PROFICIENCE, CENTRE FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION,

INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, BANGALORE

JAN-MAY 2007
Course: SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE AND MANAGEMENT

Date: 5th May 2007. Time: 10am – 12 noon

1. Answer all questions. Different sections carry different marks.

2. Use calculators wherever required.

SECTION ONE. Objective questions (20 X 2 marks)

Note: This section may have multiple answers to a given question.

1. Which of the following reviews are required in order to ensure proper tracking of
software between phases of a project?

a. Product feasibility
b. Software requirements
c. Software design
d. Acceptance test

2. What happens to the relative cost of fixing software errors from the requirements
phase through the test phase?

a.It decreases linearly.

b.It remains fairly constant.
c.It increases linearly.
d.It increases exponentially.

3. Which of the following is/are not true?

a. Quality is multidimensional
b. Quality is not absolute
c. Quality is about acceptable compromises
d. Quality is expensive.

4. When an audit team concludes a finding that demonstrates management review

meetings are not regularly conducted, the finding should be documented as

a. minor non-conformance.
b. major non-conformance.
c. a deficiency.
d. an observation.

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5. Which of the following should not be done in a software metrics program?

a. Build team awareness

b. Provide Feedback
c. Measure the individual contribution
d. Implement changes based on the feedback
6. On the basis of the diagram below, which of the following is true?

a. Version 1.1 is a predecessor of Versions 1.2.1 and 2.2.

b. Version 3.0 automatically includes changes introduced in Version 2.2.
c. Version 3.0 requires a merging of changes introduced in Version 1.2.
d. Version 2.2 is a descendant of Version 1.2.1.

7. A valid software quality goal would be to

a. decrease the rate of defects found in 1 year
b. increase the rate of defect removal to 90% in 1 year
c. implement quality control by Nov. 1
d. improve quality within 1 year

8. A quality audit observation is defined as

a. a noted item of objective evidence found during an audit
b. an accepted level of audit findings defined as "major" and "minor"
c. an auditor's initial notice of a potential nonconformance
d. the lead auditor's perception of a potential problem

9. Which of the following is the most useful tool for analyzing process root causes?
a. A flowchart
b. A histogram
c. An affinity diagram
d. An Ishikawa diagram

10. Which of the following is an example of a short-term corrective action?

a. Improving process capability
b. Analyzing a field failure
c. Obtaining missing signatures on a purchase order
d. Correcting the problem of obsolete drawings

11. The main purpose for conducting an opening meeting for an audit is to
a. clarify the audit objectives
b. discuss previous audit results
c. develop audit criteria
d. establish the scope of the audit

12. For a normal distribution, two standard deviations on each side of the mean would
include what percentage of the total population?
a. 47%
b. 68%
c. 95%
d. 99%

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13. Correction, over-production, inventory, and motion are all examples of
a. waste
b. 5S target areas
c. noise
d. value-added activities

14. The primary factor(s) in the successful implementation of six sigma is to have
a. the necessary resources
b. the support/leadership of top management
c. explicit customer requirements
d. a comprehensive training program

15. When someone from the quality department suggests you about beginning a
quality audit of your project, and as a result the team, already under pressure to
complete the project as soon as possible, objects to the audit, which of the
following advantage of audit would you explain to your team member?

a. To check accuracy of costs submitted by the team

b. Part of an ISO 9000 investigation.
c. To check if customer is following its quality process
d. To identify lessons learned that can improve performance on project

16. In a particular process of Quality Management, the senior management of an

organization regularly evaluates project performance to maintain confidence in
quality product standards. What is it called?

a. Quality assurance.
b. Quality control.
c. Quality management.
d. Quality planning.

17. Which of the following is/are the sub-characteristics of usability?

a. Understandability
b. Learnability
c. Operability
d. User Friendly

18. Quality Attributes

a. are used to determine how effectively the organization accomplishes its goals
b. can be objective or subjective in nature
c. are specific quality characteristics for which a product is designed, built and tested
d. need not be measured at all.

19. The Pareto Principle is a technique used by quality managers to determine which
quality control problems concerning a particular service or manufacturing process
should be corrected. Which of the following statement(s) best represent the
philosophy employed by this principle?

a. In order to minimize financial losses from quality control problems, all problems which
have a measurable cost associated with them should be corrected
b. The majority of defects are caused by a small percentage of the identifiable problems.
Improvement efforts should be reserved for those few vital problems
c. In order to achieve zero defects, all quality control problems, including those which do
not have a direct financial cost should be corrected
d. Generally, 80% of the quality control problems are accepted by the management for
correction. The remaining 20% are to be left out always.

