R.G. Dromey
What relevance do general quality principles
that have been developed in other fields have to
software development and software quality?
General Quality Principles
To address this issue we will start by considering a
brief overview of the principles advocated by
foremost quality experts. In particular:
• Kaoru Ishikawa
• Joseph. M. Juran
• Lennart. Sandholm
• W. Edwards Demming
• Philip Crosby
Ishikawa
Ishikawa gives six features of quality work:
• companywide quality control
• top management quality control audit
• industrial education and training
• quality circles
• application of statistical methods
• nationwide quality control promotion
Ishikawa
Quality Policy
Is crucial that all work is guided by quality
policies. Must formulate quality requirements for
projects. Use quality plans for projects. A quality
manual is used to define a quality management
system to implement quality policy
Ishikawa Diagrams
Are causeandeffect diagrams used to identify
and resolve problems. They focus on influential
factors that can impact various aspects of
quality in a given situation. Use a Pareto
analysis
Quality Circles
Small groups that meet regularly to discuss
quality issues
Juran
Juran prescribes the following strategy for
achieving quality:
• structured annual improvements in
quality
• a massive qualityoriented training
programme
• upper management must lead
company's approach to product quality
Juran
ACHIEVING QUALITY IMPROVEMENT
• study the symptoms of defects and failures
• develop a theory on the causes of the
symptoms
• test the theory until the cause is known
• stimulate remedial action by appropriate
action.
Juran
Defects can be separated into those that are
workercontrollable and those that are management
controllable
WORKER RESPONSIBILITY
• worker knows what to do
• worker knows result of own work
• worker has means of controlling result
If the three conditions apply and is a defect then
worker is responsible otherwise is a
managementcontrollable defect
• Sequence of events for improving quality
and reducing quality costs
• Universal feedback loop for control
• Fundamental is data collection and
analysis
Sandholm
Suggests to achieve quality a fourpoint attack is
needed:
• quality policy
• quality objectives
• quality system
• quality organization
Sandholm
QUALITY POLICY
The quality policy is a statement that expresses
the need for corporatewide quality
QUALITY OBJECTIVES
Quality objectives are statements of measurable
improvements usually achievable on an annual
basis
QUALITY SYSTEM
The quality system is the means used to
achieve quality objectives. Should include
standards and procedures
Deming
Deming lists fourteen principles that may be
employed by management to achieve quality
results. They are:
1. Create constancy of purpose towards
improvement of product and service
2. Adopt the new philosophy
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve
quality build quality in, in the first place
Deming
4. End the practice of awarding business on the
basis of price tag get single supplier for any
one item. Instead minimize total cost
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of
production and service to improve quality and
productivity this constantly decreases costs
6. Institute training on the job
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision is to
help people to do a better job
Deming
8. Drive out fear, so everyone may work effectively
for the company
9. Break down the barriers between departments
work in teams
10. Eliminate slogans, and targets for the workforce
asking for zerodefects and new levels of
productivity. They create adversarial
relationships. The bulk of the causes of low
quality and low productivity belong to the
system
Deming
11. Eliminate work standards and management by
objectives substitute leadership
12. Remove barriers that rob workers/managers of
the right to pride of workmanship abolish
annual merit rating
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and
self improvement
14. Put everybody in the company to work to
accomplish the transformation the
transformation is everybody's job
Deming
Deming remarked on one occasion:
"The economic and social revolution which
took hold in Japan, upset in 15 years the
economy of the world and shows what can be
accomplished by serious study and adoption of
statistical methods and statistical logic in
industry at all levels from the top downwards"
• The analysis of errors for either type or
cause will help control errors this is
particularly important for software.
• The results enable improvement of the
process so that less errors are produced
• You cannot inspect quality into a product
you must build in quality right from the
outset.
Deming
The Deming Cycle
In addition to statistical knowledge Deming
urges a common approach to attacking and
describing problems. Commonality is important
to integrate quality improvement efforts in
different parts of an organization
Deming's Fivestep Repetitive Cycle is:
Repeatedly
1. Plan
2. Do
3. Check
4. Analyze
5. Act
Deming
Repeatedly
1. Plan
- work out strategy for carrying
out task
- work out strategy for
improvement
- identify measures to determine
whether improvement has been
successful and quality goals
have been achieved
2. Do
- carry out the task incorporating
any improvement strategies
designed to eliminate defects,
etc based on problem causes.
3. Check
- identify problems and relate
them to quality measures
established
4. Act
- analyse the root causes of the
problems
Crosby
Crosby focuses on defining
quality as "conformance
to requirements" and
satisfying what the customer/user
wants and needs
Crosby
Misconcpetions about software quality
There are several misconceptions about quality that
follow from Crosby's work
• quality means goodness, cannot be
defined or measured
• people do not produce quality because
they don't care
• it costs a lot more to produce quality
software
• people make mistakes it is inevitable
there will be errors in large systems
Crosby
There is an underlying assumption that the
three goals of
• quality
• cost
• schedule
are conflicting and mutually exclusive. In
contrast, Deming claims that the only way to
increase productivity and lower cost is to
increase quality
Crosby
Crosby suggests there are five maturing stages
through which quality management evolves.
These are:
1. uncerainty
2. awakening
3. enlightenment
4. wisdom
5. certainty
Crosby has used a Quality Management
Maturity Grid to define his approach.
Crosby
Capability Maturity Model
W.S.Humphrey and others at the Software
Engineering Institute at CarnegieMellon
University have developed a method for
process assessment and process improvement
based on Crosby's Maturity Model
Quality Improvement
The advantage claimed for the Crosby
approach is that it defines a quality
improvement path for an organization as well as
a means for assessing where at any time the
organization is on the path to quality
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