SW Quality Standards Flashcards
Know standards related to software quality, especially of processes
Advantages and disadvantages of standards?
Advantages:
- avoids repetition of past mistakes.
- easy exchange of people. People get efficient quicker.
- provides framework for quality management.
Disadvantages:
- not necessarily up-to-date
- may be too bureaucratic.
What is the relationship between: people processes products ?
People apply technologies (programming languages, tools) that are suitable to a problem.
People are guided through a project by a process.
Process must support people with regulation and flexibility where applicable.
Good processes help to reduce the influence of the people-variable and allows for less good workers to deliver good product quality.
What are some areas in software quality management for which standards are available?
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What are the 3 kinds of software products quality?
How can each kind be measured?
Internal quality: based on source code or specs. Not running the code.
External quality: based on executing code in a controlled environment.
Quality in use: based on a specific user’s point of view when used, in his environment.
(mynd 3-30) Internal and external can be measured by: functional suitability, performance efficiency, compatibility, usability, reliability, security, maintainability, portability.
Quality in use can be measured by: effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, freedom from risk, context coverage.
What is the difference between: SW life cycle model, SW process model, SW process ?
SW process: process used to develop software. Software is developed somehow. This “somehow” is the process.
SW process model: an abstract form of SW process. Indicate how SW should be developed. E.g. unified Process. Very specific.
SW life cycle model: E.g. Waterfall, incremental, etc. Very generic.
Difference between Software Lifecycle Processes and Software Lifecycle Models?
Software Lifecycle Processes: are about “what to do”.
Software Lifecycle Models: are about “how to do”.
CMMI: What is it? Goals vs. Practices? Staged vs. continuous Representations? - advantages/disadvantages?
CMMI is a model that tries to measure process maturity based on presence of certain process areas.
Goals: model components that are required in a process.
Practices: ways to achieve a goal.
Staged Representation: Set of process areas need to have a certain maturity to reach a Maturity Level.
+ a single “grade” - easy to interpret.
+ a proven path of improvement.
- does not support specializing in one process area that is more important in an organization.
Continuous Representation: Maturity of each process area is show separately by a Capability Level.
+ better display of individual strengths and weaknesses.
- multiple separate “grades” difficult to interpret.
What are maturity models?
They model quality of software processes and their usage.
- based on best practices that a process needs to have a certain maturity.
- best practices depend on project type.
- only describe characteristics of processes.
CMMI appraisals:
SCAMPI class A, B, C differences?
What is an evidence?
What are the levels of the “Fidelity Scale” for SCAMPI class C?
class A: most thorough assessment. External appraisers. class B: less strict. Partial self-assessment. class C: least thorough. Self-assessment.
“Evidence” is a source (interview, documents, artefacts) to use in conducting an appraisal of a process.
Fidelity scale can grade a practice as having: low... medium... high... ... odds of achieving the goal.
To which ISO term does the CMMI term “process area” correspond to?
“SPICE” vs CMMI?
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Differences in SPICE and CMMI: CMMI has also stages option for representation of a set of processes’ maturity.
SPICE’s and CMMI’s continuous representation are very similar. But SPICE is more like a generic framework, so CMMI has more detailed process descriptions. But SPICE has variants for other domains (automotive SPICE).
