IfSQ

The IfSQ Assessment Process

While the person most directly impacted by unreliable software is the user, in fact all stakeholders (including programmers, project managers, directors, and shareholders) have an interest in improved quality and reduced risk.

However, without some independent guarantee of quality, there is a higher chance that software may be incomplete, poorly structured, or unquantifiable in terms of risk or future costs of supporting the software.

A process that requires a programmer to sign off on a piece of source code and make a declaration about its perceived quality helps avoid these types of risk by guaranteeing that basic quality processes are being applied in a systematic way.

In addition to the three levels of Standard, IfSQ has therefore defined an assessment process that specifies:

• an inspection method
• an assurance of compliance to the Standards

There are four levels of assurance of compliance:

• Self-Assessment (Level-1 only), an inspection carried out by the programmer himself,
• Peer Assessment, an inspection carried out by a member of the development team on a colleague's code,
• Third-Party Assessment, an inspection carried out by a third party uninvolved in the development of the code,
• Certification, an inspection carried out by a quality assurance body.