SQA Planning

Planning is one of the most important aspects of Software Quality Assurance. The entire operation of the SQA team depends on how well their planning is done. In smaller businesses, planning might not really dictate the flow of SQA but in larger businesses, SQA Planning takes on center stage. Without it, each component or department that works on the application will be affected and will never function.

In gist, SQA Planning tackles almost every aspect of SQA’s operation. Through planning, each member and even non-member of the SQA team is clearly defined. The reason for this is very simple: when everyone knows their role and boundaries, there is no overlapping of responsibilities and everyone could concentrate on their roles.

But SQA Planning is not only a document that tells who gets to do the specific task. The stages in are also detailed. The whole SQA team will be very busy once the actual testing starts but with SQA, everyone’s work is clearly laid out. Throughplanning, the actual state of the application testing is known.

Again in smaller businesses, the planning maybe limited to the phase of the application testing but when outlined for corporations, the scenario changes and only throughplanning that everyone will know where they are and where they are going in terms of SQA.

SQA Planning is not just a simple document where objectives are written and stages are clearly stated. Because of the need to standardize software development ensuring the limitation of error, a scientific approach is recommended in developing an SQA plan. Certain standards such as IEEE Std 730 or 983.

SQA Plan Content

An SQA Plan is detailed description of the project and its approach for testing. Going with the standards, an SQA Plan is divided into four sections:

• Software Quality Assurance Plan for Software Requirements;
• Software Quality Assurance Plan for Architectural Design;
• Software Quality Assurance Plan for Detailed Design and Production and;
• Software Quality Assurance Plan for Transfer

In the first phase, the SQA team should write in detail the activities related for software requirements. In this stage, the team will be creating steps and stages on how they will analyze the software requirements. They could refer to additional documents to ensure the plan works out.

The second stage of SQA Plan or the SQAP for AD (Architectural Design) the team should analyze in detail the preparation of the development team for detailed build-up. This stage is a rough representation of the program but it still has to go through rigorous scrutiny before it reaches the next stage.

The third phase which tackles the quality assurance plan for detailed design and actual product is probably the longest among phases. The SQA team should write in detail the tools and approach they will be using to ensure that the produced application is written according to plan. The team should also startplanning on the transfer phase as well.

SQA Planning