Software Quality Management

SOFTWARE QUALITY MANAGEMENT

UNIT-1
1. Name some of the insights or characteristics of Quality.

• Quality is not absolute

• Quality is multidimensional

• Quality is subject to constraints

• Quality is about acceptable compromises

• Quality criteria are not independent, but interact with each other causing
conflicts.

2. Give the formal definition of quality given by the ISO?

The totality of features and characteristics of products or service that bear on the

ability to satisfy specified or implied needs.

3. What is software quality?

Kitchen ham (1989 b) refers to software quality “fitness for needs” and claims
quality

involves matching expectations.


4. What are the different views of quality?

1. The transcendent view

2. The product-based view

3. The user-based view

4. The manufacturing view

5. The value-based view

5. Give the role of a project manager.

A project manager has the responsibility for the project on the supply side. He is
keen to produce a product that is reliable and maintainable and will keep the
customer satisfied.

6. What is the hierarchical model? List its types.

It is based upon a set of quality criteria, each of which has a set of measures or

metrics associated with it.

• McCall model.

• Boehm model.

7. How will you measure the software reliability?

Software reliability can measure in terms of:

• Accuracy

• Consistency

• Error tolerance

• Simplicity

8. What are the associated by McCall?

• Product operation

• Product revision

• Product transition

9. Why Quality is determined by people?

• It is people and human organizations who have problems to be solved by
computer

software

• It is people who define the problems and specify the solutions

• It is still currently people who implement designs and product code.

• It is people who test code

10. Give the common characteristics shared by the two models?

• The quality criteria are supposedly based upon the user’s view.

• The models focus on the parts that designers can more readily analyze.

• Hierarchical models cannot be tested or validated. It cannot be shown that the
metrics

accurately reflect the criteria.

• The measurement of overall quality is achieved by a weighted summation of the
characteristics.

PART-B
1. What are the views of quality? Explain in Detail the views of quality.
Views of Quality
In an attempt to classify different and conflicting
views of quality,Garvin(1984) has suggested five
different views of quality:
1. The transcendent view
_ Innate excellence
_ Classical definition
2. The product-based view
_ Higher the quality higher the cost
_ Greater functionality
_ Greater care in development
3. The user-based view
_ Fitness for purpose
_ Very hard to quantify
4. The manufacturing view
_ Measures quality in terms of conformance
_ Zero defects
5. The value-based view
_ provides the data with what the customer
Requires at a price.
2. Explain the hierarchical model of Quality.
To compare quality in different situations, both
qualitatively and quantitatively, it is necessary to
establish a model of quality.
Many model suggested for quality.
Most are hierarchical in nature.
A quantitative assessment is generally made, along
with a more quantified assessment.
Two principal models of this type, one by Boehm(1978)
and one by McCall in 1977. A hierarchical model
of software quality is based upon a set of quality
criteria, each of which has a set of measures or
metrics associated with it.
The issues relating to the criteria of quality are:
_ What criteria of quality should be employed?
_ How do they inter-relate?
_ How may the associated metrics be combined
into a meaningful overall measure of Quality?
THE HIERARCHICAL MODELS OF BOEHM
AND MCCALL THE GE MODEL
_ This model was first proposed by McCall in
1977.
_ It was later revised as the MQmodel, and it is
aimed by system developers to be used during
the development process.
_ In early attempt to bridge the gap between
users and developers, the criteria were chosen
in an attempt to reflect user? s views as well
as developer? s priorities.
_ The criteria appear to be technically oriented,
but they are described by a series of questions
which define them in terms to non specialist
managers. The three areas addressed by McCall's model
(1977)
Product operation : (basic operational characteristics)
requires that it can be learnt easily, operated efficiently And it results are those
required by the
users.
The product operations perspective identifies quality factors that influence the
extent to which the
software fulfils its specification:-
_ Correctness, the functionality matches the specification.
_ Reliability, the extent to which the system
fails.
_ Efficiency, system resource (including cpu, disk,
memory, network) usage.
_ Integrity, protection from unauthorized access.
_ Usability, ease of use.
Product revision : (ability to change) it is concerned
with error correction and adaptation Of the sys-
tem and it is most costly part of software development.
The product revision perspective identifies quality factors that influence the ability
to change the
software product, these factors are:-
_ Maintainability, the ability to find and fix a
defect.
_ Flexibility, the ability to make changes required as dictated by the business.
_ Testability, the ability to Validate the soft-
ware requirements.
Product transition : (adaptability to new environments)
it is an important application and it is distributed
processing and the rapid rate of change in hard-
ware is Likely to increase.
The product transition perspective identifies quality factors that influence the
ability to adapt the
software to new environments:-
_ Portability, the ability to transfer the software
from one environment to another.
_ Reusability, the ease of using existing software
components in a different context.
_ Interoperability, the extent, or ease, to which
software components work together.
3. a) explain in detail the GE Model. (08)
1. Efficiency is concerned with the use of re-
sources e.g. processor time, storage. It falls
into two categories: execution efficiency and
storage efficiency.
2. Usability is the ease of use of the software.
3. Integrity is the protection of the program from
unauthorized access.
4. Correctness is the extent to which a program
fulfills its specification.
5. Reliability is its ability not to fail.
6. Maintainability is the effort required to locate
and _x a fault in the program within its operating environment.

