This article gives the information related to the software quality assurance (SQA). Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is planned and systematic way to evaluate quality of software product standards, process and procedure. SQA includes the process of assuring that standard and procedure are established and followed throughout the software acquisition life cycle. Standards are the criteria to which the software products are compared specified standards are used to define the development criteria that are used to guide the manner in which the software is engineered.
Types of Standards Include:
- Documentation standards specify form and intent for planning, analysis and product documentation and provide consistency throughout a project.
- Design standards specify the form and content of the design product. They gives rules and methods for changing software requirement into software requirement into software design and for representing in it design documentation.
- Code standards specify the language in which the code is to be written and define any restrictions on use of language feature. They define legal language structure, style conventions rules for data structure and interfaces and internal code documentation.
The development and control process are compared for which Procedures are the establishment criteria. These are explicit steps to be followed in carrying out a process. All processes should have documented procedure. Example of process for which procedure are needed are configuration management non-conformance reporting and corrective action.
Software Quality Assurance (SQA) Activities:
The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) recommends a set of SQA activities that address quality assurance planning, record keeping, analysis and reporting. Various SQA activities which activities are performed by an independent SQA group are as mentioned below:
1. Prepare SQA Plan For The Project:
The plan identifies:
- Evaluations to be performed
- Audits and reviews to be performed
- Applicable Standards for the project
- Procedure for error reporting and tracing
- Documents to be shown by the SQA group.
2. Participate In The Development of the Project Software Process Description:
- The software team selects a work process to be performed. SQA group reviews the process description for compliance with organization policy, internal and external software standards.
3. Review software engineering activities to verify compliance with the defined software process.
4. Audit designated software work product to verify compliance with those defined as part of the software process.
- SQA group also verifies that corrections have been made and periodically reports the result of its work to the project manager.
5. Ensure that any deviations in software or work products are documented and handled according to a documented procedure
6. Record any evidence of noncompliance and report them to management.
7. Configuration Management Monitoring:
- Configuration management is also called as Change Control Management. It is a systematic way of controlling the changes to the software items. SQA assures that software configuration management activities are performed in accordance with Configuration management plans, standard, and procedure. SQA reviews the Configuration management plans, for compliance with software configuration management policies and requirement and provides follow up for non-conformance. This is what about short article on Software Quality Assurance (SQA).