Software Project Management
Lecture # 12
Outline
Chapter 26 – Quality Management What is Quality? Meaning of Quality in Various Context Software Quality Project Quality Management
Quality Planning Quality Assurance Quality Control
Cost of Quality
What is Quality?
British Standard Institute’s definition Quality is totality of features & characteristics of a
product or service which relate on its ability to satisfy a given need.
American Heritage Dictionary definition Quality is characteristic or attribute of something.
Quality of Software Quality of Software is software that does what it is
supposed to do. Customer dissatisfaction is lack of quality.
Quality in Various Context
In Manufacturing Context Quality means that the developed product
should meet its specification. In Software Development Context
Quality would mean that a software product conforms to its specification Software specification should be oriented
towards customer requirements. There may be some implicit requirements like
maintainability, usability, etc. but they are not included in the specification.
Quality in Various Context (Contd.)
Practically, its very difficult to write complete software specifications/ characteristics.
Therefore, although the product conforms to its specifications, it may not satisfy the customer as hence may not be considered as a high quality product.
Another School of Thought …
Quality can be achieved by defining standards & organizational quality procedures that check that these standards are followed by the software development team
Besides standards & procedures there are intangible aspects also involved in software quality like elegance, readability, etc.
Software Quality (All purpose definition)
Although there are many definitions of quality but for our purposes, software quality is conformance to: the explicitly stated functional & performance
requirements, explicitly documented development standards
& implicit characteristics that are expected of all
professionally developed software
Software Quality (All purpose definition)
This definition emphasizes on 3 important points S/W requirements – a foundation from which
quality is measured Standards – define development criteria
against which S/W is engineered Implicit requirements – often go
unmentioned but if not met, can cause suspicion in quality
Project Quality Management PMBOK
It is a subset of project management. It includes the processes required to ensure
that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken.
It includes “all the activities of the overall management function that determine the quality policy, objectives and responsibilities and implements them by means such as quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement, within the quality system” *
* International Organization for Standardization. ISO 8402.1994. Quality Management and Quality Assurance. Geneva, Switerland: ISO
Press
Project Quality Management PMBOK
Hence the major project quality management processes are: Quality Planning
Identifying quality standards relevant to project and determining how to satisfy them
Quality Assurance Evaluating overall project performance on a regular
basis to ensure that project will satisfy the relevant quality standards
Quality Control Monitoring specific project results to determine their
compliance to relevant standards and identifying ways to eliminate causes of unsatisfactory performance
Project Quality Management Overview
Please note that …
PMBOK Guide describes the quality management compatible with Quality as defined by ISO (ISO 9000 and 10000
series of standards) Proprietary approaches recommended by Deming,
Juran, Crosby and others Non proprietary approaches such as Total Quality
Management (TQM), Continuous Improvement and others
Project Quality Management – Quality Planning
Project Quality Management Quality Planning Inputs
Quality Policy Overall intentions & direction of organization with regard to
quality, formally expressed by top management. Scope Statement
Documents major deliverables and project objectives as per stakeholders requirements
Product description Contains details of tech. issues that may affect quality
Standards and regulations Application area specific standards and regulations
Other process outputs Processes in other (PMBOK) knowledge areas may
produce certain outputs that may be considered in quality planning
Project Quality Management Quality Planning Tools & Techniques
Benefit/cost analysis This analysis must be considered in quality planning.
Benefits mostly outweigh the costs. Primary benefit of meeting quality requirements is less rework.
Primary cost of meeting quality requirements is expenses of project quality management.
Benchmarking Comparing actual or planned project activities to those of
other (appropriate) projects for improvement and performance measurement.
Flowcharting Diagrams that show how various elements inter-relate.
This may help project team to anticipate what and where quality problems may occur.
Design of experiments Statistical method to help identify factors that may
influence specific variables, applied to product of project.
