Quality Assurance

Basic idea

The framework of organisational procedures and standards that make high-quality software likely. Two flavours: product standards (about the artefact) and process standards (about how it’s built).

Key facts

• Product standards: design templates, requirements doc structure, coding standards, change-request templates.
• Process standards: design review, version release, project plan approval, change control, test recording.
• Tradeoff: provides structure and customer assurance; can become bureaucratic.

Quality Assurance

The establishment of a framework of organizational procedures and standards that lead to high quality software. There are two types:

• Product standards: These applies to the product being developed
• Process standards: These standards define the processes that should be followed during software development

Product Standards	Process Standards
Design review from template	Design review conduct
Requirements document structure	Design validation process
Documentation standards	Version release process
Coding standards to follow	Project plan approval process
Project plan format	Change control process
Change request from template	Test recording process

Advantage of standards

• Provide a framework around which quality assurance process may be implemented
• Provide encapsulation of best, or least most appropriate, practice.
• Customers sometimes require a particular quality standard/level when choosing a software vendor.

Disadvantages of standards

• Not seen as relevant and up to date by software engineers
• Involve too much bureaucratic form filling
• Unsupported by software tools so tedius manual work is involved to maintain standards

Siblings

• Capability Maturity Model
• Quality management
• Technical Reviews
• Verification vs Validation