Table of ContentsNeed for QualityFirst, let's look at some detailsResultFinal ThoughtsThe Oxford Dictionary defines quality as: "General excellence of a standard or level." However, our world has evolved to such extreme complexities and dynamics that a single definition becomes obsolete. Quality beyond a certain level of expectation becomes truly subjective not only to the product or service domain, but also to the target customer. The word "Quality" originates from Middle English as "character, disposition" and "particular property or characteristic" and from Old French "qualité", from Latin "quality" translating Greek poiotes, from qualis "of what kind, of such a genre'. [2] Quality is such a complex word that it must be used generally without defining it with maximum precision. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why video games. violent should not be banned”?Get an original essayDelivering software systems that meet business needs has always been a challenge for IT organizations. Software development and engineering are professions that are in their infancy. however, they are widely practiced and growing faster than ever The lion's share of India's GDP comes from the software industry and IT&ITES The software industry is one of the main pillars. economic growth in many countries. Companies often face many difficult challenges in delivering high-quality software and strive to achieve customer satisfaction. Forrester, a famous research entity, defines quality software as “software that meets business requirements, provides a satisfactory user experience, and has fewer features.” defects.". This is certainly not a comprehensive definition, but it is surely where we can start. [3] Need for quality As software has become an indispensable part of our daily lives, the demand for software has considerably Increased software quality is now seen as a “must have” rather than a “should have”. Yet, companies view software quality as simply a task performed by testers at the end of development. Bugs in software are called that for a reason: these bugs have been around for a long time. For a long time, they always appear in the code at the most inopportune times, and there is no proven way to eradicate their existence. The brutal economic climate, lack of time and personnel, and intense cost pressures have made it difficult. “need for speed” a more appropriate mantra for development teams rather than ensuring “quality is job #1”. that the software market is full of alternatives and that there is plenty of free and open source software. Additionally, customers and end users are increasingly aware of the quality of the software they purchase. Applications or business systems that exhibit poor performance or poor user experience will be eliminated and other products will easily take their place. It is now the mission of software publishers to ensure the quality of their products like never before. The 2017 Forrester Research report, “Seven Pragmatic Practices for Improving Software Quality,” provides practical, reality-based ways for teams to make progress in improving their code.quality. The main points covered are [3]. Define quality to meet needs: Impact on quality: Meet business requirements; achieve a satisfactory user experience.Benefit: The ability to achieve quality is improved because the application development team is not burdened with unrealistic, perfect expectations. Rather, it has a definition of quality that fits the given constraints of time, resources, and budget. Relevant roles: Business stakeholders; the entire application development team. Dissemination of simple quality measures: Impact on quality: reduce defects. Benefit: Highly visible metrics keep quality top of mind for the entire team and expose when efforts fail. Relevant roles: Entire application development team. Refine team/individual goals to include quality: Impact on quality: Meet business requirements; obtain a satisfactory user experience; reduce defects.Benefit: Team members operate according to their motivations, integrating quality improvement into their goals, which reinforces desirable behavior.Relevant roles: Leadership.Getting the requirements right: Impact on quality: Meet business requirements; achieve a satisfying user experience.Benefit: Less rework means less retesting and fewer cycles, significantly reducing overall effort.Relevant roles: Managers, Business Analysts, User Experience Designers, Architects.Test smarter to test less:Impact on quality: Reduce defects.Benefit: Focusing on testing the most crucial and highest risk areas ensures that they receive the lion's share of testing resources and that any bugs that passes are likely to be confined to less important features. Relevant roles: Quality assurance, managers. Design applications to reduce the risk of bugs: Impact on quality: reduce defects. Advantage: simpler, cleaner designs result to code that is simpler, cleaner, and easier to test and rework, meaning the code will have fewer bugs and those bugs will be easier to diagnose and fix. Relevant roles: architects, developers. Optimize the use of testing tools: Impact on quality: reduce defects. Benefit: automation frees resources from mundane testing to focus on higher priority tests and increases test cycles' repeatability. Relevant roles: Quality Assurance, Developers.Software quality is a team sport and everyone has to play. “Quality must go beyond the purview of QA professionals alone and become an integral part of the entire software development lifecycle to reduce schedule-disrupting rework, improve satisfaction users and reduce the risk of untested non-functional requirements such as security and performance," they write. “Managers must make quality measurable and incentivize all roles on the team to improve it.” Software quality considered from start to finish During the testing phase, developers do their best to ensure that their code has minimal defects. Then the tester works hard to uncover all possible flaws in the software, while managers and customers hope to have market-ready software. Rushing through development may save the team time at one point, but it ultimately takes them more time. to start again if there were development problemsmajor issues which had not been taken into account from the start. This results in wasting a large portion of the team's resources on fixing and re-engineering their code instead of investing those resources in something more useful. Software teams know the whole story by heart, but with nagging customers and a strict sales team accompanied by the egos of some developers who write flawless software, it's really hard to avoid letting insurance fall by the wayside. quality to rally around the simple finishing of the code. Software Engineering Standards and Their UseIt is worth mentioning that companies do not necessarily have to follow any of the software development standards or have a strict process in place. There are different standards for the typical software development life cycle (SLDC), such as IEEE, ISO - 12207 or CMMI. The objective of these standards is to ensure that the final product conforms to market requirements and achieves end-user satisfaction. In fact, many software applications, mobile applications and even entire business systems are sold every day to various customers that might not have been developed using any standard. The problem does not lie in compliance with standards. What really matters is ignoring or diminishing the importance of software quality. [4] Let’s look at some specific details. Requirements Review Reviewing software requirements before beginning each new phase of development minimizes defects and meets customer needs. Reviewing requirements before implementation helps consider potential changes and overcome misunderstandings that might arise throughout the life of the project. The team should double-check with the client all the details of the business area that need to be implemented. Requirements review can also be done using prototypes and domain models. When the development team completes this small task before starting the actual implementation, they get a great start to their project or development iteration. By ensuring all stakeholders reach consensus and every team member is on the same ground before rushing into implementation, the customer and management can be confident that the developers will deliver the right thing at the end of the development cycle.Code Review and WalkthroughCode review is one of the most effective practices in software development. This has a direct impact on reducing the number and improving the quality of software code and design. This reduces the need for major code refactoring and cleanup in future releases. The team can agree on simple coding and design guidelines based on project requirements and implementation details. These guidelines should be shared among team members, and each time a new feature is developed, one or more team members should review the new code and look for any coding or design errors. This practice helps the team in several ways, including improving code quality. and design, minimizing defects and preventing them. In addition, it allows the entire team to have an overview of each other's work, facilitates the transfer of responsibility and makes the team aware of the different components and functions of the software. The team collaborates to verify and validate the quality of the code and how the design was implemented. They receive direct feedback from their peers. There is a double benefit here: the quality of the code increases, as does the awareness of).