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8 - PROJECT QUALITY MANAGEMENT

management are common sources of records for SQA reviews and audits. For some software projects, there may
be documented records demonstrating that the planned efforts occurred. In other cases, those who are responsible
for quality assurance may personally witness various procedures to satisfy themselves that the process being
audited is working as planned. On small projects, it may be the project manager who performs this task internally
and the product manager who performs it externally.

For predictive software projects, SQA personnel (both internal and external) participate during requirements
analysis to define acceptance criteria and test plan details prior to the start of software development. The
test plans themselves become part of the requirements communicated to the software development team.
Other inputs for SQA are various analytical simulations that predict the most likely number of defects to be
expected in the code, based on previous test results, the complexity of the software, and the experience of
the software development team. The results are inputs to performing SQA and are used to check the validity
of test results.

For software projects that use adaptive life cycles, the details of test plans, including specific acceptance
criteria are progressively elaborated along with the requirements. Feature-level criteria are developed as part
of analysis and design of the features. Detailed story-level acceptance criteria are defined as part of making the
requirements backlog ready for the development team. This means that the SQA team is continuously involved with
the development team from analysis to acceptance of the deliverable increments of software.

Additional inputs for performing software quality assurance may also include work performance data, such as
work effort and elapsed time and cost to date, because these inputs can be compared to the project’s plans in order
to measure the variance between plans and actual results. By doing this type of comparison at frequent intervals,
SQA personnel and the project manager are able to determine where changes may be necessary to processes or
to or schedules and/or resources. Thus, the quality of planning is improved throughout the project.

8.2.2 Perform Quality Assurance: Tools and Techniques

®
The tools and techniques for performing quality assurance in Section 8.2.2 of the PMBOK Guide are applicable
tools and techniques for performing quality assurance for software projects. Additional considerations include the
following.

For predictive software project life cycles, external SQA personnel who are independent of the development
process typically conduct SQA activities. In other words, developers do not perform acceptance testing on their
own work and those responsible for performing acceptance testing and other SQA activities do not report directly
to the development project manager. For predictive software projects, SQA budgets are usually not controlled by
the development project manager.

For a safety-critical project, an external group sometimes conducts SQA to ensure that the project and product
meet the organization’s and customer’s policies and standards during the software project life cycle. These activities
verify the extent to which the effectiveness of the quality control methods and activities are being met and quality
objectives are being achieved.

152 ©2013 Project Management Institute. Software Extension to the PMBOK Guide Fifth Edition
®