Software Quality Assurance Management

 Software quality assurance management is essential to improving the practice of software engineering and management and thus constitutes an integral part of the software engineering process. The specific approach taken in the FLUIDS project builds upon the Capability Maturity Model, Humphrey [1989], Paulk et al. [1995], of SEI , the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. This methodology, assesment procedure and improvement program is specialized on Software Processing Units and dedicated to software processes. The Capability Maturity Model for software distinguishes five levels of process maturity (initial, repeatable, defined, managed, and optimizing) which are decomposed into several key process areas. Each of this areas is described in terms of the key practices, Paulk et al. [1993b], that contribute to satisfying its goals. The Capability Maturity Model is more specific, but not conflicting with the generic quality standard ISO 9000 and has also been adopted in the EU project BOOTSTRAP (ESPRIT project No. 5441) for the development of a European assessment method and certification process (BOOTSTRAP license).

The following sections provide a brief description of those key process areas providing practices which are applicable on the project level. These key practices will guide the software quality control procedure in FLUIDS . The information has been taken from the general documentation of the Capability Maturity Model, Paulk et al. [1993a], and from the specification of the key practices, Paulk et al. [1993b].