A Practical Approach to Software Quality

Overview The aim of this book is to provide a practical introduction to software quality in an industrial environment and is based on the author's experience in working in software engineering and software quality improvement with leading indus- trial companies. The book is written from a practitioner's viewpoint, and the objective is to include both theory and practice. The reader will gain a grasp of the fundamentals as well as guidance on the practical application of the theory. The principles of software quality management and software process im- provement are discussed, and guidance on the implementation of maturity mod- els such as the CMM, SPICE, or the ISO 9000:2000 standard is included. Organization and Features The first chapter provides an introduction to the fundamentals of quality man- agement. Later chapters consider software inspections and testing, ISO 9000, the CMM, the evolving SPICE standard, metrics and problem solving, and the final chapter on formal methods and design considers some advanced topics, includ- ing configuration management, UML, software usability, and formal methods. The reader may find the material heavy going in places, especially in the section on formal methods, and this section may be skipped. The book includes a chapter on software inspections and testing, and this in- cludes material on Fagan inspections to build quality into the software product.