Quality Organizer a support tool in using multiple quality approaches

1. Zádor DánielKelemen , Dr. Katalin Balla, Gábor Bóka Quality Organizera support tool in using multiple quality approaches The project is sponsored bySQI Hungarian Software Quality Consulting Institute Ltd. (project TST-GVOP-2004-K+F- 3.3.1.) and EötvösLóránd University (project KKK-GVOP-2004-K+F-3-2-2)

2. Who we are? • SQI – Hungarian Software Quality Consulting Institute Ltd. is an independent consulting company, having strong connections to academic organizations. • SQI participates in software quality research projects. • University partners: • Budapest University of Technology and Economics • EötvösLóránd University (Budapest) • Technical University of Eindhoven • SQI is official partner of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) of the Carnegie Mellon University in CMMI-related services.

3. Contents • Software quality • The QMIM framework • QMIM Quality Organizer • The self-assessment tool • Features of the knowledge base • Feedback received • Possible further developments

4. Software quality Software companies prefer it because: • they want to stay in the market, • quality certificates required by business partners, • they cannot afford to work in a chaotic way. Main software quality improvement approaches: • product based, • process based, • resource based. Other approaches: human factors, project management methodologies, etc.

5. Software quality approaches • Process-based quality approaches: • CMM, CMMI, SPICE, TMM, ISO 9001:2000, AQAP, ISO 12207. • Product-based approaches: • ISO 9126 standard family, different code measuring and analysingtechnics • Resource- and human factor-based approaches: • P-CMM, PSP, TSP. • There is no approach which covers all the aspects of software quality

6. Problem: choosing the right approach • Questions: • Which model to choose to best fit the company’s needs? • In which direction to move for a higher software quality? • The answers depend on: • software development methodologies used, • actual state of a company, • existing quality models and standards. • As there is no universally definable “good quality” -> companies have to: • understand the most important objects in software development, • choose the right quality approach to bring it to a higher level.

7. The QMIM framework(Quality through Managed Improvement and Measurement) • Helps identifying the important elements of software quality • Helps finding the way among the existing software quality approaches • Can be used as an aid to see the approaches in a common frame • It is a framework (not the n+1-th approach!)

8. A view of QMIM framework(Quality through Managed Improvement and Measurement)

9. QMIM Quality Organizer The QMIM Quality Organizer is a software tool supporting the QMIM framework, which was developed by SQI together with the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Technical University of Eindhoven. The project was sponsored by the EU and the Hungarian Ministry of Trade(TST-GVOP-2004-04-0079/3)

10. Functionality Main functionality of the tool: • As a first process improvement step, the company’s actual state need to be assessed • CMMI browser & self assessment tool • Knowing the actual maturity level, the company needs to choose quality approaches to start the improvement program • Knowledge base

11. CMMI Browser

12. The self assessment tool • The tool was developed based on SCAMPI (Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement) • Companies can assess their maturity or capability level • Evidences connected to CMMI requirements can be recorded • Basic management of organizational and project data • At the end of assessment an RTF report can be generated

13. Appraisal/ CMMI rating New appraisal

14. The knowledge base • Quality elements are categorized into the following 11 categories: • guideline, case study, best practice, tutorial, lifecycle, template, definition, metric, quality attribute, software tool and certificate description. • Documents are converted to a common, searchable format • Definitions are extracted and added to the database • Description of 25 quality approaches are actually included: • 3 ISO standards, • 11 ISO-IEC standards, • 9 Hungarian standards, • CMMI model and browser • detailed description of QMIM framework.

15. The knowledge base

16. Feedback • Three, differently sized Hungarian software companies were surveyed • the number of companies surveyed is too small to draw global conclusions • It seems that it is the size of company that influences their choice of Quality Organizer functions. • the largest company is more interested in the self-appraisal functions, • smaller companies are more focused on the knowledge base.

17. Possible ways of further development • It is the first working version -> further developments are needed • Possible refinements: • making the GUI more uniform, • refining the overview of self-appraisal and the generated report, • furthermore calculations of maturity levels, • including further quality elements, • linking different approaches. • Separation of the two main functionalities to two different products

18. Thank you for attention! Questions? Contacts: • Zádor Dániel Kelemen kelemen.daniel@sqi.hu • Dr. Katalin Balla balla.katalin@sqi.hu • Gábor Bóka boka.gabor@sqi.hu • SQI Hungarian Software Quality Consulting Institute Ltd. http://www.sqi.hu/ • CMMI site http://www.cmmi.hu/