Quality management

Basic idea

Quality is not bolted on — it must be designed in from the start. Quality management = QA (define standards) + QP (apply to project) + QC (audit conformance).

Key facts

• External quality (user-facing): correctness, reliability, usability.
• Internal quality (developer-facing): cleanliness, performance, maintainability.
• Empirically, QA pays for itself — defect cost grows by ~10× per phase you let it slip.

Siblings

• Verification vs Validation