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Software quality practices — an empirical study

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Abstract

Concern about the quality of software is widespread. Reliable data about current practice are hard to get as no one likes to admit that they are producing poor software. In a recent survey, Wilson has taken an approach to obtaining data about the practice of software quality assurance among companies in Australia. The same technique has been used here to investigate practice among companies in Europe and America. The survey ams to investigate quality systems used by the organizations, and the application of these systems by software fevelopers. In this paper they are compared with the Australian experience and the results of the survey shown. The company's demographic data and overall response pattern from this survey are compared with Wilson's. Patterns in software quality assurance programs of organizations are suggested by comparing the management's perspective with that of the developers. The most popular software development techniques identified by the developers are prioritized in the order of their popularity by using a weighting scheme and their implications are discussed.

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References

  1. UK Department of Trade and Industry TickIT Guide to Software Quality Management Systems Construction and Certification using ISO9001/EN 29001/BS 5750, 1992, Issue 2, pp 8–9.

  2. Wilson, D.N. Software quality assurance in Australia, in Proceedings of the Software Quality Management 93 Conference, Southampton, UK, March/April 1993, (Computational Mechanics Publications).

  3. Australian Information Industry Association, Quality Survey Analysis, AIIA Report, Canberra, ACT, 1993.

  4. Gori, F. The State of QA in Software in Australia, Masters Project Report, University of Technology, Sydney, 1994.

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  5. Wilson, D.N., Petocz, P. and Roiter, K. A study of software quality assurance in practice, in Proceedings of the Software Quality Management 94 Conference, Seville, Spain, April 1995, pp 159–169 (Computational Mechanics Publications).

  6. Davis, C.J., Thompson, J.B., Smith, P. and Gillies, A. A Survey of Approaches to Software Quality within the United Kingdom, 1992, School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Sunderland, Occasional Paper No. 92-5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Systems Engineering Faculty, Southampton Institute, East Park Terrace, SO14 0YN, Southampton, UK

    M. Khurana, Z. He, I. Court, M. Ross & G. Staples

  2. School of Computing Sciences, University of Technology, Broadway, PO Box 123, 2006, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    D. Wilson

Authors
  1. M. Khurana
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  2. Z. He
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  3. I. Court
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  4. M. Ross
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  5. G. Staples
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  6. D. Wilson
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Khurana, M., He, Z., Court, I. et al. Software quality practices — an empirical study. Software Qual J 5, 75–85 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00419771

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