CS 1632 SOFTWARE
QUALITY ASSURANCE
2 Marks
Sample
Questions and Answers
1. Define quality.
Quality is the degree of goodness of
a product or service or perceived by the customer.
Quality concept is the way business
organizations perform their business activities that
focuses on two things.
2. What is quality cost?
The expenditure incurred by the
producer, by the user and by the community associated
with the product and service quality.
3. What are the building blocks of
total quality management?
Management commitment, customer
focus, process focus, continuous improvement,
benchmarking, teams, supplier teaming,
employee involvement, training of employees,
inventory management, communication.
4. What are the 7 QC tools?
1. Check sheet
2. Graphs
3. Histograms
4. Pareto charts
5. Cause and effect diagrams
6. Scatter charts
7. Control charts
5. What is business process
reengineering?
BPR is the search for, and the
implementation of, radical change in business process to
achieve breakthrough results Define
Quality Function Deployment.
6. Define Quality Function Deployment.
QFD is a systematic and structured
planning tool which is used to convert the voice of
the customer into appropriate
requirements.
7. Define six sigma.
Six sigma is a highly disciplined
process that helps the enterprise to focus on
developing and delivering new perfect
products and services.
8. What are the uses of arrow diagram?
Arrow diagrams help in scheduling the
activities so that any project can be completed in
the best possible way. It will provide
a time sequential action plan for all the tasks that
are to be carried out in a project.
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9. What are the different dimensions of
quality?
Performance, features, reliability,
conformance, durability, serviceability, aesthetics,
perceived quality and reputation,
response.
10. What is external failure?
Costs of correction methods adopted to
meet quality standards after reaching the
customers.
11. What are the uses of control
charts?.
1. Monitoring the process.
2. Identifying the state of statistical
control
3. Finding the reasons for out of
control.
4. finding out of mean and variation
5. identifying the randomly occurring
variations
12. Steps involved in the bench marking
process.
Decide the function to be
benchmarked, look into and understand the current
performance, plan, study the other
players in the market, learn from the data that you
have collected, implement the findings.
13. What is statistical process
control?
Statistical process control
procedures are designed to divert attention from individual
data and focus on the system as a
whole. SPC is used to measure and control the degree
of variation in material, service,
process and product.
14. Define TQM.
Total quality management is
customer oriented management philosophy and
strategy. It is centered on quality so
as to result in customer delight.
15. What is quality planning?
Quality planning refers to the
activities that establish the objectives and requirements
for quality.
16. What is quality improvement?
QM aims at attaining unprecedented
levels of performance which are significantly
better than the past level.
17. 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.
18. What are the benefits of QFD?
1. Reduces product development time
2. Reduce engineering costs
3. Reduces the time to market.
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4. Improves design quality
5. Improves customer satisfaction.
6. Reduce quality costs. etc.
19. What is internal benchmarking>?
Internal benchmarking compares best
practices followed in different departments with
in a company instead of looking other
companies.
20. What are the four p’s focused on
effective software project management?
1. People, 2. Product, 3. Process, 4.
Project
21. Define software configuration
management.
SCM is a set of activities that have
been developed to manage change throughout
the life cycle of computer software.
23. What are CASE tools?
CASE is the use of computer based
support in the S/W development process. Tools
used to assist in this way are known as
CASE tools.
24. What are function-oriented metrics?
Function oriented software metrics
use a measure of the functionality delivered by the
application as a normalization value.
Since functionality can not be measured directly, it
must be derived indirectly using other
direct measures.
25. Define white box testing?
White box testing sometimes called
as glass box testing is a test case design method
that uses the control of the procedural
design to drive test cases.
26. What are the steps implied by
statistical quality assurance?
1. Information about s/w defects,
2. An attempt is made to trace each defect to its
underlying cause, 3. Using the pareto
principle, 4. Move to correct the problems that have
caused the defects.
27. Define Verification and Validation.
Verification refers to the set of
activities that ensure that s/w correctly implements a
specific function. Validation refers to
a different set of activities that ensure that the s/w
that has been built is traceable to
customer requirements.
28. What is RMM plan?
The risk mitigation, monitoring, and
management plan documents all work performed
as part of risk analysis and is used by
the project manager as part of the overall project
plan. Once the RMMM has been documented
and the project has begun risk mitigation
and monitoring steps commence.
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29. What are the qualities team leaders
should posses?
Motivation, organization, ideas and
innovation, problem solving, managerial identity,
achievement, and influence and team
building.
30. What is an agile team?
Agile software development encourages
customer satisfaction and early incremental
delivery. Agile team Is a highly
motivated project team which adopts informal methods,
and overall development simplicity.
