Software Quality and Systems Shutdown

Study Notes

Software Quality refers to the degree to which a software product meets the needs of its users.
Quality Management focuses on defining, measuring, and refining the quality of the development process and the products developed during its various stages.
The objective of quality management is to help developers deliver high-quality systems that meet users' needs.

Many developers do not know how to design quality into software.
Others do not take the time to do so.
Developers must define and follow a set of rigorous software engineering principles and be committed to learning from past mistakes.
Developers must understand the environment in which their systems will operate and design systems immune to human error.
Users' needs may go unstated or be miscommunicated, leading to a system that meets those needs as understood by the developers, but not what the users really needed.

Stages of waterfall development include: Investigation, Analysis, Design, Construction, Implementation, and Integration and testing.

Agile development is a methodology under which a system is developed in iterations (often called sprints) lasting from one to four weeks.
Agile development accepts that system requirements are evolving and cannot be fully understood or defined at the start of the project.
Agile development concentrates on maximizing the team's ability to deliver quickly and respond to emerging requirements.
In an agile project, the team evaluates the system every one to four weeks.

Pros: Agile development puts an application into production sooner, forces teamwork and lots of interaction between users and project stakeholders, and ensures users are more likely to get a system that meets their needs.
Cons: Agile development is an intense process that takes considerable time and effort on the part of project members and can result in burnout, and requires stakeholders and users to spend more time working together on the project.