Page 189 - SOFTWARE TESTING & QUALITY ASSURANCE

Software Testing and Quality Assurance

List out the major quality measurement principles adopted by any major IT industry.

Software Quality Assurance

O ne of the world’s major multi-product insurance company called Star Insurance group was

facing issues related to its quality and hence identified the need to put into practice the
standardized enterprise test metrics to manage its product lifecycle.
After assessment, Star Insurance group developed a test metrics frame work that consisted of several
components essential for the success of developing the quality products.

Star Insurance group considered the following factors while designing the metrics:
1. Test metrics for the entire product life cycle management (including the base metrics and metrics
collected from the stakeholders).
2. Definitions of each metric.
3. Value of each metrics (This was determined and applied to each phase of the product life cycle).

Preston Company (third party consultant company leader in providing IT related solutions) partnered
with the insurance group and was able to develop an interview questionnaire comprising checklist
and a rating scale for assessing the current state of the metrics. They had collected views of
stakeholders through workshop and daily meetings with the project team to review status issues.
Finally they decided upon the frame work of the metrics, implemented a test metric solution and
developed the test metrics frameworks to provide knowledge transfer in support of the project.
Preston was able to achieve operational excellence through efficient test metrics. Based on the quality
and progressive metrics, project managers were able to take management decisions. Test metrics
reduced the risk of schedule overruns on software releases, thereby maintaining the high quality of
the application.
Questions
1. Why did Star Insurance Company identify the need for standardized enterprise test metrics?
2. What was the solution suggested by Preston company?

Adapted from http://www.questcon.com/documents/documents/1/EffectiveTestMetrics.pdf
12.4 Summary
• Quality is defined as the features or the attributes of the products that are appreciated by the end-
users or the customers. Quality assurance is an orderly procedure of inspecting if a particular
product or a service that is being developed is meeting the required standards.
• A good quality assurance system increases an organization’s credibility and belief as well as
improves work processes and efficiency that enables the organization to compete with others.
• When a software system or process reaches a particular standard and this standard satisfies the
customer expectations, then it is said to be a quality software system or process. The factors that
affect the quality of the software products are efficiency, integrity, usability, maintainability, and
flexibility.
• Software testing is an essential part of software quality assurance and denotes a review of
specification, design, and coding, where as software quality assurance involves different means of

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