Software Quality Assurance

Software Quality Assurance has a direct impact on the company’s profit. The smooth implementation of a system helps reduce cost and improve margin. Comstar takes a holistic approach to software quality assurance, it is not just mearly the elimination of bugs. Its is creating software that satisfies the Business Objectives.

First, let’s understand what constitutes Software Quality Assurance?​

It’s not merely an absence of “bugs”, it’s much more than that.

It is to get a complete and comprehensive understanding of the business, solve problems, comprehend opportunities and translate them into software capabilities.

It delivers systems into production reliably, efficiently, cost-effectively and on time.

In a nutshell, Software Quality Assurance is the monitoring of software and its processes while taking a holistic approach.

The economics of Software Quality

If the production process, in a simple scenario, is divided into three phases such as requirements, testing, and production, then without quality assurance most defects are caught in the “production” or “testing” phases, while they originate in the “requirements” phase. The most expensive bugs originate in the requirements phase. For example, any misalignment of requirements has the most consequence if detected after the system is in production. It is much more cost-effective to take care of the defects in the first phase. The following chart explains the cost implications further:

The chart above shows that everyone in the organization has a role to play in SQA. Success is achieved only when everyone understands their role, takes ownership of what they have to contribute towards quality and are equipped with the appropriate tool set. The chart below shows from the client all the way to the support team, everyone has to be aligned on the objectives of quality management:

Comstar Implements Software Quality Assurance in three distinct steps:

Robust Requirements Management

To implement requirements management, we start with a set of clearly defined and documented Best Practices.
To implement requirements management, we start with a set of clearly defined and documented Best Practices.
Team of professional business analysts and experts who have the right discipline and understanding of the overall process.

Rigorous, Functional and Performance Testing

SQA implementation requires rigorous planning and a risk management.
Planning should start early as soon as the requirements are completed.
Testing should start early in the lifecycle and should be repeatable.
The testing process should be easy to conduct and should be done often (regression testing) when changes are made to the software.

Configuration and Software Delivery Process

SQA process should be guided by a configurable delivery process and supporting tools.
Delivery process should be iterative, incremental and as automated as possible.
The organization should encourage smart practices which save time, provide efficiency and are in a constant cycle of refinement and improvement.
Also, the delivery provides transparency and quantitative reporting with an overview and analysis of the process.