SOFTWARE QUALITY

CHOOSE A CELLPHONE
Nokia 7210
MyPhone T52
P5, 500
P5, 200
COMPARISON
Nokia 7210 MyPhone T52
Weight 69.8g 81g
Size 10 x 45 x 10.6mm 10 x 47 x 14 mm
Features
Music player Yes Yes
Memory 2GB Transflash
FM Radio Yes Yes
Group Discussion
Which cellphone would you choose?
Why?
History of Quality
Started with craftsmen building unions or guilds in late
13
th
century
Rise of the factory system started in UK in 1750s and
grew during Industrial Revolution in mid 1750s
World War II - quality became an important component
Quality Revolution in Japan with inputs from
Americans Joseph Juran and W. Edwards Deming
1970s high quality Japanese products in American
market
TQM (Total Quality Management) as a response



What is Quality?
Five Different Quality Views (David Garin)
Transcendental something that can be
recognized but not defined
User fitness for purpose
Manufacturing conformance to specifications
Product inherent characteristics of the product
Value dependent on the amount a customer is
willing to pay for it
What is Quality?

The degree to which a system, component, or
process meets (1) specified requirements, and
(2) customer or user needs or expectations

(IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminoloy)
Nature of Quality
Myths
Quality is defined by the producer, not the
customer
Quality relates only to the final product
Software development is the biggest contributor to
defects
Improving quality always costs more money
Quality is the responsibility of the Quality
Assurance Department


Nature of Quality
Real Story
The customer (user) defines quality
Quality is determined by every process, support
function and subproduct
Software defects are traceable to the reqts as a
major contributor, and can occur during any life
cycle phases
Improving quality will result in a lower life cycle
cost
Quality is everyones job, on every task they
perform


Why Quality?


"Quality is free. Its not a gift, but its free. The
unquality things are what cost money." --
Philip B. Crosby

Why Quality?
Productivity and Economic
IT spending is expected to hit $2 trillion in 2013
(Gartner)
IT has contributed approx $50 billion in productivity
output (Information Week)
IT errors can also contribute to loss, estimated at $60
billion annually in economic losses






Why is There a Cost to Software
Quality?

Rooted in the requirement to assure that the
developed product meets the approved
specifications
Why is There a Cost to Software
Quality?
Nature and size of investment determined by:
Requirements imposed by the buyer
Kind of technologies used
Kind of product being developed
Internal development environment
Project budget
Degree of incorporating repeatable processes and
measures in everyday practices
Domain knowledge possessed by development
What is Software Quality?
composite of all attributes which describe the
degree of excellence of the computer system
(Fisher and Light)
the degree to which a software product
possesses a specified set of attributes necessary
to fulfill a stated purpose (Donald Reifer)
Software quality is the fitness for use of
the software product

Software Quality Assurance
planned and systematic pattern of all actions
necessary to provide adequate confidence that
an item or product conforms to established
technical requirements

What does this mean?
Provide an independent review of development
process (products and process)
Check for conformance to standards
Reduce the costs of correcting defects



Software Quality Control

independent evaluation of the ability of the
software process to produce a usable software
product
Software Maintainability
60 to 70% of software expense allocated to
maintenance
(1) use of conducting scheduled inspections and
servicing, called serviceability, and (2) case of
restoring service after failure called repairability
(JM Juran)
Perspective on maintainability:
Corrective correction of faults uncovered in a
program
Adaptive response to a change in the programs
operating circumstances
Perfective enhancements of all kinds
Software Maintanability

process of modifying a software system or
component after delivery to correct faults,
improve performance or other attribute, or
adapt to a changed environment
Verification and Validation
Verification
process of evaluating a system to determine
whether the products of a given development
phase satisfy the conditions imposed at the start of
the phase (IEEE Standard Glossary)

Validation
process of evaluating a system to determine
whether it satisfies specified requirements (IEEE
Standard Glossary)



Verification and Validation
Verification and Validation (V&V) must be an
independent, third-party activity

The degree of independence must be a function of
the importance of the software (IEEE)

Independent V&V up to 30% of the cost of
development; thrust is to have an internal V&V
Test and Evaluation (T&E)
Testing - process of operating a system or system
component under specified conditions, observing
or recording the results, and making an evaluation
of some aspect of the system or component (IEEE)
Evaluation to appraise, to judge the quality or
worth of
Testing and Evaluation:
process of exercising complete programs to judge
their quality through the fulfillment of specified
requirements

Whats the Difference?
Testing and Evaluation vs Verification and
Validation
V &V can be accomplished without testing the
software (but usually is not)
V &V traceability of requirements
Verification accomplished through tracing of
requirements embodied in the design specifications
and code
Validation accomplished through test closure
traceability

Software Process Improvement
deliberate, planned methodology following
standardized documentation practices to capture
on paper (and in practice) the activities,
methods, practices and the associated products.
As each activity, method practice and
transformation is documented, each is analyzed
against the standard of value added to the
organization