What is 'Software Quality Assurance'?

QA (Quality Assurance) deals with the entire software development Process (monitoring and improving the process) making sure that any agreed-upon standards and procedures are followed, and ensuring that problems are found and dealt with. It is oriented towards 'prevention'.

QA is the major bottleneck and best candidate for increased efficiencies within the organization.

Quality Standards:

• ISO = 'International Organization for Standardization' - The ISO 9001:2000 standard (which replaces the previous standard of 1994) concerns quality systems that are assessed by outside auditors. It includes analysis, documentation, design, development, production, testing, installation, maintenance, servicing, and other processes. Following are the set of quality standards mentioned in ISO: (a)Q9001-2000 - Quality Management Systems: Requirements (b)Q9000-2000 - Quality Management Systems: Fundamentals and Vocabulary (c)Q9004-2000 - Quality Management Systems: Guidelines for Performance Improvements. ISO 9001 certification required a third-party auditor assessment for an organization. The certification valids for about 3 years, after which a complete reassessment is required. ISO certification indicates only that documented processes are followed and does not necessarily indicate quality products. For the latest information see http://www.iso.ch/ . In the U.S. the standards can be purchased via the ASQ web site at http://e-standards.asq.org/

• CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) contains 25 key process areas which organization can follow to adapt CMMI. It is a collection of instructions an organization can follow with the purpose to gain better control over its software development process.There are 5 levels defined in CMMI. Levels are assigned according to the number and nature of processes followed by an organization defined under CMMI.

• ANSI = 'American National Standards Institute', the primary industrial standards body in the U.S.; publishes some software-related standards in conjunction with the IEEE and ASQ (American Society for Quality).

• IEEE( 'Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers') - creates standards such as 'IEEE Standard for Software Test Documentation' (IEEE/ANSI Standard 829), 'IEEE Standard for Software Quality Assurance Plans' (IEEE/ANSI Standard 730), 'IEEE Standard of Software Unit Testing (IEEE/ANSI Standard 1008) and others.

• Other software development/IT management process assessment methods are SPICE, Trillium, TickIT, Bootstrap, ITIL, MOF, and CobiT.