SOFTWARE QUALITY MANAGEMENT 2 marks

Final Year Computer Science and Engineering, 8^th Semester

2 Marks Question and Answer

Subject Code & Name: SOFTWARE QUALITY MANAGEMENT

            UNIT-1-INTRODUCTION

1. Name some of the insights or characteristics of Quality.

• Quality is not absolute
• Quality is multidimensional
• Quality is subject to constraints
• Quality is about acceptable compromises
• Quality criteria are not independent, but interact with each other causing conflicts.

2. Quality is not absolute. Prove it.

            It means the different things in different situations with respect to solution. Quality cannot be measured upon a quantifiable scale as physical objects.

3. Give the formal definition of quality given by the ISO?

            The totality of features and characteristics of products or service that bear on the ability to satisfy specified or implied needs.

4. What is software quality?(NOV/DEC2009)

            Kitchen ham (1989 b) refers to software quality “fitness for needs” and claims quality involves matching expectations.

5. What are the different views of quality?

1. The transcendent view

2. The product-based view

3. The user-based view

4. The manufacturing view

5. The value-based view

6. Give the role of a project manager.

            A project manager has the responsibility for the project on the supply side. He is keen to produce a product that is reliable and maintainable and will keep the customer satisfied.

7. What is the hierarchical model? List its types.

            It is based upon a set of quality criteria, each of which has a set of measures or metrics associated with it.

• McCall model.
• Boehm model.

8. What are the roles of software project?

·         Project manager

·         Business analyst

·         Implementation programmer

·         Quality auditor

·         End user

·         Line manager

·         Project sponsor

9. How will you measure the software reliability?(nov/dec2009)

            Software reliability can measure in terms of:

• Accuracy
• Consistency
• Error tolerance
• Simplicity

10. What are the associated by McCall?

• Product operation
• Product revision
• Product transition

11. Why Quality is determined by people?

• It is people and human organizations who have problems to be solved by computer software
• It is people who define the problems and specify the solutions
• It is still currently people who implement designs and product code.
• It is people who test code

 12. Give the common characteristics shared by the two models?

• The quality criteria are supposedly based upon the user’s view.
• The models focus on the parts that designers can more readily analyze.
• Hierarchical models cannot be tested or validated. It cannot be shown that the metrics accurately reflect the criteria.
• The measurement of overall quality is achieved by a weighted summation of the characteristics.

13. What are the types of metrics?

            Metrics are classified into two types according to whether they are,

·         Predictive

·         Descriptive

14. Give the equations to calculate the McCall structureness?

            Structuredness as it simplest may be calculated in terms of the average length of code modules within the programs.

McCall structureness metric = n _{01 /}  n  _tot

15. Give the seven criteria of a good metric.

• Objectivity
• Reliability
• Validity
• Standardization
• Comparability
• Economy
• Usefulness

16. Give Gilbs quality attributes and resources?(apr/may2009)

            Gilbs proposed four quality attributes:

·         Workability

·         Adaptability

·         Usability

·         Availability

Gilbs proposed four quality resources;

·         Time

·         Money

·         People

·         Tools

17. Gilb suggested range of measures to quantify the resource attributes? What are they?

            Gilb proposed some measures to quantify the attributes. They are not transactional metrics:

• Transaction per second
• Records per minute
• Bytes per line
• Bits per node per second

18. What is GQM model?

            A goal driven method for developing and maintaining a meaningful metrics program that is based on three levels, goals, questions and metrics. The Goal – Question – Metrics approach is a paradigm for developing and maintaining a meaningful metrics program.

19. What are the three conditions that a software quality must meet?

• It must be clearly linked to the quality criterion that it seeks to measure.
• Be sensitive to the different degrees of the criterion.
• Provide objective determination of the criterion that can be mapped onto a suitable scale.

20. Give the role of quality auditor in the aspect of quality.

            He detects the departures from a quality solution, whether it its technical defects or a poor match to requirements.

21. What does an implementation programmer do?

            The person who writes the software and is highly defensive of the product of the labours and may be hard to convince that their codes do not meet technical or user requirements.

