Consortium Corner

Consortium Corner... Rome Laboratory's Software Quality Technology Transfer Consortium

by David Card, Software Productivity Solutions, Inc.

Rome Laboratory has been researching software quality technology since the 1970s. One result has been the development of the Software Quality Framework (SQF). The SQF is a system of product measures and rules for combining them into quality factors such as reliability, correctness, etc. Six of these factors are defined by an international standard. In principle, the SQF provides software engineers with a consistent method of measuring and predicting quality factors throughout the software life-cycle. For example, reliability can be assessed using the SQF during design, then those results can be compared with an assessment of reliability made during testing, because the results of both assessments are reported on the same scale.

Rome Laboratory established the Software Quality Technology Transfer Consortium (SQTTC) in 1992 to help transition SQF technology to industry. Members join the Consortium by signing a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA). The agreement requires members to provide data from their application of the SQF to Rome Laboratory in exchange for the latter's support in implementing the technology. Rome Laboratory sponsors a Consortium Support Team to provide training, tools, and analysis support to the Consortium members. The Consortium recently took the significant step of establishing a Steering Committee to help coordinate and guide Consortium activities. Three members have been appointed to the Steering Committee thus far: Andrew Chruscicki (Rome Laboratory), the chairman; Charles Hotz (Northrop-Grumman); and Robert John (Hughes Canada).

The goals of the SQTTC are to validate and improve the SQF by applying it to real software projects. Two Consortium members have applied the SQF to projects and reported the results. CTA, Inc. applied the SQF to its Undergraduate Navigational Training System. Frontier Engineering, Inc. applied the SQF to its Engine Start System Maintenance Simulator. Northrop-Grumman and Hughes Canada are applying the SQF to projects now under development and providing data as the projects progress.

Data from all members will be loaded into a repository that is currently being developed to receive it and prepare it for analysis. The Consortium Support Team is developing an Analysis Plan that maximizes the information extracted from the data provided by members. The Analysis Plan has three principal goals:

Assess the utility and information value of individual measurement elements as quality measures,
Internally validate the SQF for combining measurement elements into quality factors, and
Externally validate the improved SQF in terms of its ability to predict quality results using new projects.

In addition to quantitative data, Consortium members also report their practical lessons-learned in applying the SQF, such as how much effort is involved, what elements are most difficult to implement, etc. These lessons will be captured in guidebooks to be published by Rome Laboratory.

Rome Laboratory, Consortium members, and the Support Team expect that their efforts will result in a more robust, easier-to-use, and validated SQF. The improved SQF will add another valuable measurement tool to the software engineer's toolkit. For more information on the SQTTC, contact the DACS to be put in toych with Consortium members.

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