31. What are the categories of
activities connected with measurement process?
Formulation, Collection, Analysis,
Interpretation and feedback.
31. What are the different measurable
characteristics of an OO design?
Size, complexity, coupling,
sufficiency, completeness, cohesion, primitiveness,
similarity, volatility.
32. What are the measures of software
quality?
Correctness, maintainability,
integrity usability.
33. What is metrics evaluation?
Metrics evaluation focuses on the
underlying reasons for the results obtained and
produces a set of indicators that guide
the project or process.
34. What is software quality assurance?
Software quality assurance is a
planned and systematic pattern of actions that are
required to ensure high quality in
software.
35. What is SQA group?
SQA group consists of many different
constituencies like software engineers, project
managers, customers, salespeople and
the individuals which are having software quality
assurance responsibility.
36. What are the activities associated
with SQA group?
Planning, oversight, record keeping,
analysis and reporting.
37. What are the different SCM
features?
Versioning, dependency tracking and
change management, requirements tracing,
configuration management, audit trails.
38. What are reactive risk strategies?
Reactive strategy the software team
does nothing about risks until something goes
wrong.
39. What are the characteristics of
software risks?
Uncertainty and loss
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40. What is software availability?
Software availability is the
probability that a program is operating according to
requirements at a given point in time.
41. What are the management
responsibilities regarding ISO 9001 requirements?
Management commitment, Customer
focus, Quality policy, Planning, Responsibility,
Authority, Communication, and
Management review.
42. 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.
43. 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.
44. What are the ISO 9000 series of
quality management standards?
ISO 9000, ISO9001, ISO9002,
ISO9003, ISO9003, ISO9004
45. Define CMM.
The capability maturity model (CMM)
for s/w is a widely accepted set of guidelines for
developing high performance s/w
organizations.
46. 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.
47. What are the types of
accreditation?
First party, Second party, Third
party.
48. What are the components of the ISO
9000 series to which SPICE is related?
ISO 9001, ISO 9000-3, ISO 9004-4.,
ISO DIS.
49. 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.
50. 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 world wide.
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51. 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.
52. What are the benefits of ISO 9000
verification?
1. Provides know-how for establishing
a quality management system.
2. Certification has become the
minimum requirement of quality for any tender.
3. It is a status symbol for the
organizations.
4. Improves products and services.
5. Improves employee morale.
53. What are the events associated with
quality management?
Establishing, Documenting,
Implementing, Maintaining, Continuously improving its
effectiveness.
54. What 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.
55. What are the pre-requisites for
employees?
Education, training, skill,
experience
56. 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.
57. What are the different
organizations to which the Malcolm Balridge award is given?
1. Manufacturing
2. Service
3.Small businesses
58. What are the different process
maturity levels?
1. Initial
2. Repeatable
3. Defined
4. Managed
5. Optimizing
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59. 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.
60. 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.
61. What are the different principles
of software assessment?
1. Start with a process model
2. Observe strict confidentiality
3. Involve senior management
4. Keep an open mind and a level head
5. Focus on action
62. Who are the different inspection
participants?
1. The moderator
2. The producers
3. The reviewers
63. Define software engineering
process.
The total set of software engineering
activities needed to a user’s requirement into
software.
64. Define software process
architecture.
A framework within which project
specific software process are defined
65. Define software process model.
One specific embodiment of a software
process architecture.
66. Define software process.
The set of activities, methods, and
practices that are used in the production and
evolution of software.
67. What are the critical software
process issues?
Quality, product technology,
Requirement instability and complexity.
68.What are the different process model
views?
Organizational view and Control and
measurement view.
69. What are the drawbacks of water
fall model?
1. It does not adequately address
changes.
2. It assumes a relatively uniform
and orderly sequence of development steps.
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3. It does not provide for such
methods as rapid prototyping or advanced languages.
70. What are the different levels of
software process models?
U process models, A process models
and U process models
71. What are the different types of
software tests?
1. Unit testing
2. Integration testing
3. Function testing
4. Regression testing
5. System test
72. Define testing.
The process of executing a program
with the intention of finding errors.
73. Define debugging.
Diagnosing the precise nature of a
known error and then correcting it.
74. What are integration tests.
Integration tests verify the
interfaces between system parts suchas modules,
components and subsystems.
75. What are regression tests?
Regression tests run a subset of
previously executed integration and function tests to
ensure that program changes have not
degraded the system.
76. What are installation tests?
Installation tests validate the
instability and operability of the user’s system.
77. 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.
78. 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.
79. What are the different risks
associated with a software process?
Schedule conflict, inadequate
support and lack of follow through.
