UNIT II

PROCESS ASSURANCE
• PROCESS ASSURANCE
Set of systematic activities which provides the
evidence of the ability of the software to
provide good quality service or product with
ease and fit for use.
It ensures that the product is not faulty
It reduces the cost and provides and provides
better customer satisfaction
 • Need for PROCESS ASSURANCE
❑ Protect company reputation.
❑ Increases client satisfaction
❑ It enhances overall quality of the projects
❑ Detect issues and defects through third-party
testing. ...
❑ Save time and money.
 SQA architecture
• SQA system
combines a wide range of SQA components,
employed to challenge the multitude of sources of
software errors
to achieve an acceptable level of
• Task of SQA
unique in the area of quality assurance
due to the special characteristics of software.
• Environment (software development and maintenance)
directly influences the SQA components
 SQA system components
SQA system components can be classified into six classes
■ Pre-project components.
■ Components of project life cycle activities
assessment.
■ infrastructure error prevention and improvement.
■ software quality management.
■ Components of standardization, certification, and
SQA system assessment.
■ Organizing for SQA – the human components
SQA system components
 Pre-project components
• Preparatory Steps taken to initiate the work
• To assure that
(a) the project commitments have been
adequately defined considering the resources
required, the schedule and budget
(b) the development and quality plans have
been correctly determined.
 1. Pre-project components
The SQA components improve the preparatory
steps taken prior to initiating work on the
project itself
■ Contract review
■ Development and quality plans.
 Contract review
• Software may be developed within the framework of
a contract negotiated with a customer or in response
to an internal order originating in another
department.
• An internal order may entail a request for developing
a firmware software system to be embedded within
a hardware product, an order for a software product
to be sold as a package.
• Contract review activities must include a detailed
examination of (a) the project proposal draft
(b) the contract drafts.
• Contract review activities include:
■ Clarification of the customer’s requirements
■ Review of the project’s schedule and resource
requirement estimates
■ Evaluation of the professional staff’s capacity to
carry out the proposed project
■ Evaluation of the customer’s capacity to fulfill
his obligations
■ Evaluation of development risks.
 Development and quality plans
• Once a software development contract has been signed
or a commitment made to undertake an internal project
for the benefit of another department of the
organization, a plan is prepared of the project
(“development plan”) and its integrated quality
assurance activities (“quality plan”).
• These plans include additional details and needed
revisions based on prior plans that provided the basis for
the current proposal and contract.
• It is quite common for several months to pass between
the tender submission and the signing of the contract
• During this period, changes may occur in staff
availability, in professional capabilities, and so
forth.
• The plans are then revised to reflect the changes
that occurred in the interim.
• The main issues treated in the project
development plan are
■ Schedules
■ Required manpower and hardware
resources
■ Risk evaluations
 ■ Organizational issues: team members,
subcontractors and partnerships
■ Project methodology, development tools,
etc.
■ Software reuse plans.
• The main issues treated in the project’s quality plan
are:
■ Quality goals, expressed in the
appropriate measurable terms
■ Criteria for starting and ending each
project stage
■ Lists of reviews, tests, and other
scheduled verification and validation activities.
 2. Components of project life cycle
activities assessment
• The project life cycle is composed of two stages:
The development life cycle stage
The operation–maintenance stage.
• The development life cycle stage components detect
design and programming errors.
• Components are divided into following sub-classes:
Reviews
Expert opinions
Software testing.
Software maintenance
Reviews :

Produces variety of documents- Design

report,test document, project plan, manual etc.

❑ Formal Design review

Documents which require professional approval

It can go to next level only after review

❑ Peer review

Review of short documents or chapters or parts of

report
Inspections and walkthrough to identify faults
Expert Opinions :

Additional external resource person for development

process
It supports for quality assurance efforts
It requires when
Insufficient in house professionals
Major disagreement among senior professionals
Difficult of find suitable candidate to participate in
design review
Software Testing:

Testing based on test plan which ensures the proper

functionality of the overall software
Checking for expected customer requirements
It examines
Software modules
Software Integration
Conducting recurrent test for satisfactory results
Software Maintenance Components:

