SQA plan

An SQA plan is a road map for software quality assurance on a project. It is prepared by the SQA group (or the software team) and acts as a template for the quality activities carried out on that project.

The IEEE standard for SQA plans (IEEE 730) suggests this structure:

1. Purpose and scope of the plan.
2. Work products that fall within SQA, such as models, documents and source code.
3. Applicable standards and practices used during the process.
4. SQA actions and tasks, including reviews and audits, and where they are placed in the software process.
5. Tools and methods that support SQA.
6. Software configuration management procedures.
7. Methods for collecting, safeguarding and maintaining quality records.
8. Organizational roles and responsibilities related to quality.

Example: for a hospital management system, the SQA plan may state that the SRS follows IEEE 830, every module's code is reviewed before integration, test results are recorded in a test log, and the SQA manager audits the release.

A good SQA plan makes quality activities visible, assigns clear responsibility, and lets management check that the planned activities were actually done.