Introduction to Quality
Imran Hussain
Project Development Costs
Around 63% of software projects exceed their cost estimates. The top four reasons for this are: Frequent requests for changes from users Overlooked tasks Users' lack of understanding of their own requirements Insufficient user-analyst communication and understanding (Communications of the ACM)
Finding Information
Users can only find information 42% of the time (Jared Spool)
Finding Items
62% of web shoppers give up looking for the item they want to buy online (Zona Research)
Lost Sales
50% of the potential sales from a site are lost because people cannot find the item they are looking for (Forrester Research)
Software Maintenance Costs
80% of software lifecycle costs occur after the product is released, in the maintenance phase of that work, 80 % is due to unmet or unforeseen user requirements; only 20 % is due to bugs or reliability problems.
(IEEE Software)
What is Quality?
Quality is conformance to specifications
(British Defense Industries Quality Assurance Panel)
Quality is conformance to requirements
(Philip Crosby)
Quality is fitness for purpose or use
(Juran)
Quality is a predictable degree of uniformity and dependability, at low cost and suited to the market
(Edward Deming)
Quality is synonymous with customer needs and expectations
(R J Mortiboys)
Quality is meeting the (stated) requirements of the customer- now and in the future
(Mike Robinson)
Quality is the total composite product and service characteristics of marketing, engineering, manufacturing and maintenance through which the product and service in use will meet the expectations by the customer
(Armand Feigenbaum)
Totality of characteristics of an entity that bear on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs
(ISO 8402 : 1994)
What is a Product?
Product
A generic term that refers to
Goods Services
Failure to meet quality requirements in either dimension can have serious negative consequences
Another definition
The extent to which a software product exhibits these characteristics
Functionality Reliability Usability Efficiency Maintainability Portability
Managing Quality
Project quality management must address both the management of the project and the product of the project
PMBOK
implied needs must be turned into requirements
PMBOK
What is a Grade?
A category or rank given to entities having the same functional use but different technical characteristics
Difference between Quality and Grade
Software Scenario 1
High quality (no bugs, readable manual) Low grade (limited number of features)
Software Scenario 2
Low quality (many bugs, poorly organized user documentation) High grade (numerous features)
Quality Management Issues
Customer satisfaction
Conformance to requirements Fitness for use
Prevention over inspection Management responsibility
Quality Management Issues
The application of a quality management system in managing a process to achieve maximum customer satisfaction at the lowest overall cost to the organization while continuing to improve the process
Quality Management
Includes the processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken Includes all activities of the overall management function that determine the quality policy, objectives, and responsibilities
Quality Management Processes
Quality Planning Quality Assurance Quality Control
Quality Planning
Quality planning involves identifying which quality standards are relevant to the project and determining how to satisfy them
Quality Assurance
Quality Assurance is all the planned and systematic activities implemented within the quality system to provide confidence that the project will satisfy the relevant quality standards.
Quality Control
Quality Control involves monitoring specific project results to determine if they comply with relevant quality standards, and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory results
Prevention and Inspection
Prevention
Keeping errors out of the process
Keeping errors put of the hands of the customer.
Inspection
Some Misnomers and Misconceptions
QA Testing SQA QC
References
PMBOK An Introduction to Software Quality