7. Flexibility is the ease of making changes required by changes in the
operating environment.
8. Testability is the ease of testing the programs,
to ensure that it is error-free and meet its
specification.
9. Portability is the effort required to transfer a
program from one environment to another.
10. Reusability is the ease of refusing software in
a different context.
11. Interoperability is the effort required to couple the system to another
system.
b) explain the Boehm model.
_ It is to provide a set of well-defined, well-
differentiated characteristics of software quality.
_ It is hierarchical in nature but the hierarchy
is extended, so that quality criteria are sub-
divided.
_ According to the uses made of the system and
they are classed into general or as is and the
utilities are a subtype of the general utilities,
to the product operation.
_ There are two levels of actual quality criteria,
the intermediate level being further split into
primitive characteristics which are amenable
to measurement.
_ This model is based upon a much larger set
of criteria than McCall s model, but retains
the same emphasis on technical criteria.
_ The two models share a number of common
characteristics are,
1. The quality criteria are supposedly based
upon the user s view.
2. The models focus on the parts that designers can more readily analyze.
3. Hierarchical models cannot be tested or
validated. It cannot be shown that the
metrics accurately reflect the criteria.
4. The measurement of overall quality is achieved
by a weighted summation of the characteristics.

4.Explain how the software quality can be measured and the problems
associated with them. (16)
The individual measure of software quality pro-
vided do not provide an over all measure of soft-
ware quality. The individual measures must be
combined. The individual measures of quality
may conflict with each other.
Some of these relationships are described below;
_ Integrity vs. efficiency (inverse) the control
of access to data or software requires additional code and processing
leading to a longer
runtime and additional storage requirement.
_ Usability vs. efficiency (inverse) Improvements
in the human / computer interface may significantly increase the amount
of code and power
required.
_ Maintainability and testability vs. efficiency
(inverse) Optimized and compact code is not
easy to maintain.
_ Portability vs. efficiency (inverse) the use
of optimized software or system utilities will
lead to decrease in probability.
_ Flexibility, reusability and interoperability vs.
efficiency (inverse) the generally required for
a flexible system, the use if interface routines
and the modularity desirable for reusability
will all decrease efficiency.
_ Flexibility and reusability vs. integrity (in-
verse) the general flexible data structures required for flexible and
reusable software increase the security and protection problem.
_ Interoperability vs. integrity (inverse) Coupled system allow more
avenues of access to
more and different users.
_ Reusability vs. reliability (inverse) reusable
software is required to be general: maintaining accuracy and error
tolerance across all
cases is difficult.
_ Maintainability vs. flexibility (direct) maintainable code arises from code
that is well
structured.
_ Maintainability vs. reusability (direct) well
structured easily maintainable code is easier
to reuse in other programs either as a library
of routines or as code placed directly within
another program.
_ Portability vs. reusability (direct) portable
code is likely to be free of environment-specific
features.
_ Correctness vs. efficiency (neutral) the correctness of code, i.e. its
conformance to specification does not influence its efficiency.

