Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
to understand QATs and to highlight the relationship between QATs and other
process elements. This is to support development teams select appropriate QATs
and incorporate them into process models and related process guides. The frame-
work is intended to encompass QATs from many quality domains.
3.1
QAT Overview
QATs are used to identify, analyze, and control potential quality problems in the
development of critical systems. For examples, safety critical systems are con-
cerned with hazards to life, property or the environment, security-critical systems
focus on resistance to external threats and malicious actions against integrity
[15], and performance-critical systems emphasize response time or throughput
[18]. However, despite their importance in practice, QATs are not usually rep-
resented in detail in software development process models. They are not well
integrated with other process elements such as tasks, roles and work products
across the different phases of process models.
3.2
Identifying Important Characteristics of QATs
The QATF was constructed using the following approach. An initial review of
the software safety literature identified the QATs in the safety area. The re-
view also provided information about characteristics of these QATs, such as
aims, description, benefits, limitations and expertise required [15,21,16,22,17].
By referring to the software process modeling literature and simulation litera-
ture [23,24][23] and the safety literature [11,16], process characteristics such as
input, output and performer have been identified and populated.
We analysed the differences and similarities between various types of safety
techniques. Based on the purpose of selecting QATs and integrating them into
process models, characteristics which are generic for all the QATs have been se-
lected. These characteristics have been grouped into three perspectives: General
Information, Process Tailoring and QAT selection. Metamodels such as SPEM
[23] can be used to define software processes and their components. The Process
Tailoring characteristics in our framework have been selected based on the basic
process entities defined in SPEM: roles, activities, work products and guidance.
According to SPEM, a software development process is a collaboration between
multiple roles that execute operations called activities and have work products
as inputs and outputs [23]. Guidance elements such as tools, guidelines and ex-
amples can be used to support or automate the execution of an activity. The
QATF and the three perspectives are as follows.
General Information.
The General Information perspective provides an
overview of the functionality of a QAT.
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Technique Name:
Short and full name of the QAT.
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Aims:
What the QAT helps or enables us to do.
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Description:
A brief overview of the QAT.