22. Who is an end user and project sponsor?

            An end user is a junior person who often has very little input onto the development process, but has to use the system till the end.

            The project sponsor is the one who pays the bill. They will often be remote from the day-to-day implementation issue and want a successful outcome to boost their prestige and justify the expenditure.

23. What is transcendent view?

            This view relates quality to excellence. An attempt to build software in a high excellence is likely to be constrained by resources.

24. List the six steps of GQM process.

·         Develop a set of corporate

·         Generate questions

·         Specify the measures

·         Develop mechanisms

·         Collect, validate and analyze the data

·         Analyze the data in a postmortem.

25. What are the three levels of GQM?

·         Conceptual level – Goals to identify what we want to accomplish relative to product.

·         Operational level – Questions help us understand how to meet the goal.

·         Quantitative level – Metrics identify the measures that are needed to answer the questions.

26. Mention the project parameters that affect the quality of product.

            Parameter that affect the quality of the product:

Reliability, maintainability and usability

UNIT-2

1. Define software quality assurance.

Software quality assurance is defined as a planned and systematic approach to the evaluation of the quality and adherence to software product standards of processes and procedures.

2. What are the processes of SQA in software development process?

·         Software design

·         Source code

·         Source code control

·         Code reviews

·         Change management

·         Configuration management

·         Release management

3. What is known as documentation standards?

            Documentation standards specify form and content for planning, control and product documentation and provide consistency throughout a project.

4. What are design standards?

            Design standards specify the form and content of the design product. They provide rules and methods for translating the software requirements into the software design and for representing it in the design documentation.

5. What are code standards?

            Code standards specify the language in which the code is to be written and define any restrictions on use of language features. They define legal language structures, style conventions, rules for data structures and interfaces and code documentation.

6. How are verification and validation done in SQA?

            SQA assures verification and validation activities by monitoring technical reviews, inspections and walkthroughs.

7. What are the processes in testing documentation?(nov/dec2009)

• Test plans
• Test specifications
• Test procedures
• Test reports

8. What are the different types of documentation?

• Software requirements
• User documentation
• Analysis documentation
• Architectural and implementation documentation
• Marketing documentation
• Technical documentation
• Design and implementation documentation n
• Design documentation
• Operation and maintenance documentation
• Testing documentation
• Installation and checkout documentation
• Source code documentation
• Project management documentation

9. What is SQA status report?

            SQA status is reported monthly. The content of this report will identify:

• Items produced by the SQA functions
• Significant software development compliance problems, if any, along with their agreed to and recommended corrective actions
• Audits, reviews and tests accomplished during the reporting period.

10. Define review.

            A process or meeting during which a software product is [examined by] project personnel, managers, users, customers, user representatives or other interested parties for comment or approval.

11. What are the types of software reviews?

            Software reviews may be divided into 3 categories:

• Software peer reviews
• Software management reviews
• Software audit reviews

12. What is inspection review?

            Inspection is a very formal type of peer review where the reviewrs are following a well-defined process to find defects.

13. What is the process in inspection review?

·         Planning

·         Overview meeting

·         Preparation

·         Inspection meeting

·         Rework

·         Follow-up

14. List the roles in inspection review.

• Moderator
• Reader
• Writer

15. What is meant by walkthrough reviews?

            It is a form of peer review where the author leads members of the development team and other interested parties through a software product and the participants ask questions and make comments about defects.

16. Who is author?

            The author, who presents the software product in step-by-step manner at the walk-through meeting and is probably responsible for completing most action items.

17. What are the roles in walkthroughs?

·         Author

·         Walkthrough leader

·         Recorder

18. List some guidelines of review.

• Review the product, not the producer
• Set an agenda and maintain it
• Take written notes
• Conduct meaningful training for all reviewers
• Review the early reviews

19. List the types of reviews.(nov/dec2009)

• Software requirements review
• Preliminary design review
• Critical design review
• Software verification and validation review
• Managerial review
• Software configuration management plan review
• Post-mortem review
• User documentation review, System test review

20. Define cost of quality.(apr/may2008)

            The cost of quality includes all costs incurred in the search of quality related activities. It may be divided into three types.

