DESIRABLE FEATURES OF SOFTWARE QUALITY ASSURANCE (UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE)

Software Quality Assurance (QA) is becoming a paraprofessional group attached to computer software development organizations. Increasingly, software QA is a requirement of Department of Defense software development contracts. This thesis investigates how this requirement is being or has been met by two major defense contractors. The investigation uses a case study approach to analyze five software QA units, each organized under a separate defense contract. Each unit is designated a case for purposes of the study. The five cases are shown to have certain tasks, functions, and organizational interfaces in common. The tasks, functions, and interfaces are isolated and compared. The conclusions present optimum use or practice of each task, function, and interface based on practices observed among the five cases.