A system of values, beliefs, and behaviors inherent in a company. To optimize business performance, top management must define and create the necessary culture

The property that all necessary parts of the entity are included. Completeness of a product is often used to express the fact that all requirements have been met by the product. See: traceability analysis

(1) The degree to which a system or component has a design or implementation that is difficult to understand and verify. (2) Pertaining to any of a set of structure based metrics that measure the attribute in (1)

An automated system for the support of software development including an integrated tool set, i.e., programs, which facilitate the accomplishment of software engineering methods and tasks such as project planning and estimation, system and software requirements analysis, design of data structure, program architecture and algorithm procedure, coding, testing and maintenance

An examination of the procedures used in a computer system to evaluate their effectiveness and correctness and to recommend improvements. See: software audit

The protection of computer hardware and software from accidental or malicious access, use, modification, destruction, or disclosure. Security also pertains to personnel, data, communications, and the physical protection of computer installations

Off-the-shelf software (COTS)Application software, sometimes general purpose, written for a variety of industries or users in a manner that permits users to modify the program to meet their individual needs

An element of configuration management, consisting of the evaluation, coordination, approval or disapproval, and implementation of changes to configuration items after formal establishment of their configuration identification. See: change control.

A discipline applying technical and administrative direction and surveillance to identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of a configuration item, control changes to those characteristics, record and report change processing and implementation status, and verifying compliance with specified requirements. See: configuration control, change control

Allowing two or more variables to vary together so that it is impossible to separate their unique effects

Acceptance of a team decision so that everyone on the team can live with the decision and support it

Used in reaching unanimous agreement by voluntarily giving consent. An agreement to support a decision

The degree of uniformity, standardization, and freedom from contradiction among the documents or parts of a system or component

A software tool used to test requirements in design specifications for both consistency and completeness

Numerical information at the interval of ratio level; subdivision is conceptually meaningful; can assume any number within an interval, e.g., 14.652 amps

Action taken to find ways in improve processes, decrease variation , decrease costs, and improve effectiveness of the organization

A policy that encourages, mandates, and/or empowers employees to find ways to improve process and product performance measures on an ongoing basis

A chart that indicates upper and lower statistical control limits, and an average line, for samples or subgroups of a given process. If all points on the control chart are within the limits, variation may be ascribed to common causes and the process is deemed to be "in control." If points fall outside the limits, it is an indication that special causes of variation are occurring, and the process is said to be "out of control."

A software V&V task to ensure that the proposed control flow is free of problems, such as design or code elements that are unreachable or incorrect

A diagram that depicts the set of all possible sequences in which operations may be performed during the execution of a system or program. Types include box diagram, flowchart, input-process-output chart, state diagram. Contrast with data flow diagram. See: call graph, structure chart

A line on a control chart used for judging the stability of a process / Or / A statistically-determined line on a control chart used to analyze variation within a process. If variation exceeds the control limits, then the process is being affected by special causes and is said to be "out of control." A control limit is not the same as a specification limit

Control Plans are written descriptions of the systems for controlling parts and processes. They are written by suppliers to address the important characteristics and engineering requirements of the product. Each part shall have a Control Plan, but in many cases, "family" Control Plans can cover a number of parts produced using a common process. Customer approval of Control Plans may be required prior to production part submission / Or / Written descriptions of the systems for controlling parts and processes

Action(s) designed to identify and eliminate root causes of non-conformances and non-conformities / Or / Documented and purposeful change implemented to eliminate forever a specific cause of an identified non conformance

Maintenance performed to correct faults in hardware or software. Contrast with adaptive maintenance, preventative maintenance

The degree to which software is free from faults in its specification, design and coding. The degree to which software, documentation and other items meet specified requirements. The degree to which software, documentation and other items meet user needs and expectations, whether specified or not

Internal and External Failure Cost plus Appraisal and Prevention Costs / Or / The costs incurred by producing products or services of poor quality. These costs usually include the cost of inspection, rework, duplicate work, scrapping rejects, replacements and refunds, complaints, and loss of customers and reputation / Or / the costs associated with providing poor-quality products or services. There are four categories of costs: internal failure costs (costs associated with defects found before the customer receives the product or service); external failure costs (costs associated with defects found after the customer receives the product or service); appraisal costs (costs incurred to determine the degree of conformance to quality requirements); and prevention costs (costs incurred to keep failure and appraisal costs to a minimum)

A term coined by Philip Crosby referring to the cost of poor quality / Or / Philip Crosby's term for the cost of poor quality / Or / The total labor, materials, and overhead costs attributed to: 1) preventing nonconforming products products or services, 2) appraising products or service to ensure conformance, or 3) correcting or scrapping nonconforming products products or service

An attributes data control chart that evaluates process stability by charting the counts of occurrences of a given event in successive samples/Or / A control chart for evaluating the stability of a process in terms of the count of events of a given classification occurring in a sample

A control chart that evaluates process stability by charting the number of occurrences of a given event per unit sampled, in a series of samples

Determining and assessing measures associated with the invocation of program structural elements to determine the adequacy of a test run. Coverage analysis is useful when attempting to execute each statement, branch, path, or iterative structure in a program. Tools that capture this data and provide reports summarizing relevant information have this feature See: testing, branch; testing, path; testing, statement

A technique for making a ratio of the specification width in relation to the process's natural distribution for assessing whether the process can regularly meet specifications / Or / Commonly used process capability index defined as [USL (upper spec limit) - LSL(lower spec limit)] / [6 x sigma], where sigma is the estimated process standard deviation

Commonly used process capability index defined as the lesser of USL - m / 3sigma or m - LSL / 3sigma, where sigma is the estimated process standard deviation

A capability index which considers both process spread like C_p, and proximity of that spread to a target value or specification, which C_p does not. C_pk measures the actual performance or capability of a system where C_p measures the potential capability. C_pk is calculated by taking the mean of process performance and using it to understand the capability of the system in terms of specification versus actual performance