• Prevention cost
• Appraisal cost
• Failure cost

UNIT-3

1.      What are the Ishikawa basic tools?

Ishikawa basic tools are also called the seven quality control tools.

·         Check list or check sheet

·         Pareto diagram

·         Histogram

·         Scatter diagram

·         Run chart

·         Control chart

·         Cause-effect diagram

2.      What is paretto diagram?

It is a frequency chart of bars in descending order. It is mainly associated with types of problems. The lengths of the bars represent frequency or cost, and are arranged with longest bars on the left and the shortest to the right.

3.      State the use of a histogram.

            It is a graphic representation of frequency counts of a sample or a population. A histogram is a graphic summary of variation in a set of data. It enables us to see patterns that are difficult to see in a simple table of numbers.

4.      Define fish-bone diagram.

            The cause and effect diagram is called fish-bone diagram because of its shape. It describes a relationship between variables.

5.      What is the use of a Z-chart?

            The Z-chart is a combination chart that shows three perspectives in a single picture. A run chart is called Z-chart.

6.      What is the use of CASE tools?

            Computer Aided Software Engineering is the use of software tools to assist in the development and maintenance of software. Tools used to assist in this way as known as CASE TOOLS.

7.      Write short notes on code generation.

            Code generation is a mechanism to produce computer program in some automatic manner. Source code generation is the act of generating source code based on an ontological model such as a template.

8.      What are the objectives of inspections?

·         To find errors at the earliest

·         To ensure that the appropriate parties technically agreed

·         To verify that the work meets predefined criteria

·         To formally complete data on the product and the inspection process

9.      Why defect prevention is crucial to the software process?

            Finding and fixing errors accounts for much of the cost of software development and maintenance. Also the process of fixing defects is even more error prone than original software creation.

10.  What are the principles of software defect prevention?

·         The programmers must evaluate their own errors

·         Feedback is essential part of defect prevention

·         There is no single cure – all that will solve all the problems

·         Process improvement must be an integral part of the process

·         Process improvement tales time to learn

11.  What are the different steps of software defect prevention?

·         Defect reporting

·         Cause analysis

·         Action plan development

·         Action implementation

·         Performance tracking

12.  What are the deferent errors for which defect prevention analysis is required?

Technological, organizational, historic, group dynamic, individual and others.

    13. Define TDCE and PCE

TDCE is total defect containment effectiveness and PCE is the phase containment effectiveness.

   14. What are the activities associated with Defect injection and Removal.

·         Requirements phase

·         High level design

·         Low level design

·         Code implementation

·         Unit testing

·         Component testing

·         System testing

     15. What are reliability models?

The reliability model is used to estimate the latent defects in the process while shipping   to the customers.

Two types of reliability model:

·         Static model

·         Dynamic model

    16. What is Rayleigh model?

It is a parametric model in the sense that it is based on a specific statistical distribution. It encompasses both defect prevention and early defect removal. Strength of this model is it provides an excellent framework for quality management.

17.  Define CDF and PDF in Rayleigh model.

CDF  - cumulative distribution function

            CDF : F(t) = 1 – e ^–(t/c)m

PDF – probability density function

            PDF : f(t) = 2/t(t/c) ² e ^–(t/c)m

18. What are reliability growth models?

Software reliability growth models can be classified into two main classes depending on the   dependent variable of the model.

·         Time between failure model

·         Fault count model

   19. List out the Reliability Growth models.

·         Jelinski Moranda model.

·         LittleWood model

·         Goel Okumoto imperfect debugging model.

·         Goel Okumoto Nonhomogeneous Poison Process model(NHPP)

·         Musa-Okumoto Logarithmic Poison Execution Time model.

·         The Delayed S and Inflection S.

UNIT-4

1. What is quality management?

Quality management comprises all activities of the overall management function that determine the quality policy, objectives and responsibilities, and implement them by means such as other quality planning, quality control, etc.

2. What is quality planning?

Quality planning refers to the activities that establish the objectives and requirements for quality.

3. What is quality improvement?

QM aims at attaining unprecedented levels of performance which are significantly better than the past level.

