Experience has shown that software quality must be built in at every stage of the Software Life Cycle. It cannot be added, inspected, or tested-in after the software has been built, by a separate SQA staff. This seminar focuses on the use of a set of “best practices” software metrics that can be used to make assessments throughout the software life cycle as to whether software quaity goals are being met. This tutorial presnts a practicle guide on how to start taking advantage of these “best practices” metrics that have successfully been used by many SQA staffs.

• An introduction and overview of SQA. This includes the purpose, goals, and activities performed by the SQA organization. This section also includes a discussion of the major parts of the SQA Plan
• A discussion of the software life cycle, from Requirements through Maintenance. For each phase of the life cycle, the following topics will be addressed:
  • Activities performed in the phase
  • Products developed in the phase
  • Reviews conducted in the phase
  • Software Metrics applicable to the phase
• A set of government/industry “best practices” metrics with numerous examples, variations, and case studies. These metrics cover the entire life cycle, and can track the, quality, productivity, and status of the various life cycle phases. These metrics have successfully been used by SQA staffs.

• Section One
  • Introduction
    • This section is an introduction to SQA
      • SQA – Purpose, Goals, and Activities
      • The SQA Plan
      • The Importance of Measurement in SQA
• Section Two
  • SQA Throughout the Life Cycle
    • This section addresses all the phases of the software life cycle, from Requirements through Maintenance. For each phase of the life cycle, the following topics will be addressed:
      • Activities performed in the phase
      • Products developed in the phase
      • Reviews conducted in the phase
      • Software Metrics applicable to the phase
    • This section will also cover a set of “best practices” metrics, with numerous examples and variations, that can be utilized throughout the life cycle. You will learn how to set-up, use, and analyze these metrics. A number of real-life Case Studies, will cover the analysis of scenarios utilizing a combination of metrics, and their interactions.
      • S/W Size
      • Software Personnel Metrics
      • Requirements Volatility Metrics
      • Requirements Progress Metrics
      • Requirement Tracing Metrics
      • Design Stability
      • Fault profiles
      • Defect Containment Metrics
      • Computer Resources Utilization Metrics
      • Design Complexity Metrics
      • Design Progress Metrics
      • CSU Development Progress Metrics
      • Depth of Testing Metrics
      • McCabes Complexity Metric
      • Testing Progress metrics
      • Breath of Testing Metrics
      • Incremental Release Content Metrics
  • Appendix A: Bibliography

Mr. Al Sorkowitz was a Computer Scientist with the Department of the Navy where he was responsible for developing large, real-time software intensive systems. Prior to joining the Dept of the Navy, he was Director of the Standards and Quality Control Staff, at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. While at HUD, he initiated a successful testing procedure to improve the quality of unit testing that utilizes automated tools and testing metrics. A paper on this effort was published in a special issue of the IEEE Computer Society magazine "Computer" devoted to Software Quality Assurance, and was later reprinted and widely distributed in the Department of Defense Computer Institute "Selected Computer Articles"

The seminars presented by Mr. Sorkowitz are the practical hands-on “lessons learned” by himself and his staff, developing software in-house, as well as the experience working with a large number of software contractors.

Mr. Sorkowitz has published papers and has presented seminars on Software Metrics, SQA, and Testing at conferences sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society, ACM, DPMA, and the British Computer Society.