80. 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.
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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.
81. 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.
82. 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.
83. What are the different steps of
software defect prevention?
Defect reporting, Cause analysis,
action plan development, action implementation,
performance tracking and starting over.
84. What are the different errors for
which defect prevention analysis is required?
Technological, Organizational,
Historic, Group dynamic, Individual and others.
85. What are the different ways in
which CMMI represents a process meta model?
As a Continuous model and as a staged
model
86. 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.
87. What are the different framework
activities defined by PSP model?
Planning, High-level design, High
level design-review, development and
postmortem.
88. What is postmortem in PSP?
Determining the effectiveness of
the process using the measures and metrics is defined
as postmortem.
89. What are the objectives of TSP?
1. Build self-directed teams that
plan and track their work.
2. Show managers how to coach and
motivate their teams.
3. Accelerate software process
improvement
4. Provide improvement guidance to
high maturity organizations.
5. Facilitate university teaching of
industrial – grade team skills.
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90. What are the framework activities
defined by TSP?
Launch, high – level design,
implementation, integration, and test and postmortem.
91. What is cleanroom 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.
92. 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.
93. What are the different boxed used
in cleanroom software engineering?
Black box, State box and Clear box
94. 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.
95. What are the different models
require for cleanroom software engineering
certification?
1. Sampling model
2. Component model
3. Certification model
96. 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.
97. What are the reasons for the
necessity of object – orientation?
1. Higher level abstraction
2. Seamless transition among
different phases of software development.
3. Encouragement of good programming
technique.
4. Promotion of reusability
98. What is UML?
Unified modeling language (UML) is
intended to be a universal language for
modeling systems, meaning that it can
express models of many different kinds and
purposes, just as a programming
language or a natural language can be used in many
different ways.
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99. What are the different diagrams
defined in UML?
Class diagram, Use-case diagram,
Behavior diagram, interaction diagram, sequence
diagram, collaborative diagram,
statechart diagram, activity diagram, implementation
diagram, component diagram, deployment
diagram.
100. What is classification?
Classification is the process of
checking to see if an object belongs to a category or a
class.
16 – MARKS
1. Explain Quality Function Deployment
in detail.
Introduction – what is QFD? –
QFD team – Benefits of QFD – customer
satisfaction, reduce implementation
time, promotes team work, provides
documentation– House of quality –
effectiveness, advantages, importance to
customer, target value, scale up
factor, sales point – QFD process – Conclusion.
2. Describe in detail the
standardization procedure of benchmarking.
Introduction – Definitions -
Reasons for benchmarking – Process – function,
understanding performance,
planning, internal benchmarking, competitive
benchmarking, process
benchmarking, learning from data, using the findings,–
Advantages of benchmarking –
Conclusion.
3. Explain how software quality
assurance is ensured in a software firm.
Quality concepts – quality,
quality control, quality assurance, cost of quality –
Software quality assurance-
background issues, SQA activities – Software
reviews – Cost impact of
software defects, defect amplification and removal –
Formal technical reviews –
the review meeting, review reporting and record
keeping, review guidelines,
sample-driven reviews- Formal approaches to SQA –
Statistical SQA, Software
reliability.
4. Explain the seven basic quality
control tools in detail.
Statistical process
control- 7QC tools- check sheet – graphs – Histograms – bar
charts – cause and effect
diagrams – Inter relationship diagrams – control charts –
Definition, steps example and
applications.
5. Explain software project management
in detail.
The management spectrum –
Effective project management focuses on 4 P’s the
people, the product, the
process, the project- people- the players, team leaders, the
software team, coordination
and communication issues – the product – Software
scope, problem decomposition –
The process- melding the product and the
process, problem decomposition
– The project – W5HH Principle – Critical
Practices – risk management,
empirical cost and schedule estimation, metric
based project management,
eaned value tracking, defect tracking, People aware
program management.
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6. Explain how software quality
assurance is ensured in a software firm
Quality concepts – quality,
quality control, quality assurance, cost of quality –
Software quality assurance-
background issues, SQA activities – Software
reviews – Cost impact of
software defects, defect amplification and removal –
Formal technical reviews – the
review meeting, review reporting and record
keeping, review guidelines,
sample-driven reviews- Formal approaches to SQA –
Statistical SQA, Software
reliability.
7. What are the different software
testing tactics? Explain.
Testing fundamentals - Basis
path testing – flow graph notation, independent
program paths, deriving test
cases, graph matrices – Control structure testing –
Black box testing – Graph
based testing method, equivalence partitioning,
Boundary value analysis,
Orthogonal array testing – Object oriented testing
methods – White box testing –
Testing methods applicable at the class level –
Interclass test case design –
Testing for specialized environments, architectures,
and applications _ Testing
patterns.
