MCA-239
Software Quality Management
Quality as a managed system — quality factors and assurance components, the SQA architecture and who runs it, CASE tools and metrics, standards and costs.
- Semester
- Semester 3
- Credits
- 3
- Scheme
- 3 lectures a week
- Contact hours
- 40 across four units
- Category
- Core Elective - III
What the paper is
Software Quality Management is the companion to Software Testing and covers everything testing is only one part of. It is taught from Galin, and the organising idea is that quality is produced by a system of components — contract review, quality plans, reviews, audits, configuration management, training — rather than by testing harder at the end.
Unit I establishes the vocabulary that everything after it uses: the software quality factors, grouped by product operation, revision and transition. Being able to name them and classify a given requirement against them answers a surprising share of the paper.
Units III and IV turn measurable: quality metrics split into process and product, then the standards — ISO, CMMI, IEEE, Six Sigma — and the classic and extended models of the cost of quality. The cost models are the most computational part of the paper.
What to concentrate on
- Learn the quality factor models — McCall's classification into product operation, revision and transition — well enough to classify any requirement on sight. It is the most reused idea in the paper.
- The difference between quality assurance and quality control is asked nearly every year, usually as an opening question. One precise sentence each is enough.
- For Unit IV, the cost of quality model — prevention, appraisal, internal failure, external failure — is the key structure, along with knowing what CMMI's maturity levels are. Both are list-shaped and quick to secure.
Syllabus, unit by unit
Summarised from the approved scheme. Hours are the contact hours the scheme allots, which is a fair guide to where the marks sit.
Unit I · Fundamentals and software quality assurance
10 hours- Defining software quality; the SQA context and challenges; environments for SQA
- The relationship between software quality and the development lifecycle
- Software quality assurance versus software quality control
- Components of an SQA system; translating requirements into quality factors
- Product operation, revision and transition factors; alternative models; SQA tools
Unit II · Tailoring the SQA system and its participants
10 hours- The SQA architecture; pre-project components: contract review and quality plans
- Lifecycle components: review, audit planning and implementation, testing
- Infrastructure and management components; organising SQA; guidelines for construction
- Participants in software quality management: the SQA management organisation, roles and activities
Unit III · CASE tools and quality metrics
10 hours- Overview of CASE tools and their contribution to the software product
- CASE tools in software maintenance and project quality
- Software quality metrics: classification
- Process metrics and product metrics; implementation and limitations
Unit IV · Standards, costs and the future
10 hours- Scope of quality standards; Six Sigma; overview of ISO, CMMI and IEEE standards with examples
- Cost of software quality metrics
- The classic and extended models of the cost of software quality; application and problems
- The future of software quality: SQA challenges and capabilities
How it is examined
- Question 1 is compulsory, covers the whole syllabus, and is made of objective or short-answer questions. It carries 12 marks.
- The rest of the paper is four units matching the four above. Each unit sets two questions and you attempt one, so there are four more answers at 12 marks each.
- Examiners are asked to map every question to a course outcome using Bloom's taxonomy, which is why questions are phrased as “apply”, “analyse” or “evaluate” rather than only “explain”.
The pass mark is 40 out of 100 in every paper.
Learning objectives
- Fundamentals of software quality and software quality factors
- Components of and participants in software quality management
- Software quality metrics and models
- Standards and the cost of software quality, and the future of quality management
Assumed beforehand
- Fundamentals of software engineering
Paired in the scheme with MCA-267 Lab based on Core Elective III.
Books it is taught from
- TB1Daniel Galin, “Software Quality Assurance: From Theory to Implementation”, Addison Wesley, 1st edition, 2003
- TB2Stephen Kan, “Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering”, Addison Wesley, 2nd edition, 2002
- TB3Claude Y. Laporte and Alain April, “Software Quality Assurance”, Wiley, 1st edition, 2017
Notes for MCA-239
Lecture notes, question papers and assignments filed against MCA-239 are in the library. Everything there has been checked by a moderator before it appears, and an account is free — new ones are approved by hand, which is what keeps the shelf clean.