Cost of quality (discussed later in detail) Total cost of all efforts to achieve product/service
quality
Project Quality Management
Quality Planning Outputs Quality Management Plan
Describes how project team will implement the quality policy (organizational structure, responsibilities, procedures, processes, resources to implement quality management)
Operational Definitions Describe what something is and how it is measured by
the quality control process. Checklists
Used to verify if a required set of steps has been performed
Inputs to other processes Quality planning may identify need for further activity in
other areas
Project Quality Management – Quality Assurance
Project Quality Management
Quality Assurance Input Quality management plan
Output of quality planning Results of quality control measurements
Records of quality control testing and measurement in a format for comparison and analysis
Operational definitions Output of quality planning
Project Quality Management
Quality Assurance Tools & Techniques Quality planning tools and techniques
As discussed in quality planning section Quality audits
A structured review of quality management activities which can be random or scheduled.
The objective is to identify lessons learned to improve performance this project and other projects within the organization.
Auditors can be in-house or from third-party.
Project Quality Management
Quality Assurance Outputs Quality Improvement
Includes actions to increase effectiveness and efficiency of project.
Implementing quality improvements include change requests, corrective actions, etc. and are handled according to procedures of change control.
Project Quality Management – Quality Control
Project Quality Management
Quality Control Inputs Work results
Both process and product results – information about the planned or expected results (from project plan) should be available along with information about actual results/
Quality management plan Output of quality planning
Operational definitions Output of quality planning
Checklists Output of quality planning
Project Quality Management Quality Control Tools & Techniques
Inspection Includes activities such as measuring, examining and testing to
determine whether results conform to requirements. Inspections are also called reviews, audits, walkthroughs.
Control charts These are graphic display of results, over time, of a process. They can be used to monitor any type of output variable, for
example, cost and schedule variances, volume and frequency of scope changes, errors in projects, etc.
Pareto diagrams It is a histogram ordered by frequency of occurrence, that shows
how many results were generated by type or category of identified cause.
Problems causing greatest number of defects should be fixed first.
Conceptually these diagrams are related to Pareto Principle (80/20 principle – 80% of problems are due to 20% causes)
Statistical sampling It involves choosing part of a population of interest for
inspection, e.g., selecting 10 engg. drawings randomly from 75.
Appropriate sampling (technique) can reduce cost of quality control.
Flowcharting As described earlier – helps in problem analysis
Trend analysis Mathematical techniques to forecast future outcomes based
on historical data. Trend analysis is used to monitor: technical performance – how many errors or defects have been
identified, how many remain uncorrected Cost and schedule performance – how many activities per
period were completed with significant variances
Project Quality Management
Quality Control Outputs Quality improvement
As described earlier Acceptance decisions
Items inspected may be accepted or rejected. Rejected items may require rework.
Rework It is to bring the defective or unconforming item in
compliance with the requirements or specifications. Completed checklists
Completed checklists become part of project record. Process adjustments
Involve immediate corrective or preventive action as a result of quality control measurements.
Project Quality Management Quality Management is an umbrella activity that is
applied through out the software process. Every one involved in software engineering
process is responsible for quality. Emphasis on quality in all software engineering
activities reduces the amount of rework that the software engineering team must do this eventually lowers costs, improves time to market
The team must identify SQA activities that will filter errors out of the work products before they are passed on. But before doing so, they must define software quality at different levels of
abstraction SQA Plan is created to define the quality strategy of the team
Cost of Quality
It includes all costs incurred in performing quality related activities
Cost of quality studies are conducted to Provide a baseline for current cost of quality Identify opportunities for reducing cost of quality Provide normalized basis of comparison (usually
in dollars) Quality costs are divided into
Prevention costs Appraisal costs Failure costs
Cost of Quality (Contd.)
Prevention costs relate to Quality planning Formal technical reviews Test equipment training
Appraisal costs relate to Activities to gain insight into product – “first time
through” each process, e.g., In-process and inter process inspection Equipment calibration &maintenance testing
Cost of Quality (Contd.)
Failure costs Those that would disappear if no defects
appeared before shipping a product to customer Failure costs subdivided into 2 types
Internal failure costs (related to defects found before product is shipped) Rework, repair & failure analysis mode
External failure costs (related to defects found after product is shipped) Complaint resolution, product return and replacement,
helpline support & warranty work
Relative cost of correcting an error
Refer to figure 26.1
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Req. Design Code Dev.Test
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Field Op
References
Various topics – from Chapter 26 Roger Pressman
Project Quality Management – from PMBOK2000
