Quality Assurance

Quality assurance or software quality assurance has been defined as a planned and systematic pattern of all the actions necessary to provide adequate confidence that software conforms to established technical requirements (Chow, 1985). The key ideas of quality assurance are: Comprehensiveness. Quality assurance is not restricted to the function of a software quality group or phase. It includes all the necessary activities that contribute to the quality of software throughout the entire life cycle of a project. Planning. The emphasis is on a systematic plan to achieve the objectives of software quality. The quality of a piece of software is not left to the efforts of individuals. Relativity. The notion of quality is relative to some requirements. There is no absolute sense of quality. The purpose of quality assurance is not to guarantee 100% reliability or zero defect software. It is rather to increase confidence that every reasonable effort has been made to ensure the quality of the end product. Quality therefore equals conformance to requirements, not excellence. Cost. When purchasing any product, the level of quality of a product is usually reflected in its price. Hence, software quality involves increased cost. Product quality is therefore wholly a matter of customer choice. It is essential at the requirements analysis stage for the analyst to identify appropriate customer quality needs.