Page 182 - SOFTWARE TESTING & QUALITY ASSURANCE

Mandeep Kaur, Lovely Professional University Unit 12: Software Quality Assurance

Unit 12: Software Quality Assurance

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction
12.1 Definition of Quality

12.2 Testing and Quality Assurance at Workplace
12.2.1 Difference between Software Testing and Quality Assurance
12.3 Quality Management in IT
12.4 Summary
12.5 Keywords
12.6 Self Assessment
12.7 Review Questions
12.8 Further Readings

Objectives
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
• Define quality

• Explain testing and quality assurance at workplace
• Explain quality management in IT
Introduction

Quality is defined as the features or the attributes of the products that are appreciated by the end-users
or the customers. “Quality means conformance to requirements “as indicated by Crosby in 1979.
Quality assurance is an orderly procedure of inspecting a particular product or a service that is being
developed to meet the required standards. Many organizations allocate a whole unit for quality
assurance purposes. A good quality assurance system not just enhances the organization’s credibility, it
also builds customer’s belief, thereby improving the process which helps the organization to compete
with others.

Did you know? During World War II, military weapons were checked and tested for defects after they
were developed. However, in today’s scenario quality assurance systems emphasize
on identifying the defects before the development of the final product.
Quality assurance is considered to be the most important activity for any business involved in software
development. The history of quality assurance in software development is similar to that of the history
of quality in hardware manufacturing. Software quality assurance is defined as a planned and
methodical pattern of actions used to ensure the quality of the product as per the standards established.
In order to follow quality guidelines, a company's management team frames quality assurance policies
and objectives. The company’s external consultant or management writes down the company policies
and requirements in a structured format, as to how the staff can implement the quality assurance
system. Once this guideline is framed and quality assurance procedures are implemented, an external
evaluator examines the company's quality assurance system to ensure its conformance with the set
standards such as ISO or CMM.

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