Dynamic Quality Management: the Way to Maintainable Software Systems

Extended Abstract When developing a software system, various standards and methods are available to guide the conceptualization of a quality management system. While these standards and methods focus on the software process and the business process, available measurement techniques focus mainly on the software product, i.e. the technical implementation. However, the characteristics making up the quality of a software system depend on the " quality triangle " : business process, software product and evolution process, that is, development and maintenance. Software systems require permanent maintenance to ensure their usefulness and productivity. In other words, to ensure the system's fit for its purpose, the system's fit with the environment must be preserved and regularly validated. Although maintainable software systems are a key issue in many organizations, only few publications are available that address the quality improvement of existing software systems. For maintaining software systems, a framework for quality management is yet to be developed and we attempt to make a first step in this direction: We propose Dynamic Quality Management (DQM). While following the quality control flow of assessment, improvement, and assurance, this framework explicitly considers that the environment changes continuously, is largely unpredictable, and is only partially knowable. That is, we consider the dynamic aspects of varying organizational resources (new insights into problems, new machines being installed, etc.), changing stakeholders (internal and external customer, users, software engineers, etc.), and fluctuating relationships between them. Hence, the " right first time " principle does not apply to software quality. For example, changing an information strategy according to a set of general principles as stated in many approaches to quality management is not sufficient to ensure maintainable software systems in organizational practice. Quality is not just an inherent property of quality principles like Statistical Process Control and Quality Function Deployment, or measurement schemata (e.g. MERMAID for cost and time, COQUAMO for product evaluation), but emerges from the proper application of " focal " actions. Consequently, DQM uses a network of " focal " actions. These action programs are focal regarding the " cornerstones " of the quality triangle. The goal of each action program is either to assess, to improve, or to assure the quality of the software systems under consideration. Action programs can be understood as projects consuming little resources (time, money, etc.). Moreover, they are autonomously carried out by a small group of people leading to the advantage of organizational flexibility. …