect is found in it. Huge testing teams, large investment in appraisal cost and defect fixing cost followed by retesting and regression testing Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan 18 are there.

Quality Assurance Approach (creation of Process framework)

Focus shifts from finding & fixing the defects to first time right. Org does investment in defining processes, policies, methods for handling various functions so that it can incorporate a process approach for doing various things. Becomes learning org. as it shifts its approach from Q control to Q assurance.

Management approach shifts from corrections to corrective actions through root cause analysis.
Starts working on preventive actions to some extent to Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan avoid potential defects.

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Quality Management Approach:

3 types of systems : close, open and systems with semi permeable boundaries. No defects in processes as they are optimized continuously, and products are delivered to the customer without deficiency. Start working on defect prevention mechanism and continuous improvement plans. Org defines methods, processes & techniques for future technologies & training programs for process improvement. Management includes planning, organising, staffing, directing, coordinating and controlling to get the desired output. Also involves mentoring, coaching and guiding people to do better Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan 20 work.

Characteristics of Software (assignment)

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SW cannot be sensed by common methods of inspection or testing as it is virtual in nature.it needs testing in real environment but nobody can do exhaustive testing by trying all permutation and combinations.

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Software development Process

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There are various approaches to build software. Each approach has some positive and negative points.

Waterfall development Approach/model Iterative development Approach/model Spiral development Approach/model Prototyping development Approach/model

Rapid Application development Approach/model

Agile development Approach/model
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Types of Products

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SW products have some peculiarities defined as criticalities of SW. criticality of the SW defines, how much imp it is to the user/customer. There are various schemes of grouping the products on the basis of criticality to the users. Few are below:

Life affecting products Product affecting huge sum of money Products which can be tested only by simulators Other products.

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Life affecting products:

Directly or indirectly affect human life are considered most critical products in the world.
They come under the purview of regulatory and safety requirements, in addition to customer requirements. Q req are more stringent and testing is critical for such products. This is grouped into 5 different categories:

Any product failure resulting into death of a person Any product failure may cause permanent disablement to a patients. Any product failure may cause temporary disablement Any product failure may cause minor injury Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan 27 Other products which dont affect health or safety directly

Product affecting huge sum of money

Direct relationship with loss of huge sum of money Need large testing efforts and have many regulatory and statutory requirements. Examples- ecommerce and ebusiness softwares.- security, confidentiality and accuracy are some of the imp. Quality factors for such products.

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Products which can be tested only by simulators

Cannot be tested in real-time scenario but need simulated environment. Real time scenario is either impossible to create or may not be economically viable. Examples- products used in aeronautics, space research etc.

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Software Quality Management

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Software quality
American Heritage Dictionary: a characteristic or attribute of something

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Software quality
American Heritage Dictionary: a characteristic or attribute of something

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Software quality
Philip Crosby83: conformance to requirements

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Software quality
Quality of design

Quality of conformance

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Quality management involves management of all inputs & processing to the processes defines so that the output from the process is as per defined quality criteria. There are 3 levels of handling problem

Correction- condition where defects found in the product or services are immediately sorted and fixed.

Corrective action

situation where root cause analysis of the defects is done & actions are initiated to remove the root causes so that the same defect doesn't recur again. Operations management group is responsible for corrective action (identification & implementation)
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Preventive actions

means there are potential weak areas where defect has not been found till that point, but there exists a probability of finding a defect. Similar scenarios are checked and actions are initiated so that other potential defects can be eliminated before they occur. Senior management is responsible for preventive actions.

QM approach where an org takes preventive action so there is no defects at first place.
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WHY SW HAS DEFECTS?

Huge communication losses between entities Development people are more confident about their technical capabilities and do not consider that they can make mistakes. Requirement changes are very dynamic.

Technologies are responsible for introducing few defects.

Customer may not be aware of all requirements.
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PROCESSES RELATED TO SW QUALITY

VISION

MISSION1 POLICY1,2 OBJECTIVE 1,2,3 STRATEGY 1 GOAL 1,2,3,4

MISSION2 POLICY3,4,5 OBJECTIVE 4,5,6 STRATEGY 2,3 GOAL 5,6,7

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MISSION3 POLICY6,7 OBJECTIVE 7,8,9,10 STRATEGY 4,5,6,7 GOAL 8,9,10,11

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VISION

Established by the policy management. Defines what org wishes to achieve in the given time horizon. to become a billion dollar company within 3 years Every org must have a vision statement, clearly defining with respect to time span.

