Software Quality Assurance Processes

Quality Assurance (SQA) is defined as a planned and systematic approach to the evaluation of the quality of and adherence to software product standards,processes, and procedures. SQA includes the process of assuring that standards and procedures are established and are followed throughout the software acquisition life cycle. Compliance with agreed-upon standards and procedures is evaluated through process monitoring, product evaluation, and audits. Software development and control processes should include quality assurance approval points, where an SQA evaluation of the product may be done in relation to the applicable standards.

Standards and Procedures

Establishing standards and procedures for software development is critical, since these provide the framework from which the software evolves. Standards are the established criteria to which the software products are compared. Procedures are the established criteria to which the development and control processes are compared. Standards and procedures establish the prescribed methods for developing software; the SQA role is to ensure their existence and adequacy. Proper documentation of standards and procedures is necessary since the SQA activities of process monitoring, product evaluation, and auditing rely upon unequivocal definitions to measure project compliance.

Types of standards include:

Documentation Standards specify form and content for planning, control, and product documentation and provide consistency throughout a project.

Design Standards specify the form and content of the design product. They provide rules and methods for translating the software requirements into the software design and for representing it in the design documentation.

Code Standards specify the language in which the code is to be written and define any restrictions on use of language features. They define legal language structures,style conventions, rules for data structures and interfaces, and internal code documentation.

Procedures are explicit steps to be followed in carrying out a process. All processes should have documented procedures. Examples of processes for which procedures are needed are configuration management, nonconformance reporting and corrective action,and testing.