Software Quality

Chapter 3The Software Quality Challenges

3.1 Introduction

A basic question often asked is “Do we need a specialized quality assurance methodology for software products?” In other words, Why don't we use the general quality assurance tools and methodologies applied successfully in the food and metal industries, as in many others? The answer rests in the unique character of software, the software development process, and its maintenance. Thus, we are inevitably faced with a need for unique quality assurance tools and methodologies for software development and maintenance.

The other topic of the chapter deals with “the software development, maintenance, and SQA environment” – the combination of legal, managerial, social, and technological requirements that need to be fulfilled with the software development, maintenance, and SQA activities.The need to cope with the unique difficulties of assuring software quality in the software development, maintenance, and SQA environment is the very challenges of software development, maintenance, and SQA.

This chapter deals with two basic topics:

1. The uniqueness of software quality assurance in relation to the characteristics of software products and their development process.
2. Software development, maintenance, and the SQA environment.

3.2 The Uniqueness of Software Quality Assurance

“What is so special about software quality that it needs separate warranty documents, and a specialized ISO 9000 standard all of its own?” I was asked by my ...