Syntel CQA Forum General Quality Principles

CQA Doc No 6
What relevance do general quality principles that have been developed in other fields have to software
development and software quality?
Let us consider a brief overview of the principles advocated by foremost quality experts. In particular:
1) Kaoru Ishikawa 2) Joseph. M. Juran 3) W. Edwards Deming 4) Philip Crosby
Some people suggest that Japan listened to these quality experts while the Western World ignored them.
ISHIKAWA
Ishikawa gives six features of quality work:
1) Company-wide quality control 4) Quality circles
2) Top management quality control audit5) Application of statistical methods
3) Industrial education and training 6) Nationwide quality control promotion
Quality Policy -Is crucial that all work is guided by quality policies. Must formulate quality requirements for
projects. Use quality plans for projects. A quality manual is used to define a quality management system to
implement quality policy.

Ishikawa Diagrams - These are cause-and-effect diagrams used to identify and resolve problems. They
focus on influential factors that can impact various aspects of quality in a given situation.

Quality Circles - Small groups that meet regularly to discuss quality issues.
JURAN
Juran prescribes the following strategy for achieving quality:
• Structured annual improvements in quality
• A massive quality-oriented training programme
• Upper management must lead company's approach to product quality
Achieving Quality Improvement
• Study the symptoms of defects and failures
• Develop a theory on the causes of the symptoms
• Test the theory until the cause is known
• Stimulate remedial action by appropriate action.
Defects can be separated into those that are worker-controllable and those that are management
controllable.
Worker Responsibility
• worker knows what to do
• worker knows result of own work
• worker has means of controlling result
If the three conditions apply and is a defect then worker is responsible otherwise is a management-
controllable defect
• Sequence of events for improving quality and reducing quality costs
• Universal feedback loop for control
• Fundamental is data collection and analysis
DEMING
Deming lists fourteen principles that may be employed by management to achieve quality results. They are:
1. Create constancy of purpose towards improvement of product and service
2. Adopt the new philosophy
3. Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality - build quality in, in the first place
4. End the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag - get single supplier for any one
item. Instead minimize total cost
5. Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service to improve quality and
productivity - this constantly decreases costs
6. Institute training on the job
7. Institute leadership. The aim of supervision is to help people to do a better job
8. Drive out fear, so everyone may work effectively for the company

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9. Break down the barriers between departments - work in teams

10. Eliminate slogans, and targets for the workforce asking for zero-defects and new levels of
productivity. They create adversarial relationships. The bulk of the causes of low quality and low
productivity belong to the system
11. Eliminate work standards and management by objectives - substitute leadership
12. Remove barriers that rob workers/managers of the right to pride of workmanship - abolish annual
merit rating
13. Institute a vigorous program of education and self improvement
14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation - the transformation is
everybody's job
Quality Control
Deming's major contribution has been his emphasis on the statistical control of quality in all stages of
production, maintenance and service. Deming remarked on one occasion: "The economic and social
revolution which took hold in Japan, upset in 15 years the economy of the world and shows what can be
accomplished by serious study and adoption of statistical methods and statistical logic in industry at all
levels from the top downwards".
• The analysis of errors for either type or cause will help control errors - this is particularly important for
software.
• The results enable improvement of the process so that less errors are produced
• You cannot inspect quality into a product - you must build in quality right from the outset.
The Deming Cycle
In addition to statistical knowledge Deming urges a common approach to attacking and describing
problems. Commonality is important to integrate quality improvement efforts in different parts of an
organization.
Deming's Four-step Repetitive Cycle is:
Repeatedly
1. Plan  work out strategy for carrying out task
 work out strategy for improvement
 identify measures to determine whether improvement has been successful and quality
goals have been achieved
2. Do  Carry out the task incorporating any improvement strategies designed to eliminate
defects, etc based on problem causes.
3. Check  Identify problems and relate them to quality measures established
4. Act  Analyse the root causes of the problem

CROSBY
Crosby suggests there are five maturing stages through which quality management evolves.
These are: 1. Uncertainty 4. Wisdom
2. Awakening 5. Certainty
3. Enlightenment
Crosby has used a Quality Management Maturity Grid to define his approach.
Quality Improvement
The advantage claimed for the Crosby approach is that it defines a quality improvement path for an
organization as well as a means for assessing where at any time the organization is on the path to quality.
Crosby focuses on defining quality as "conformance to requirements" and satisfying what the customer/user
wants and needs.
Misconceptions about software quality
There are several misconceptions about quality that follow from Crosby's work
• quality means goodness, cannot be defined or measured
• people do not produce quality because they don't care
• it costs a lot more to produce quality software
• people make mistakes - it is inevitable there will be errors in large systems

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There is an underlying assumption that the three goals of Quality, Cost, Schedule are conflicting and
mutually exclusive. In contrast, Deming claims that the only way to increase productivity and lower cost is
to increase quality.

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