Process Improvement Strategy
Study an existing process to understand its activities. Produce an
abstract model of the process.
Analyze the model to discover process problems.
This involves discussing process activities with
stakeholders and discovering problems and possible process changes.
5. Explain the work of Gilb? (16)
Glib proposes four qualities attributes: workability, avail-
ability, adaptability and usability, accompanied by the
resource attributes of time, money, people and tools.
Workability
_ Is defined as the raw ability of the system to do work,
i.e. transact sign processing.
_ Just as the quality and resource attributes are subdivided, sc each
attribute may be further subdivided.
_ Workability may be considered in terms of process
capacity, storage capacity and responsiveness, amongst
other things.
Glib defines these terms in the following manner:
_ Process capacity is the ability to process transactions within a given
unit of time. storage capacity
is the ability of the system to store things such as
information.
_ Responsiveness is a measure of the response to a single event.

6. Explain in detail GQM model. (16)
The Goal Question Metric (GQM) approach is based
upon the assumption that for an organization to mea-
sure in a purposeful way it must first specify the goals
for itself and its projects, then it must trace those goals
to the data that are intended to define those goals operationally, and
finally provide a framework for interpreting
the data with respect to the stated goals. Thus it is important to make
clear, at least in general terms, what
informational needs the organization has, so that these
needs for information can be quantified whenever possible, and the
quantified information can be analyzed a to
whether or not the goals are achieved.
The result of the application of the Goal Question Metric approach
application is the specification of a measurement system targeting a
particular set of issues and
a set of rules for the interpretation of the measurement
data. The resulting measurement model has three levels:
1. Conceptual level (GOAL): A goal is defined for an
object, for a variety of reasons, with respect to various models of quality,
from various points of view,
relative to a particular environment. Objects of measurement are
_ Products: Artifacts, deliverables and documents
that are produced during the system life cycle;
E.g., specifications, designs, programs, test suites.
_ Processes: Software related activities normally
associated with time; E.g., specifying, designing,
testing, interviewing.
_ Resources: Items used by processes in order to
produce their outputs; E.g., personnel, hardware,
software, office space.
2. Operational level (QUESTION): A set of questions is
used to characterize the way the assessment/achievement
of a specific goal is going to be performed based on
some characterizing model. Questions try to characterize the object of
measurement (product, process,
resource) with respect to a selected quality issue and
to determine its quality from the selected viewpoint.
3. Quantitative level (METRIC): A set of data is associated with every
question in order to answer it in a
quantitative way. The data can be
_ Objective: If they depend only on the object that
is being measured and not on the viewpoint from
which they are taken; E.g., number of versions of
a document, staff hours spent on a task, size of
a program.
_ Subjective: If they depend on both the object
that is being measured and the viewpoint from
which they are taken; E.g., readability of a text,
level of user satisfaction.




UNIT-2

1. Define software quality assurance.

Software quality assurance is defined as a planned and systematic approach to
the evaluation of the quality and adherence to software product standards of
processes and procedures.

2. What is known as documentation standards?

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

3. What are design standards?

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.

4. How are verification and validation done in SQA?

SQA assures verification and validation activities by monitoring technical reviews,
inspections and walkthroughs.

5. What is SQA status report?

SQA status is reported monthly. The content of this report will identify:

• Items produced by the SQA functions

• Significant software development compliance problems, if any, along with their

agreed to and recommended corrective actions

• Audits, reviews and tests accomplished during the reporting period.

