Critical Issues In Software Quality Assurance: An Exploratory Study

Abstract

Recent reviews of the Software Quality Assurance (SQA) literature expose that in most organizations, systems development is characterized by recurrent problems, such as poor system quality.  The conclusions of these reviews is that SQA efforts have failed due primarily to their failure to adequately address the linkages between the organizational and process aspects of quality assurance in software development projects.  As an initial step in identifying and understanding the linkages between the organizational and process aspects of SQA, the authors conducted an exploratory study to elicit a set of issues critical to the assurance of delivering reliable software.