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 20. Statistical Process Control uses diagrams called ‘Control Charts’. These charts
depict horizontal, parallel lines that represent how many standard deviations?
a. Six
b. five
c. four
d. three

SECTION 2 TRUE/FALSE (10 X 1 mark)

1. During the opening meeting of an audit, it is the auditee’s responsibility to explain

the audit scope and purpose to the audit team.
2. Function specific audit is also a part of software configuration management.
3. Measurements should be collected and analyzed in all the processes irrespective of
the benefit to the business.
4. Defect Prevention activities will lead to immediate benefits in the short run.
5. Customer Satisfaction Measurement and Analysis is part of ISO 9001:2000.
6. Cost of Poor Quality includes appraisal and rework cost.
7. Regression analysis is mainly used to identify the extent of impact of X’s on Y.
8. Process improvement initiatives always lead to return on investment in business.
9. Software reusability covers the repeated use of design templates, architecture and
test specifications across projects.
10. In CMMI, the continuous representation has five maturity levels such as initial,
managed, defined, quantitatively managed and optimized.

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SECTION 3 Match the following (10 X 1mark)

Column A Column B
1.Quality is fitness for intended use when required A. Risk Priority Number

2.The totality of features and characteristics of a product

or service that bear on its ability to satisfy specified or
implied needs B. Cost of Poor Quality
3.Top down, Bottom Up approach C. Unit Testing
4.A group of people responsible for evaluating and
approving or disapproving proposed changes to software
products D. Productivity
5.Number of Function Points per Person Week E. Corrective/Preventive Action
6.Rework effort for the defects F. Reliability
7.Root Cause Analysis G. Integration Testing
8.CMMI Continuous Representation H. ISO Quality Definition
9.Failure Mode and Effect Analysis I. Capability Levels
10. ISO Mandatory Requirement J. Configuration Control Board
K. Productivity
L. Management Review Meeting

SECTION 4 Case Analysis ( 1X 40 marks)

Note: Keep your answers short and simple. Long answers will be penalized.

International Software Solutions (ISS) is software Services Company involved in providing

various software solutions to the customers located across the globe. ISS does not have a
dedicated Software Quality Assurance team in their organization. Senior managers and project
managers used to take care of this function. However, over a period they felt that they could not
focus much on these activities and wanted to recruit five SQA professionals. They came to know
about the Proficience through internet and wanted to hire two members from the current batch.

Before coming to India for interviews, they want to verify the knowledge level of the students on
software quality assurance and management practices by giving a questionnaire as given below.
Given the opportunity, as a student, explain your approach to the case and maximize your chances
to get recruited with ISS. The salary offered is $58000 per annum with other benefits.

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1. ISS currently do not have any metrics followed in the organization. However, they would like
to have few metrics that will give the senior management about overall view of the projects status
at any point of time. What are the five top most metrics that you would suggest to us? Please
note that these metrics should be of business use to us and you should explain how against each
metric. Just mentioning metrics will not yield any appreciation.

2. We have studied that software quality measurement starts by identifying the higher level
quality goals and then finding the measurable attributes of software that can be used to indicate
the satisfaction of quality goals. Can you help us in identifying few metrics for the following
quality goals?

a. Usability
b. Maintainability
c. Reliability

3. Our organization is currently ISO 9001: 2000 certified. However, the external auditor who
comes every year for the surveillance audit advises us to go for CMMI implementation for better
results. We could not understand why our current processes won’t deliver the results. Based on
your knowledge, can you suggest us five critical actions that are recommended in CMMI but are
missing in ISO 9001:2000?

4. The following is the general defects statistics from our organization. Based on the tables below
where do you think our processes are strong and where do we need to improve?
Defects Defects
Defects Type Distribution Review Type Found
Missing Requirements 12% Requirement Review 15%
Conflict Requirements 15% Design Review 15%
Poor Architecture 8% Code Review 20%
Coding Standards not followed 10% Testing 40%
Poor Test Cases 1% Customer Testing 10%
Poor Database Design 20%
Missing Functionalities in
source code 15%
Wrong CR implementation 19%

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5. We have the following numbers that we have collected over a period. We pay $45 per hour for
the developers. It is observed that any defect that is fixed within the organization at any phase
costs us $10 and any defect that goes to the customer costs $110.

One thousand lines of source code will take about 50 hours of effort for a four-person team at the
recommended preparation and inspection rates of 150 lines per hour.

A 35-page design or requirements document will take about 50 hours of effort for a five-person
team at the recommended rate of seven pages per hour for preparation and inspection.

Referring to this data and the previous question number 4 in this case, please suggest whether our
reviews are adding value to our business.

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