Software Quality Management Techniques | A Complete Guide with Best Practices

• In this article you will learn:
• 1.Introduction to a Software Quality Management.
• 2.Tools for a Software Quality Management.
• 3.Features and Characteristics.
• 4.Types and methods.
• 5.Benefits.
• 6.Conclusion.

Introduction to a Software Quality Management:

• Within information system, software is tool and tools have to be selected for a quality and suitability.
• This is a role of requirements. But software is more than tool.
• It finds a performance of the system and therefore it is critical to a quality of system.

Tools for a Software Quality Management:

1. Flowchart:

• A flowchart is the diagram that represents workflow process, algorithm, or a step-by-step a process connected by the arrows in various directions.
• These flowcharts are used to represent an organisational structures, login systems, document a work process flows, billing transaction flows etc.
• Flowcharts allow us to identify an actual flow of events in a system. It is a stage of a process that will provide an information or picture of what the process looks like and shed some light on a quality issues. The flowchart helps to identify where an exactly the quality problem lies in the process.

2. check sheet:

Check sheet is used to collect a data and information in simple format. It increases an accuracy in the data collection process with simple methods and formats. It also significantly reduces a data collection efforts. This data collection is based on a real facts and figures rather than any imaginary numbers and objects. This data collection method are produces some kind of a output and this output is in a various data format which is always simpler for analysis.

3. Cause-Effect Diagram:

• The cause-effect diagram is also known as a fish diagram because shape is somewhat similar to lateral view of a fish skeleton. During problem-solving everyone in a team has a various opinion about the problem or a root cause of the problem.
• The FISH The diagram captures all reasons, ideas and uses a brainstorming methods to identify strongest root cause. The cause-effect diagram records are causes of a specific problems or the problems related to the processor system. Will find many various causes for specific problem.

4. Pareto chart:

• A Pareto chart is the bar graph as well as line graph that graphically summarises the group of data. The data can be related to a cost, time, defects etc. Here the bars in the graph represent a values ​​in descending order i.e longest bar on a left and the shortest bar on right and the cumulative total is a represented by lines.
• The left vertical line or axis represents a frequency of an events; This event may be a related to cost, defect or a some other unit of measurement. The right vertical axis are represents a cumulative percentage of a total number of events.

5. Control chart:

• Control charts, also known as a statistical process controls, are used to find whether business processes are in a state of control. A control chart is a graph that shows how a process changes are over time.
• If analysis of control chart indicates that a processes are stable and have a little variation and are under control, no change is a necessary to process control parameters.
• The control chart helps to find the sources of variation if a processes are not under control. This means that are corrective action is need for the a process control parameter.

6. Histogram:

• A histogram is the graphical representation in bar chart that shows where a pattern occurs in the variety of positions. It is a distribution of numerical data and it offers an essential information about a size and dispersion or spread of a set of a sample data.
• The numerical information can be of any type like a marks obtained during an examination, number of a new employees joined in a specific month, number of complaints are received per category etc. The histogram shows an intensity of a specific problem and displays the data in one go. visual format.

7. Scatter Diagram:

A scatter diagram is the graphical representation that shows a relationship between two variables. It is the quality management tool, in which the data is represented as point and each point on a graph indicates a value on a horizontal and vertical axis. Of these two variables, one variable is an independent and the other variable is a dependent on a first variable.New and updated a tools continue to the proliferate across a software quality spectrum, with an expansion options in a testing automation, performance testing,mobile testing, niche testing bug a tracking and more. Here are few favourite software quality tools:

• Selenium (Web Application Testing).
• Robot Framework (Acceptance Testing).
• Appium (mobile testing).
• Jmeter (load test).
• Jenkins (Continuous Testing).
• Postman / Robot Framework (API Testing).
• firebug/firepath (online debugging).
• GitLab (project and source code hosting).
• UIAutomator (Galen Framework).
• Pycharm, Eclipse (source code editor) etc.

Features and Characteristics:

Software quality is the judgement about a value of a software from a specific point of view. Software quality is an often decomposed into individual quality characteristics.

User perspective:

• There are more features that are important from a point of view of the user.
• Does a software provide a full range of a desired functionality for its intended purpose?
• Does a software work reliably to produce right results on a right inputs?
• Does a software function safely and securely in a response to bad input?

Is a software easy to use?

• Does a software act reactively or does it seem unnecessarily slow?
• Does a software work well with the other software employed by the user?

Operational perspective:

• Considering a user quality problems as important, the IT group responsible for a deploying and maintaining software may be concerned with the other issues.
• Is a software protected from a malicious attacks aimed at compromising the other components of IT infrastructure?
• Does a software make good use of a computing resources or does it seem to need more memory and processing power than is necessary?

Developer perspective:

• Beyond a user and operational perspectives, developers of a software may consider the other quality factors, particularly focusing on a quality of the source code.
• How simple is it to modify the software to adapt to changing needs?
• Whether a software can be adapted to operate a well on a variety of various computing platforms.

Types and methods:

Software testing can be divided into the several types. Every type has its own application, requirements, advantages and disadvantages. Software testing is majorly divided into the two different types: functional and non-functional testing.

Functional testing-

Functional tests are run to an ensure that a software under test conforms to a software requirement specification. Functional testing types are include:

Unit testing- Unit testing involves a testing independent modules of a software. This test is usually run by a programmer to test a compiled code.

Integration testing- Testing of all the modules of the software to an nensure that they work in a harmony with each other. This testing technique is a especially important in a distributed systems.

System test- Testing an entire system as per a software requirements.

Cleanliness test- a Prudence test checks whether planned functionality is working as an expected.

Smoke test- Smoke test checks are whether a software is fully tested or not.

Interface test- Interface testing finds whether two separate a components of the software can communicate with the each other.

Regression testing- Regression testing is a testing the application as a whole to test new change in functionality.

Beta/acceptance testing- Acceptance or user acceptance testing tests a software against its requirements to check a whether the end to end flow is as per a requirements of user.

Non-functional test-

Non-functional testing tests a non-functional requirements of a software to determine its performance, usability, and reliability. Non-functional test types are include:

Performance test- Performance testing checks a whether software performs to find a standards and a performance requirements.

load test- Load testing finds the behaviour of software under a specific load conditions that may cause a performance degradation.

Benefits:

• Increase a productivity of a development team.
• Improved Product Quality – Test statistics and defect a tracking are more accurate and up-to-date.
• Rework costs are be reduced as a defects are detected earlier in a software project development life cycle at each stage.
• Increased level of a confidence in existing a product management and future product development.
• The increased reliability would be are highly qualitative as a software produced.
• Save money.
• Inspires a client confidence.
• Maintains a great user experience.
• Brings a more benefits.

Conclusion:

Have explored all basic quality management and improvement tools here in this article.Every quality tool has unique features and benefits for a specific situation and these tools can be used for problem-solving depending on the situation. However not all the quality control tools can be used for problem-solving.