A Conceptual Framework for Total Quality Management in Software Organizations

Abstract

The factors of ever-increasing customer demand, global competition, and software quality have made the process of software development with a focus on quality quite demanding and challenging. Over the past few years the organizations engaged in the software business have been forced to adopt new managerial philosophies and techniques that seek to address the technical and human issues for an effective software-quality management. Many organizations have started adopting Total Quality Management (TQM) philosophy, which aims at ‘quality through the process of continuous improvement, teamwork, and customer satisfaction’, as a useful tool for enhancing software quality. In this article, the critical factors of quality management in software are identified from an exhaustive survey of the literature, and propose a conceptual framework for the implementation of TQM in the software industry.

Keywords:

• Critical factors
• framework
• software
• quality management
• TQM