Software Project Management

Lecture 25

Software Quality
 Topics Covered
• Introduction
• Place of Software Quality in project planning
• Importance of software quality
• Defining software quality
• ISO 9126
 Introduction
• While quality is generally agreed to be ‘ a
good thing’ , in practice what people really
mean by the ‘quality’ of a system can be vague
• We therefore need to define precisely what
qualities we require of a system
• However this is not enough- we need to judge
objectively whether a system meets our
quality requirements and this need
measurement
THE PLACE OF SOFTWARE QUALITY IN
PROJECT PLANNING
• Quality will be of concern at all stages of project
planning and execution, but will be particular
interest at Stepwise framework
• Step 1 : Identifying project scope and objectives
Some objective could relate to the quality of the
application to be delivered
• Step 2 : Identifying project infrastructure
Within this step activity identifies installation
standards and procedures. Some of these will
almost certainly be about quality requirements.
THE PLACE OF SOFTWARE QUALITY IN
PROJECT PLANNING CONT’D
• Step 3 : Analyze project characteristics
In this activity the application to be implemented
will be examined to see if it has any special
quality requirements.
• Step 4 : Identify the product and activities of the
project. It is at that point the entry, exit and
process requirement are identified for each
activity
• Step 8 : Review and publicize plan. At this stage
the overall quality aspects of the project plan are
reviewed
 THE IMPORTANCE OF SOFTWARE
QUALITY
• Increasingly criticality of software: The final customer
or user is naturally anxious about the general quality of
software.
• The intangibility of software : This makes it difficult to
know that a particular task in a project has been
completed satisfactory.
• Accumulating errors during software development : As
computer system development is made up of a number
of steps where the output from one step is the input to
the next steps, the error in the earlier deliverable will
be added to those in the later step, leading to an
accumulating detrimental effect.
 DEFINING SOFTWARE QUALITY
For any software system there should be three
specification
• Functional specification describing what the
system is to do
• Quality specification concerned with how well
the function are to operate
• Resource specification concerned with how
much is to be spent on the system
 DEFINING SOFTWARE QUALITY
CONT’D
When there is concerned about the need for a
specific quality characteristics in a software
product then a quality specification with the
following minimum details should be drafted
• Definition/description : definition of the
quality characteristics
• Scale : the unit of measurement
 DEFINING SOFTWARE QUALITY
CONT’D
• Minimally acceptable : the worst value which
might be acceptable if other characteristics
compensated for it, and below which the
product would have to be rejected out of
hand
• Target range: the range of values within which
it is planned the quality measurement
• Now: the value that applies currently
 ISO 9126
• ISO 9126 standards was first introduced in
1991 to tackle the question of the definition
of software quality
• THE ORIGINAL 13 page document was
designed as a foundation upon which further
more detailed standard could be built.
• ISO9126 documents are now very lengthy
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
Motivation might be-
• Acquires who are obtaining software from
external suppliers
• Developers who are building a software
product
• Independent evaluator who are accessing the
quality of a software product, not for
themselves but for a community of user
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
• ISO 9126 also introduces another type of
elements – quality in use- for which following
element has been identified
• Effectiveness
• Productivity
• Safety
• Satisfaction
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
ISO 9126 identifies six major software quality
characteristics
• Functionality
• Reliability
• Usability
• Efficiency
• Maintainability
• portability
 ISO 9126 CONT’D
• Once the requirements for the software product
have been established, the following steps are
suggested
• Judge the importance of each quality
characteristic for the application
• Select the external quality measurements within
the ISO 9126 framework relevant to the qualities
prioritized
• Many measurement onto ratings that reflect user
satisfaction
 PRACTICAL SOFTWARE QUALITY
MEASURES
• Each project needs to devise its own measures to
meet its specific need
• The measures described relate to the final
software products of a project
 Reliability
 Availability
 Mean time between failures
 Failure on demands
 Support activity
 PRACTICAL SOFTWARE QUALITY
MEASURES CONT’D
Maintainability
• A key component of this is changeability which
relates to the ease with which software can be
modified
• Maintainability is changeability plus new quality,
analyzability
Extendibility
• it has two aspects one is ease with which existing
code can be changed while another could be the
ease with which new functionality can be added
PRODUCT VERSUS PROCESS QUALITY
MANAGEMENT
• The system development process is made up of a
number of activities that are linked together so that
the output from one activity is the input to the next.
• Thus program testing will depend on there being a
program to test which will be the deliverable from the
program coding stage.
• Error can enter the process at any stage.
• They can either be introduced because of a defect in
the way a process is carried out, as when the software
developers make mistakes in the logic of their
software.
PRODUCT VERSUS PROCESS QUALITY
MANAGEMENT CONT’D
• Error that creep in the early stages are more expensive
to correct at later stages for the following reasons
• The later the error is found , the more rework at more
stages of development will be needed
• The general tendency is for each successive stage of
development to be more detailed and less capable to
absorb change.
• Following process requirements should be specified
• Entry requirement
• Implementation requirement
• Exit requirement
 EXTERNAL STANDARDS
• BS EN ISO 9001:200
The standard is built on a foundation of the following principles
• Understanding by an organization of the need of their customer so that
they can meet or even exceed those requirements
• Leadership to provide the unity of purpose and direction needed to
achieve quality objective
• Involvement of staff at all level
• A focus on individual process which create intermediate or deliverable
product & service
• A focus on the system of interrelated processes that create delivered
product & services
• Continuous improvement of the process
• Decision making based on factual evidence
• Building mutually beneficial relationships with suppliers
 EXTERNAL STANDARDS CONT’D
ISO 15504
• ISO/IEC 15504 is a standard for process
assessment that shares many concepts with
CMMI
• The two standard should be compatible
• Like CMMI the standard is designed to provide
guidance on the assessment of software
development process
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY
• Three main themes emerge
Increasing visibility
Procedure structure
Checking intermediate stages
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
Inspections
• It is very effective way of removing superficial
errors.
• It motivates developers to produce better
structured and self explanatory software.
• It helps spread good programming practice as
the participants discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of specific piece of code.
• It enhance team spirit.
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
The general principles behind Fagan method
• Inspection are carried out on all major
deliverables.
• All types of defects are noted.
• Inspection can be carried out by colleagues at
all levels except the very top.
• Inspection can be carried using a predefined
set of steps.
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
Structured programming and clean room
software development
• With this type of development there are three
separate teams
A specification team
A development team
 a certification team
 TECHNIQUES TO HELP ENHANCE
SOFTWARE QUALITY CONT’D
Formal methods
• Precondition
• Post condition
Software quality circle
• Staff are involved in the identification of sources
of errors through the formation of quality circle.
These can be set up in all departments of an
organizations including those producing software
where they are known as software quality
circle(SWQC)
Study of any software project management
software : viz Project 2000 or equivalent
• Microsoft Project is a project management software
program, developed and sold by Microsoft, which is
designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan,
assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing
the budget, and analysing workloads.
• Microsoft Project was the company's third Microsoft
Windows-based application, and within a couple of years of
its introduction it became the dominant PC-based project
management software.
• . Microsoft Project's proprietary file format is .mpp.
• Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server are the
cornerstones of the Microsoft Office enterprise project
management (EPM) product.
 Application & Scope of research
Application
• PRINCE2
Scope of research
• Development of new software quality