Functionality Improvement or enhancement

Corrective maintenance
SDLC components
Infrastructure SQA components
Software Maintenance Components:
3. Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
The main objectives of these components,
which are applied throughout the entire
organization, are to eliminate or at least
reduce the rate of errors, based on the
organization’s accumulated SQA experience.
Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
1. Procedures and Work Instructions
2. Supporting Quality Devices
3. Staff Training , Instructions and Certification
4. Preventive and Corrective Actions
5. Configuration Management
6. Documentation Control
Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
Procedures and Work Instructions
Procedures provide detailed definitions for
the performance of development activities
It assures quality results achievement
It provides detailed directions
Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
Supporting Quality Devices
To maintain for templates and checklist
Based on accumulated knowledge and
Experience
Reduce the time for defining the structure of
documents
Completeness of documents
Improving communication b/n development
and review team
Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
Staff Training, Instructions and Certification
Training for New Employees
Retraining for changed assignments
Professional development-continous
updates
Employee Certification
Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
Preventive and Corrective Actions
Correction of software faults
Successful methodologies to enhance the
probability of repeat success.
Implementation of changes adopted in the
system
 Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
Configuration Management
Software Development and Maintenance
Modify the software to create new versions
and releases
Incorporated throughout SDLC
Procedures to control the change process
Usage of computerised tools for approval of
changes, recording of versions and releases
 Components of infrastructure error
prevention and improvement
Documentation Control
Long term availability of major documents
Evidence of SQA system performance
Documents related to
Requirement document
Contract document
Project and Design plan
 4. Management of SQA Components
• This class of components is geared toward
several goals
• The major ones being the control of
development and maintenance activities
• The introduction of early managerial support
actions that mainly prevent or minimize
schedule and budget failures and their
outcomes.
Management of SQA Components
Project progress control
– Resource Usage
– Schedules
– Risk Management Activities
– Budget
Software quality metrics
– Measurement of various aspects of software
quality
– Measurements related to functional quality ,
productivity
Management of SQA Components
– Quality of software development and
maintenance activities
– Team productivity
– Help desk and maintenance team productivity
– Software fault density
– Schedule deviations
Management of SQA Components
Software quality costs
– Include cost of control and cost of failure of
control
– Analysis of software quality costs
 5. Components of standardization,
certification, and SQA system assessment
▪ These components implement international professional
and managerial standards within the organization.
▪ The main objectives of this class are
(a) utilization of international professional knowledge
(b) improvement of coordination of the
organizational quality systems with other organizations
(c) assessment of the achievements of quality
systems according to a common scale.
▪ There are two main group :
(a) quality management standards
(b) project process standards.
Quality Management Standards
– Focus on “what is required “ and plan for “how to
achieve it”
– Examples:
– SEI CMM assessment standards
– ISO 9001 & ISO 9000-3 standards
Project Process Standards
– Provides methodological guidelines for
development team
– Deals with how to achieve
– IEEE 1012 standard
– ISO/IEC 12207 standard
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
• The SQA includes managers, testing
personnel, the SQA unit and practitioners
interested in software quality.
• Their main objectives are
To initiate and support the
implementation of SQA components.
To detect deviations from SQA
procedures and methodology and suggest
improvements.
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
Inorder to apply all SQA components,
organizational base is required consisting of
– Organisation management
– Software testing personal
– SQA Unit
– SQA trustees
– Committee members
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
Management
– Responsibility includes
1. Definition of quality policy
2. Effective follow up of quality policy
implementation
3. Allocation of sufficient resources
4. Assignment of staff
5. Monitor and support for schedule delay,
budget and customer relation difficulties
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
SQA Unit
– Core unit members for ensuring the quality
– Initiator and coordinator of SQA
– Task include
• Preparation of annual quality program
• Consultation with in-house staff on issues
• Conducting Quality Audits
• Leadership in Quality assurance committees
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
SQA Trustees
– Members of development or maintenace team
who have interest in SQA
– Detecting deviations from quality procedures
– Initiating improvements in SQA components
– Reporting any issues to SQA Unit.
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
SQA Committee members
– Members of development or maintenance team
who are appointed for term or adhoc service
– Analysis of quality related problems
– Solution of software quality problems
– Development of new procedures and
– Improvement of existing SQA components
 Organizing for SQA – the human
components
SQA Forums
– Professionals who maintain internet site for
discussion of quality issues.
– They share experience & difficulties to initiate
improvements in software process