Software Quality Assurance involves reviewing and auditing the software products and activities to verify that they comply with the applicable procedures and standards and providing the software project and other appropriate managers with the results of these reviews and audits.
The software quality assurance group works with the software project during its early stages to establish plans, standards, and procedures that will add value to the software project and satisfy the constraints of the project and the organization's policies. By participating in establishing the plans, standards, and procedures, the software quality assurance group helps ensure they fit the project's needs and verifies that they will be usable for performing reviews and audits throughout the software life cycle. The software quality assurance group reviews project activities and audits software work products throughout the life cycle and provides management with visibility as to whether the software project is adhering to its established plans, standards, and procedures.
Compliance issues are first addressed within the software project and resolved there if possible. For issues not resolvable within the software project, the software quality assurance group escalates the issue to an appropriate level of management for resolution.
This key process area covers the practices for the group performing the software quality assurance function. The practices identifying the specific activities and work products that the software quality assurance group reviews and/or audits are generally contained in the Verifying Implementation common feature of the other key process areas.
The corresponding key practices are described below.
This material has been taken from Paulk et al. [1993a].