4. What are the benefits of   QFD?

1.            Reduces product development time

2.            Reduce engineering costs

3.            Reduces the time to market.

4.            Improves design quality

5.            Improves customer satisfaction.

6.            Reduce quality costs.

5. What is internal benchmarking?

Internal benchmarking compares best practices followed in different departments with in a company instead of looking other companies.

6. What are the four p’s focused on effective software project management?

1.  People,

2.   Product

3.   Process

4.   Project

7. Define software configuration management.

SCM is a set of activities that have been developed to manage change throughout the life cycle of computer software.

8. Give the ISO definition on quality management.

            ISO defines “Quality management” as: what the organization does to ensure that its products or services satisfy the customer’s quality requirements and comply with any regulations applicable to those products or services.

9. What are the elements of Quality management?

·         Organizational structure

·         Responsibilities

·         Procedures

·         Processes

·         Resources

10. Give the procedures in Quality management.

·         Contract view

·         Design control

·         Document control

·         Purchasing

·         Customer supplies

·         Traceability

·         Process control

·         Checking, inspecting, measuring and testing

·         Non conforming product or services

·         Corrective action

·         Training

·         Protection of quality

·         Statistical process control

·         Quality system audit

11.  Mention the SPC techniques and its purposes.

·         Process flow charting – diagrammatic technique to illustrate the inputs and flow of a process.

·         Tally charts – are used in the conjunction with histograms to collect and display data. They are easy to use and clear.

·         Pareto analysis – it is designed to show what percentage of faults may be attributed to each cause.

·         Cause and effect diagram or fish bone diagram – this maps a input affecting a quality diagram.

12. What is Iceberg analogy?

            It describes the relationship between testing and field defect rates, the tip of the iceberg is the testing defect rate and the submerged part is the field defect rate. The size of the iceberg is equivalent to the amount of error injection.

13.  Write short notes on principles of Rayleigh model framework.

            The best scenario is to prevent errors from being injected into the development process. When errors are introduced, improve the front end of the development process to remove as many of them as early as possible. If the project is beyond the design and code phases, unit tests and any additional tests by the developers serve as gatekeepers for defects to escape the front- end process before the code is integrated.

14. What is Blitz testing?

            It is a generic tool whose purpose is to maintain and execute test acses of arbitrary complexity. Blitz can be used either as a command line tool or as a full-featured graphical user interface.

15. What are the activities of Reliability growth models?

·         Blitz testing

·         Customer evaluation

·         Code inspections

·         Design views

·         Extension of system tests

16. Define Lines of Code.

            Lines of code are software metrics used to measure the size of a software program by counting the number of lines in the text of the program’s source code.

17. Define Halstead’s Software Science.

            A computer program according to software science is a collection of tokens that can be classified as either operators or operands.

18. Define Cyclomatic Complexity.

            It is computed using a graph that describes the control flow of the program. The nodes of the graph correspond to the commands of a program. A directed edge connects two nodes if the second command might be executed immediately after the first command.

19. What are the survey methods of Customer satisfaction?

·         Face-to-face interviews

·         Telephone interviews

·         Mailed questionaries

20. Give the definition of Henry and Kafura’s structure complexity?

            Henry and Kafura’s structure complexity is defined as,

                        C _p = (fan_in X fan_out) ²                  

21. List out the probability sampling.

·         Simple random sampling

·         Systematic sampling

·         Stratified sampling

·         Cluster sampling

22.  Write short notes on Syntactic constructs.

            McCabe’s cyclomatic complexity is an index of binary decisions. It doesn’t distinguish the different kinds of control flow complexity such as loops Vs IF-THEN-ELSE. It is used to find out the field defect rates.

23. Write short notes on Structure metrics.

            Structure metric try to make into account the interactions between modules in a product or system and qualify such interactions. The most common metrics are the fan-in and fan-out metrics, which are based on the idea of coupling proposed by Yourdon and Constantine and Myers.

24. What is customer satisfaction analysis?

            Customer satisfaction is the ultimate validation of quality. Product quality and customer satisfaction together form the total meaning of quality. It is essential to the survival of businesses.