8. Write detail notes on risk
management.
Reactive and proactive risk
strategies – software risks – risk identification –
assessing overall project risks
– risk components and diagrams – risk projection –
developing a risk table –
assessing risk impact – risk refinement – risk mitigation
– monitoring and management.
9. Write detail notes on ISO9000
series of quality management standards.
The purpose of standards –
The ISO9000 series – The contents of the standard
– seeking accreditation – An
assessment of the ISO9001 standard- ISO9000-
3:notes for guidance on the
application of ISO9001 to software development –
ISO9000-3 – The impact of
ISO9000 and TickIT- survey design – Questionnaire
format – Impact of
organization size upon uptake of third party accreditation –
Historical development of third
party accreditation – Reasons for not having
external accreditation – The
effect of business type and size for organizations
using QA procedures – Reasons
for developers seeking or not seeking an external
QA standard
10. Account on CMM in detail.
Introducing Software Process
Maturity - The Evolution of the CMM, Immature
versus Mature Software
Organizations, Fundamental Concepts Underlying
Process Maturity, Total Quality
Management and the CMM, Customer
Satisfaction, Benefits and Risks
of Model-Based Improvement - The Software
Process Maturity Framework - The
Structure of the Capability Maturity Model -
Interpreting the CMM - Using the
CMM - The Key Areas for Level 2: Repeatable
- Process Areas for Level 3:
Defined - The Key Process Areas for Level 4:
Managed - The Key Process Areas
for Level 5:Optimizing..
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11. Give a detail note on SPICE in
detail.
Principal goals – SPICE
document – Capability levels – not performed,
performed informally, planned
and tracked, well defined, quantitatively
controlled, continuously
improving – Award categories – leadership, strategic
planning, customer and market
focus, information and analysis, human source
focus, process management,
business results – Overview of award process –
Relationship to other
international standards.
12. Write detailed notes on Malcolm
Baldrige award.
Categories of organizations –
Quality award – Award criteria
13. Explain how software process
assessment helps software organizations to improve
themselves.
Assessment overview –
Assessment phases – Five assessment principles – Start
with a process model, observe
strict confidentiality, involve senior management,
keep an open mind and level
head, focus on action– The assessment process –
forming an assessment team, self
– assessment considerations, assessment ground
rules, assessment team training,
the on-site period– Assessment conduct –
implementation consideration.
14. Explain the testing phase of
software development in detail.
Definitions – testing,
verification, validation, debugging – The seven types of
software tests – Testing
methods – Software testing principles – The axioms of
testing – The proper role of
testing – Types of software tests – Unit testing –
Integration testing – Function
testing – Regression testing – System test – Test
planning – The test files –
The success criteria –Test development –Test coverage
techniques – Test execution
and reporting – Test tools and methods – Real-time
testing – The test
organization.
15. Give detailed description about
software process assessment.
Assessment overview –
assessment phases – Five assessment principles – the
assignment process –
assessment conduct – implementation considerations.
16. Explain software inspections in
detail.
Types of reviews –
Inspection objectives – basic inspection principles – the
conduct of inspections –
inspection training – reports and tracking – other
considerations – initiating an
inspection program – future directions.
17. Explain OO methodology in detail.
OO system development –
Object basics – OO system development life cycle –
Rumbaugh, Booch, Jacobson
methodologies – Patterns – Frameworks – OO
analysis – classification,
identifying object relationships, attributes, and methods
– OO design – designing
classes, access layer, view layer – Quality assurance –
system usability and measuring
user satisfaction
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18. Write detailed notes on the
techniques for error cause analysis and defect prevention.
Defect prevention not a new
idea – Why defect prevention is crucial to the
software process – The
principles of software defect prevention – The steps of
software defect prevention -
defect reporting – error cause categories – cause
analysis – The cause analysis
meeting – The action team – Tracking action
progress – Prevention feedback
- Process changes for defect prevention – Defect
prevention considerations –The
role of tools and technology – The costs and
benefits of defect prevention -
Management’s role.
19. Account on clean-room software
engineering.
The clean-room approach –
The clean-room strategy – functional specification –
black-box, state-box and
clear-box specifications – clean-room design – design
refinement and verification –
advantages of design verification – clean-room
testing – statistical use
testing – certification.
20. Write notes on TSP and PSP.
Personal software process –
framework activities – planning – high-level
design – high-level design
view – development –postmortem.
Team software process –
framework activities – launch – High-level design –
implementation – integration –
test – postmortem.
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