SQA — A proactive approach to assuring software quality

As AT&T participates in increasingly competitive global markets, the need to provide consistently high-quality software products becomes more crucial. Use of the Best Current Practices (BCP) guide is a key element of the AT&T Bell Laboratories approach to world-class quality. Software quality assurance (SQA) is a function that helps product-development organizations proactively measure, utilize, and improve development processes in order to produce high-quality software. The goals of SQA are to: — Facilitate the establishment of process standards, — Achieve the desired level of product quality, — Assess compliance with established standards and processes, — Identify instances of noncompliance for corrective action, and — Take corrective action as required. This paper presents the essential elements of an SQA function, and summarizes industry and AT&T experiences with SQA. The paper also discusses approaches for customizing SQA to differently sized projects and various phases of the software-development process.