Glossary - Q

quality: 1) the degree to which a work product has useful and desireable characteristics as represented by quality factors.; 2) the degree to which a work product is free from defects; 3) the degree to which a process is likely to produce quality work products in an efficient, repeatable manner.
quality assurance (QA): the quality engineering task that ensures the quality of the endeavor’s process.
Note that QA involves both evaluating the quality of the process as well as identifying ways to eliminate its defects. These process defects include both defects in the documented process as well as inconsistencies between the process as documented and the process as actually performed.
Contrast with quality control.
quality control (QC): the quality engineering task that ensures the quality of the work products, especially those that are deliverable to the customer organization.
Note that QC involves both evaluating the quality of work products as well as identifying ways to eliminate their defects. Popular QC evaluation techniques include audits, inspections, reviews, tests, and walkthroughs.
Contrast with quality assurance.
quality criterion: a specific description of something that provides evidence either for or against the existence of a specific quality factor or subfactor
quality engineer: the role that is played when a person independently performs quality assurance and control tasks on an endeaver.
quality engineering: the activity involving all tasks directly related to engineering quality into the work products of a project. Quality engineering consists of quality assurance and quality control.
quality factor (a.k.a., quality attribute or “ility”): an important attribute or characteristic of a work product (e.g., application, component, or document) or process that characterizes part of its overall quality (e.g., extensibility, operational availability, performance, reusability, or usability).
Contrast with quality metric and quality requirement.
quality goal: a goal for the quality of a work product or process.
Contrast with business goal and operational goal.
Contrast with quality factor, quality metric, and quality requirement
quality measure: a measure that provides numerical values estimating the quality of a work product or process by measuring the degree to which the work product or process possess a specific quality factor.
quality model (a.k.a., quality system and quality framework): a model of the quality of a work product or process in terms of its relevant quality goals, requirements, factors, and metrics.
quality modeling: the quality engineering task during which an endeavor’s quality model is produced.
quality needs assessment: the quality engineering task during which an endeavor’s needs for quality modeling, quality assurance, and quality control are determined.
quality plan (a.k.a., quality manual): the quality work product that documents all plans for performing quality engineering on an endeavor.
quality planning: the quality engineering task during which the other quality tasks are planned.
quality requirement: any requirement that specifies that a quality factor be present in a work product or process.
Contrast with constraint, external API requirement, informational requirement, operational requirement, and
Contrast with quality factor, quality goal, and quality metric
quality set: the set of all work products that are produced during the quality engineering activity.
quality team: the team that performs developer-independent quality engineering on an endeavor.