What is this course about Tor Stålhane IDI / NTNU

Not a mathematical problem – 1 TDT 4235 – Quality Assurance and Software Process improvement – is not a course where you can Define a problem Build a mathematical model of the problem Solve the corresponding equations Arrive at THE CORRECT ANSWER

Not a mathematical problem – 2 Is not a simple problem like x + 4 = 8 => x = 4 or a slightly more complicated problem like

Why – 1 Software development is, to a large degree, about humans cooperating to achieve a common goal – a piece of working software. In order to cooperate, humans need Organization – who does what and when? Communication – how can I tell what I – will do – have done – need others to do so that I can do my job

Why – 2 Software engineering is about Programming languages – how shall we get this written down Development methods – how shall we do it? Testing methods – does it work as intended? The programming language and the tools we use are formal Everything else is about people and how they cooperate and communicate

What we try to do QA – Create trust to a product or service – Make sure everybody do their part as agreed SPI – Solve fuzzy problems by –Identifying and describing the problem –Collecting information to understand the problem –Selecting a potentially useful technique –Arriving at a useable solution. The solution need not be the best one but it must be acceptable

Create trust Product Tools and methods Trust Customer knowledge

A soft problem Problem Available tools and methods Possible solution Experience Method 4 Method … Method 2 Method … Method 7 Method 3 Method n Method 6 Method 1 Method 5

The challenge Which method should we use for the problem at hand? The course will provide you with a tool box of methods. You must use your experience and knowledge to select the best tool for the problem at hand

Where we are Product Quality Assurance Track record Process Personnel Testing Confidence Trust TDT4235TDT4242

A small example – for discussion Problem: Customers complaints The systems we deliver have too many errors What should we do next?

What should we do First and foremost – more and better testing This is just a stop-gap action This solution Consume resources – costly. The resources could have been used for more important things – such as developing new products

Places to attack Three broad areas: Somebody is not doing his job – more QA Somebody is not just up to it – more education We are doing things in a non-smart way – SPI What should we do next?

Why do we have so many errors We need to find the cause of our large error density before we Run out of resources due to a large increase in resources used for testing Get out of business because we – Do not have time to develop new products – Get a bad reputation in the market place

A “soft” problem Why so many errors Available tools and methods Possible solution Experience Collect data Interview developers Analyze the way we work Analyze error reports …….