6. Define review.

A process or meeting during which a software product is [examined by] project
personnel, managers, users, customers, user representatives or other interested
parties for comment or approval.

7. What are the types of software reviews?
Software reviews may be divided into 3 categories:
• Software peer reviews
• Software management reviews
• Software audit reviews

8. List the roles in inspection review.
• Moderator
• Reader
• Writer

9. What is meant by walkthrough reviews?
It is a form of peer review where the author leads members of the development
team and other interested parties through a software product and the participants
ask \questions and make comments about defects.

10. List some guidelines of review.
• Review the product, not the producer
• Set an agenda and maintain it
• Take written notes
• Conduct meaningful training for all reviewers
• Review the early reviews




Part-B
1. Explain in detail about the Documentation. (16)
2. Explain in detail the CMM Compatibility of Reviews and audits. (16)
3. Explain the types of reviews. (16)
4. Explain the software inspection process. (16)
5. a) Explain walkthrough process. (8)
b) Explain the Audit process. (8)
6. a) Explain the Document verification and validation. (8)
b) Explain the factors affecting the SQA effort. (8)

UNIT-3
1. What are the Ishikawa basic tools?
Ishikawa basic tools are also called the seven quality control tools.
• Check list or check sheet
• Pareto diagram
• Histogram
• Scatter diagram
• Run chart
• Control chart
• Cause-effect diagram

2. What is paretto diagram?
It is a frequency chart of bars in descending order. It is mainly associated with
types of problems. The lengths of the bars represent frequency or cost, and are
arranged with longest bars on the left and the shortest to the right.

3. State the use of a histogram.
It is a graphic representation of frequency counts of a sample or a population.A
histogram is a graphic summary of variation in a set of data. It enables us to see
patterns that are difficult to see in a simple table of numbers.

4. What is the use of CASE tools?
Computer Aided Software Engineering is the use of software tools to assist in the
development and maintenance of software. Tools used to assist in this way as
known as CASE TOOLS.

5. Write short notes on code generation.
Code generation is a mechanism to produce computer program in some automatic
manner. Source code generation is the act of generating source code based on an
Ontological model such as a template.


6. Why defect prevention is crucial to the software process?
Finding and fixing errors accounts for much of the cost of software development
and maintenance. Also the process of fixing defects is even more error prone than
original software creation.

7. What are the deferent errors for which defect prevention analysis is
required?
Technological, organizational, historic, group dynamic, individual and others.

8. Define TDCE and PCE
TDCE is total defect containment effectiveness and PCE is the phase containment
effectiveness.

9. What are the activities associated with Defect injection and Removal.
• Requirements phase
• High level design
• Low level design
• Code implementation
• Unit testing
• Component testing
• System testing

10. What are reliability models?
The reliability model is used to estimate the latent defects in the process while
shipping to the customers.
Two types of reliability model:
• Static model
• Dynamic model



Part-B
1. Explain in Detail about the Ishikawa’s basic tools in software development (16)
2. a) Explain in detail about the CASE tools. (8)
b) Explain the Defect Prevention Process. (8)
3. Explain the Defect removal Effectiveness. (16)
4. Explain the Reliability models. (16)
5. Explain in detail about the Rayleigh model. (16)
6. Explain Reliability growth model for quality assessment (16)
















UNIT-4
1. What is quality management?
Quality management comprises all activities of the overall management function
that determine the quality policy, objectives and responsibilities, and implement
them by means such as other quality planning, quality control, etc.

2. What is quality planning?
Quality planning refers to the activities that establish the objectives and
requirements for quality.

3. What is quality improvement?
QM aims at attaining unprecedented levels of performance which are significantly
better than the past level.