25. List out the attributes under each dimension of the satisfaction with company.

·         Technical solutions

·         Support and service

·         Marketing

·         Administration

·         Delivery

·         Company image

UNIT-5

1. What are the management responsibilities regarding ISO 9001 requirements?   

Management commitment, Customer focus, Quality policy, Planning, Responsibility, Authority, Communication, and Management review.

2. Define SPICE?

SPICE (Software Process Improvement and Capability dEvelopement) standard defines a set of requirements for software process assessment. The intent of the standard is to assist organizations in developing an objective evaluation of the efficacy of any defined software process.

3. What is MALCOLM  BALDRGE  award?

MALCOLM BALDRIGE award is the most prestigious quality award in the United States. The award is given annually to recognize U.S companies that exceed in quality management and quality achievement.

4. What are the capability levels defined in SPICE?

Level0: Not performed

1: Performed informally

2: Planned and tracked

 3: Well defined

4: Quantitatively controlled

 5: Continuously improving

5. What are the types of accreditation?

• First party
• Second party
• Third party.

6. What are the components of the ISO 9000 series to which SPICE is related?

 ISO 9001, ISO 9000-3, ISO 9004-4., ISO DIS.

7. What is and assessment instrument?

An assessment instrument is a tool, or set of tools, used during the performance of an assessment to assist the assessor in obtaining reliable, consistent and repeatable results.

8. What are the goals of SPICE project?

1.  Developing a working draft for  a standard for  software process  assessment

2.  Conducting industry trials of the emerging standards.

3.   Promoting the technology transfer of software process assessment into the software industry worldwide.

9. What are the benefits that an international standard will provide to industry?

1.  Software suppliers will submit to just one process assessment scheme.

2.     Software development organizations will have a tool to initiate and sustain a continuous process improvement

3.  Programme managers will have a means to ensure that their software development is aligned with, and supports, the business needs of the organization.

10. What are the benefits of  ISO 9000 verification?

4.  Provides know-how  for establishing a quality management system.

5.  Certification has become the minimum requirement of quality for any tender.

6.  It is a status symbol  for the organizations.

7.  Improves products  and services.

8.  Improves employee  morale.

11. What are the events associated with quality management?

Establishing, Documenting, Implementing, Maintaining, Continuously improving its effectiveness.

12What are the documents required to implement quality management system in an organization?

1.  Quality policy and quality objectives

2.  Quality manual

3.  Document to ensure  the effective planning, operation and control of its processes

4.  Records.

13. What are the pre-requisites for employees?

Education, training, skill, and experience

14.What are the requirement of internal auditing?

1.  Set up an internal audit program

2.  Develop an internal  audit procedure

3.  Plan internal audit procedure.

4.  Perform regular internal audits

5.  Take corrective action.

15. What are the different organizations to which the Malcolm Balridge award is given?

1.  Manufacturing

2.  Service

3. Small businesses

16.What are the different process maturity levels?

·         Initial

·         Repeatable

·         Defined

·         Managed

·         Optimizing

17. Who are the steps organizations has to take to improve their software capabilities??

1.  Understand the  current status

2.  Develop a vision of  the desired process

3.  Establish a list of process improvement actions.

4.  Produce a plan to accomplish the required actions.

5.  Commit the resources to execute theplans.

18. What are the requirements of  ISO 9001: 2000  standard?

1. Demonstrate ability to consistently provide product that meets customer and applicable regulatory requirements.

2.  Enhance  customer satisfaction.

19. What are the different principles of software assessment?

3.  Start with a process  model

4.  Observe strict  confidentiality

3.  Involve senior management

4.  Keep an open mind and a level head

5.  Focus on action

20. Who are the different  inspection participants?

1.  The moderator

2.  The producers

3.  The reviewers

21. Define software  engineering process.

The total set of software engineering activities needed to a user’s requirement into software.

22. Define software process architecture.

A  framework within which project specific software process  are defined

23. Define software process model.

One specific embodiment of software process architecture.

24. Define software process.

The set of activities, methods, and practices that are used in the production and evolution of software.

25. What are the critical software process issues?

Quality, product technology, Requirement instability and complexity.

26. What are the different types of software tests?

1.  Unit testing

2.  Integration testing

3.  Function testing

4.  Regression testing

5.  System test

27. Define testing.

The process of executing a program with the intention of finding errors.

