1. QUALITY ASSURANCE

2. The quality of the product or the services can be judged by how it satisfies its intended function.
A product can be of low quality due to various reasons such as
i.Shoddily manufactured.
ii.Components are improperly designed.
iii.Due to poor architecture .

3. iv . Product requirements were poorly understood .
Quality must be designed in.
You can’t test out enough bugs to deliver a high quality product.
The QUALITY ASSURANCE is aimed at improving the quality of the resulting systems.

4. The software testing techniques constitute one component of the quality assurance,but the persuit of the quality extends through the design flow.
If the system is too difficult to design it then probably leads to difficulty in working.
Customer may desire more features but it does not add much usefulness of the system.

5. In many cases having too many features only makes the design more complicated and the final device leads to more breakage .
Quality Assurance example : computer controlled medical system.

6. QUALITY ASSURANCE TECHNIQUES
ISO created a set of quality standards known as ISO 9000.
ISO created to apply in the broad range of industries .
However a wide ranging standard such as ISO 9000 cannot specify the detailed standards for every industry .
If the criteria kept by ISO is not followed then it takes necessary steps on the entire organization

7. ISO 9000’s applicable to software development .
Following is the observations about the quality management based on ISO 9000
PRODUCT IS CRUCIAL:
i.Haphazard development leads to haphazard products and low quality .
ii.Knowing what steps are to be followed to create a high quality product is essential to ensuring that all the necessary are followed.

8. DOCUMENTATION IS MORE IMPORTANT:
i.Documentation has several roles.
ii.The creation of the documents describing processes helps those involved understand the processes .
iii.Documentation helps internal quality monitoring groups to ensure that the required processes are actually being followed.

9. iv.Documentation also helps outside groups understand the processes and how they are being implemented.
COMMUNICATION IS IMPORTANT:
i.Quality ultimately relies in people .
iiGood documentation is an aid for helping people understand the total quality process.

10. Many techniques are used to verify system designs and ensure quality .
Techniques can be of either MANUAL or TOOL BASED.
MANUAL TECHNIQUES:
It is effective in practice.They are successful in identifying the bugs. Many software testing techniques can be applied manually by tracing through the program to determine the required tests.

11. TOOL BASED:
i.Helps considerably in managing large quantities of information that may be generated in complex design.
ii.Tracking tools can help to ensure that the various steps have been performed.
iii.Design flow tools automate the process of running design data through the other tools.

12. Metrics are important to the quality control process.
To know whether we achieve high levels of quality we must able to measure the system and the design process.
Certain aspects of measures of the system can be measured by us such as EXECUTION SPEED OF PROGRAMS .RATE AT WHICH THE BUGS ARE FOUND .

13. One well known way of measuring the quality of an organization’s software development process is the CAPABILITY MATURITY MODEL[CMM].
Developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute .
CMM provides a model for judging an organization .

14. 5 levels of maturity :
INITIAL:
i.A poorly organized process, with the very few well defined processes .
ii. Success of a project depends on the efforts of individuals, not the organization itself.

15. REPEATABLE:
i.This level provides basic tracking mechanisms that allow the management to understand cost,scheduling and how well the systems under development meet their goals.

16. DEFINED:
i. The management and engineering processes are documented and standardized .
ii. All projects make use of documented and approved standard methods.

17. MANAGED:
i.This phase makes the detailed measurements of the development process and product quality.
OPTIMIZING:
i.At the highest level ,feedback from the detailed measurements is used to continually improve the organization’s processes.

18. The software engineering institute has found only few organizations in the world meets the highest level of continuous improvement .
CMM provides the benchmark by which the organizations can judge themselves and use that information for their improvement.