4. What are the benefits of QFD?
1. Reduces product development time
2. Reduce engineering costs
3. Reduces the time to market.
4. Improves design quality
5. Improves customer satisfaction.
6. Reduce quality costs.

5. What is internal benchmarking?
Internal benchmarking compares best practices followed in different departments
within a company instead of looking other companies.

6. What are the four p’s focused on effective software project management?
1. People,
2. Product
3. Process
4. Project


7. Define software configuration management.
SCM is a set of activities that have been developed to manage change throughout
the life cycle of computer software.

8. Give the ISO definition on quality management.
ISO defines “Quality management” as: what the organization does to ensure that
its products or services satisfy the customer’s quality requirements and comply
with any regulations applicable to those products or services.

9. Mention the SPC techniques and its purposes.
• Process flow charting – diagrammatic technique to illustrate the inputs and flow
of a process.
• Tally charts – are used in the conjunction with histograms to collect and display
data. They are easy to use and clear.
• Pareto analysis – it is designed to show what percentage of faults may be
attributed to each cause.
• Cause and effect diagram or fish bone diagram – this maps a input affecting a
quality diagram.

10. What is Iceberg analogy?
It describes the relationship between testing and field defect rates, the tip of the
iceberg is the testing defect rate and the submerged part is the field defect
rate. The size of the iceberg is equivalent to the amount of error injection.

Part-B
1. Explain in detail the elements of QMS. (16)
2. Explain the Rayleigh model framework. (16)
3. Explain the Reliability Growth models. (16)
4. Explain the complexity metrics and its models (16)
5. Explain Lines of Code and Halstead’s Software Science. (16)
6. Explain in detail the Cyclomatic Complexity (16)

UNIT-5
1. What are the management responsibilities regarding ISO 9001
requirements?
Management commitment, Customer focus, Quality policy, Planning,
Responsibility, Authority, Communication, and Management review.

2. Define SPICE?
SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability development) standard
defines a set of requirements for software process assessment. The intent of the
standard is to assist organizations in developing an objective evaluation of the
efficacy of any defined software process.

3. What is MALCOLM BALDRGE award?
MALCOLM BALDRIGE award is the most prestigious quality award in the
United States. The award is given annually to recognize U.S companies that
exceed in quality management and quality achievement.

4. What are the components of the ISO 9000 series to which SPICE is related?
ISO 9001, ISO 9000-3, ISO 9004-4., ISO DIS.

5. What is and assessment instrument?
An assessment instrument is a tool, or set of tools, used during the performance of
an assessment to assist the assessor in obtaining reliable, consistent and repeatable
results.

6. What are the goals of SPICE project?
1. Developing a working draft for a standard for software process assessment
2. Conducting industry trials of the emerging standards.
3. Promoting the technology transfer of software process assessment into the
software industry worldwide.


7. What are the benefits that an international standard will provide to
industry?
1. Software suppliers will submit to just one process assessment scheme.
2. Software development organizations will have a tool to initiate and sustain a
continuous process improvement
3. Programme managers will have a means to ensure that their software
development is aligned with, and supports, the business needs of the organization.

8. What are the benefits of ISO 9000 verification?
4. Provides know-how for establishing a quality management system.
5. Certification has become the minimum requirement of quality for any tender.
6. It is a status symbol for the organizations.
7. Improves products and services.
8. Improves employee morale.

9. What are the events associated with quality management?
Establishing, Documenting, Implementing, Maintaining, Continuously improving
its effectiveness.

10.What are the requirement of internal auditing?
. Set up an internal audit program
. Develop an internal audit procedure
. Plan internal audit procedure.
. Perform regular internal audits
. Take corrective action.







Part-B
1. Discuss in detail about the needs for standards (16)
2. Explain the ISO9000 series standard (16)
3. Explain the ISO9000-3 standard for software development. (16)
4. Explain in detail the CMM Model (16)
5. Explain the CMMI Model (16)
6. Explain the Six Sigma Concepts. (16)