28. Define debugging.

Diagnosing the precise  nature of  a known error  and then correcting it.

29. What are integration  tests.

Integration tests verify the interfaces between system parts suchas modules, components and subsystems.

30. What are regression tests and installation tests?

Regression tests run a subset of previously executed integration and function tests to ensure that program changes have not degraded the system.

Installation tests validate the instability and operability of the user’s system.

31. What are the major test plan elements?

1.  Establish objectives for each test phase

2.  Establish schedules and responsibilities for each test activity

3.  Determine the availability of tools, facilities,  and test libraries.

4.   Establish the procedure and standards to be used for planning and conducting the tests  and reporting the test results.

5.  Set the criteria for test completion as well as  for the success of each test.

32. What should be the qualities of assessment team members?

The assessment team members should all be experienced software developers, and one or more should have experience in each phase of the software process.

33. What are the different risks associated with a software process?

• Schedule conflict
• Inadequate support and
• Lack of follow through.

34. What are the basic objectives of inspections?

1.  To find errors at the  earliest

2.  To ensure that the  appropriate parties technically agree on the work.

3.  To verify that the work meets predefined  criteria.

4.  To formally complete a technical task

5.  To provide data on the product and the inspection process.

35. Why defect prevention is crucial to the software process?

Finding and fixing errors accounts for much of the cost of software development and maintenance. Also the process of fixing defects is even more error prone than original software creation.

36. What are the principles of software defect prevention?

1.  The programmers must evaluate their own  errors

2.  Feedback is essential part of defect prevention

3.  There is no single cure – all that will solve all the problems.

4.  Process improvement must be an integral part of the process.

5.  Process improvement takes time to learn.

37. What are the different steps of software defect prevention?

Defect reporting, Cause analysis, action plan development, action implementation, performance tracking and starting over.

38. What are the different errors for which defect prevention analysis is required?

·         Technological

·         Organizational

·         Historic

·         Group dynamic

·         Individual and others.

39. What are the different ways in which CMMI represents a process meta model?

• Continuous model
• staged model

40. What is PSP?

The personal software process emphasizes personal measurement of both the work product that is produced and the resultant quality of the work product.

41. What are the different framework activities defined by PSP model?

• Planning   
• High-level design  
• High level design-review    
• development and

• postmortem

42. What is clean room software engineering?

The   clean   room   process   emphasizes   rigor   in   specification   and   design,   and   formal verification of each design element using correctness proofs that are mathematical based. It also emphasizes statistical quality control. Cleanroom software engineering is a process model that removes defects before they can precipitate serious hazards.

43. What are the tasks associated with cleanroom  strategy?

Increment planning, Requirements gathering, Box structure specification, Formal design, and Correctness verification. Code generation, inspection and verification, statistical test planning, Statistical use testing and certification.

44. What are the different boxed used in cleanroom software engineering?

Black box, State box and Clear box

45. What is state box?

The state box is a simple generalization of a state machine. The state box uses a data abstraction to determine the transition to the next state and the action that will occur as a consequence of the transition.

46. What are the different models require for cleanroom software engineering certification?

1.  Sampling model

2.  Component model

3.  Certification model

47. What is object – oriented systems development methodology?

Object – oriented systems development is a way to develop software by building self contained modules or objects that can be easily replaced, modified and reused. Furthermore, it encourages a view of the world as a system of cooperative and collaborating systems.

48. What are the ISO 9000 series of quality management standards?

 ISO 9000, ISO9001, ISO9002, ISO9003, ISO9003, ISO9004

49. Define CMM.

The capability maturity model (CMM) for s/w is a widely accepted set of guidelines for developing high performance s/w organizations.

50. What is six sigma?

            It is a rigorous and disciplined methodology that uses data and statistical analysis to measure and improve a company’s operational performance by identifying and eliminating “defects” in manufacturing and service-related processes.

51. What are the metrics used in six sigma?

The two major types of six sigma metrics are:

• Classical measures of six sigma metrics
• Typical of six sigma measures

52. What are the different process model views?

Organizational view and Control and measurement view.