Real Software QA

With the ever-increasing demand for software products, it is imperative for organizations to move away from trying to "test in" software quality and move toward adopting a comprehensive, total-life cycle software quality management approach. Such an approach is the basis of real software quality assurance (QA)-all the planned and systematic actions necessary to provide confidence that a system will perform satisfactorily in production. In contrast to software quality control (QC), which consists of detection activities such as testing that are product focused, software QA is process focused. Software QA includes defining, establishing, and monitoring the control practices that ensure policies, systems, and processes are effective and efficient across the entire software development life cycle. Linda Westfall focuses on defining the elements and techniques of a comprehensive software QA program. Her goal is to help you identify gaps and process improvement opportunities in your organization's software QA activities.