Datasheet

12 ■ Optimize Quality for Business Outcomes
how well a component meets specified requirements or
user needs and expectations. And, it’s the ability of a
component to produce specified outputs when given
specified inputs, and the extent to which they match or
satisfy the requirements.
 Completeness — How well the component implements
all required capabilities.
 Efficiency — How well a component performs its desig-
nated functions using minimal resources.
 Understandability — How clear the meaning of a soft-
ware component is to the user.
 Performance — How well the article under test (AUT)
meets the performance needs of the user. Performance
may be a measure of throughput, response time, trans-
action or data volume, or any other related measure.
 Security — How well the system as a whole is protected
from unauthorized access, disclosure, use disruption,
modification, and destruction.
 Availability — The degree to which a system or compo-
nent is operational when required for use.
 Scalability — How easily a system or component can
handle growing amounts of work in a graceful manner;
or the criteria to readily enlarge the capacity of a system
vertically or horizontally.
Obviously it is not possible to test against all the different goals
in one step. So testing is usually conducted using test phases in
a phased approach. Each test phase concentrates on phase-spe-
cific quality goals and requires a different level of readiness of
the product.
MQM.book Page 12 Wednesday, May 7, 2008 11:29 AM