Elements of the quality plan

6.3 Elements of the quality plan

All or some of the following items, depending on the project, comprise the elements of a project quality plan:

(1) Quality goals The term “quality goals” refers to the developed software system’s sub-

stantive quality requirements. Quantitative measures are usually preferred to qualitative measures when choosing quality goals because they provide the developer with more objective assessments of software performance during the development process and system testing. However, one type of goal is not totally equivalent to the other. The pos- sible replacement of qualitative with quantitative measures is illustrated in the following example.

Example

A software system to serve the help desk operations of an electrical appli- ance manufacturer is to be developed. The help desk system (HDS) is intended to operate for 100 hours per week. The software quality assur- ance team was requested to prepare a list of quantitative quality goals appropriate to certain qualitative requirements, as shown in Table 6.1.

Table 6.1: Help desk requirements and quantitative goals

6 HDS qualitative

Related quantitative quality goals

D requirements evelopment

The HDS should be A new help desk operator should be able to learn the details user friendly

of the HDS following a course lasting less than 8 hours, and to master operation of the HDS in less than 5 working days.

The HDS should be HDS availability should exceed 99.5% (HDS downtime should not very reliable

exceed 30 minutes per week).

and quality

The HDS should The system’s recovery time should not exceed 10 minutes in 99% operate continuously of cases of HDS failure.

The HDS should be An HDS operator should be able to handle at least 100 customer highly efficient

calls per 8-hour shift.

The HDS should Waiting time for an operator response should not exceed

lan

provide high quality 30 seconds in 99% of the calls. Achievement of this goal depends service to the

s on the combination of software features and number of

applying customers

workstations installed and operated.

The quality goals should reflect the major acceptance criteria indicated in the customer’s requirement document (i.e., the RFP document). As such, quality goals serve as measures of the successful achievement of the customer’s quality requirements.

(2) Planned review activities The quality plan should provide a complete listing of all planned review

activities: design reviews (DRs), design inspections, code inspections, and so on, with the following determined for each activity:

■ The scope of the review activity ■ The type of the review activity ■ The schedule of review activities (as defined by its priority and the

succeeding activities of the project process) ■ The specific procedures to be applied

■ Who is responsible for carrying out the review activity? (3) Planned software tests

The quality plan should provide a complete list of planned software tests, with the following designated for each test:

■ The unit, integration or the complete system to be tested ■ The type of testing activities to be carried out, including specification

of computerized software tests to be applied ■ The planned test schedule (as defined by its priority and the succeed- ing activities of the project process)

■ The specific procedures to be applied 103 ■ Who is responsible for carrying out the test.