MISSION

Several initiatives defined as mission which will be helpful in realising its vision. Missions are expected to support each other to achieve vision put by management. Missions may have different life span and completion dates.
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Policy

intent of management. Many policies will define a way of achieving missions. Ex- security policy, quality policy and human resource dev policy. Tells us way of doing business as defined by senior management. Helps employees, suppliers and customers to understand the thinking and
Defined quantitatively Defines an expectation from each mission and can be used to measure the success/failure of it. Must be expressed in numerals along with time period. Every mission must have one objective.
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Objectives

Strategy

Defines the way of achieving a particular mission. Involves the actions required to realise the mission and way of doing things. Policy is converted into actions. Must have a time frame and objectives along with goals associated with it.
Defines the milestones to be achieved to make the mission successful. Defined as the principles, or way of doing business as perceived by management. Treating customers with courtesy can be a value for an org. Manner in which a n org think and behave is governed by values it believes in.
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Goals

Values

Quality Management System Structure

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QMS of a typical organisation

Quality Policy Quality Objectives

Quality Manual

Quality Processes/ Quality Procedures Work instruction

Guidelines/ standards

Formats/ Templates

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Every org has different QM Structure depending upon its needs and circumstances.

Ist Tier (Quality Policy):

Sets the wish, intent and direction by the management about how activities will be conducted by the org. Basic framework on which the Q temple rests. Are measurements established by the management to define progress and achievements in numerical way. Achievement of these objectives must be compared with planned levels and deviations must be acted upon. Termed as policy manual, established & published by the management of the organisation. Sets a framework for other process definitions Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan 44 Foundation of Quality planning at organisational level

2nd Tier (Quality Objectives:

3rd Tier (Quality Manual)

PILLARS OF QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

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Quality Processes/ Quality Procedures Work instruction

Are defined at org level by the functional area experts Processes Act as an umbrella process definitions may different for different projects and functions. Are used by an orgs project team for achieving quality goals for the products & services delivered to customers. Guidelines are suggested ways of doing things where as standards are mandatory ways of doing things Guidelines may be overruled but over ruling of standards is a punishable offence Guidelines may or may not be written but standards must be written to avoid any misunderstanding. Both may need revision from time to time.
used for tracking a project, function and dept info. Act as checklist to maintain consistency across the project in the org. If made compulsory are considered as standard where as if they are indicative or suggestive, they are guidelines. Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan 46 Templates are mandatory while Formats are suggestive in nature.

Guidelines/ standards

Formats/ Templates

Important Aspects of Quality Management

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Quality planning at organisational level Quality planning at project level Resource management Work environment Customer related processes QMS document and data control Verification and validation SW project management SW configuration management SW metrics and measurement SW quality audits Information security management Management Review
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Quality planning at organisational level:

Includes establishing missions, policies and strategies at org level along with objectives & goals to achieve vision

Quality planning at Project level:

Strategic level quality plans with details of responsibilities and actions. Project plan must define all aspects of quality at project level Quality objectives of the project may be inherited from organisation level objectives or May be defined separately for the project
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Resource management:

Org should use good inputs as required by quality planning so the output of the processes match the organisations business plan. Includes people, machines, materials and methods as the basic resources. Good processes and good technology need good people to perform work and achieve planned results.

Work environment:

An imp input for a good product & Can help an org to build on its strength Two components- external and internal environment.
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Customer Related Processes:

Must be analysed for their capability in servicing customers & achieving customer satisfaction. Requirement analysis, designing, project processes, product delivery and other processes related to the customer must be analysed.

QMS document and data control

QMS is defined on the basis of some quality standards /models There may be Specific customer requirements for different standards & models which help an org in defining its own QMS. Statistical process control and data management are essential for continuous improvement of processes.
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Verification & validation:

V&V are performed by an org at each level of development and for each activity. Verification defines the processes used to build the product correctly.

Verification includes management reviews and technical reviews (such as technical review and project plan review)
Validation ensures that the right product has been built Validation involves different kinds of testing (unit testing & system testing) to ensure the work product meets the Jyotsna Anthal/Chauhan 52 predefined acceptance criteria.

End of chapter 2

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