INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SCIENTIFIC & TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH VOLUME 4, ISSUE 02, FEBRUARY 2015 ISSN 2277-8616 44 IJSTR©2015 www.ijstr.org A Framework For Software Quality Assurance Using Agile Methodology Maria Sagheer, Tehreem Zafar, Mehreen Sirshar Abstract: Agile methodology that uses iterative and incremental approach is widely used in the industry projects as they can satisfy to the change of requirements. Efficient product delivery is achieved by using short iterations. But assuring the quality in any system is essential and imperative part which is very difficult task, which raises a question that: Is quality is assured in the software which is developed using agile methodology? The research paper proposed a solution and summarizes that how the quality is achieved or assure in agile software development using different factors. The major focus of this research paper is to analyse the quality parameter which assure quality in the agile methodology. The research paper includes the brief overview of the parameters which assure quality in agile. ———————————————————— I. INTRODUCTION. For the successful software engineering, the delivery of high quality software is needed. Mainly the customer satisfaction level is considered as the quality attribute which defines high quality of any system. Traditionally waterfall approach is used for the software development in which system is developed by freezing the requirements. To achieve high quality Agile methods rather than waterfall approach for the software development are adapted by many organizations to compete in the volatile market where the customer requirements are changing at the internet speed, changing organizational infrastructure and need for the short time deliverables. Agile methods that are most popular in use are: Extreme Programming (XP), Scrum, Feature Driven Development and Crystal Method. Agile uses the iterative and incremental approach for the software development due to which the time needed to meet errors is limited and it also emphasize developers to solve a problem as soon as possible. Agile development focuses on the interaction of individuals, customer participation and coping with change. The agile development gives highest priority to the customer needs, regular delivery of software and the quality of the software. But it more focuses on development rather than design and also not applicable for large projects. II. EFFECT OF AGILE METHODOLOGY ON QUALITY PARAMETERS IN DIFFERENT SCENERIO Agile software processes, such as extreme programming (XP), Scrum, etc., rely on best practices that are considered to improve software development quality. It can be said that best practices aim to induce software quality assurance (SQA) into the project. The quality assurance activities, in software development are also the backbone of the project. These activities are also responsible for process quality. The quality of the project is also affected by different parameters such as time constraint, efficiency, reliability etc. The effects of agile on different parameters have been figured out in analysis. The evaluation criteria for software quality assurance using agile methodologies is given in Table I, for comparing effects of different parameters that are discussed in analysis. The effects of agile; its strengths and weaknesses on quality assurance activities, software development process, maintainability, productivity and reusability are discussed below. 2.1) Evaluation of Quality Assurance factors in Agile Methodologies (S. Mehreen&A. Fahim ,2012) For the improvement in the quality of software products, agile method for software development has been adapted by many organizations to sustain in the market. Evaluating agile methodologies against main quality factors, acts as a tool for studying quality in agile technique. By analysing the quality factors against each methodology it has been notice that very simple and commonly followed methodologies are used. This defined tool introduces a new research era in development of agile technology where as the limitation of this tool is that is not applied in the industry yet. 2.2) Software Quality Assurance in Agile and Waterfall – A Comparative Study (J. Sana & N. Jedaiah, 2008) Formal software development methods or techniques are linear and static while this technique is not effective in the volatile environment where requirement changes at internet speed. Software quality is achieved in development process through two aspects; first is providing technique for software developed is of high quality while the other one is that in which quality factors is assured in the existing software. To analyse agile quality assurance, agile is compared with waterfall model. In this paper detailed waterfall model is presented which is helpful in checking the quality in agile methodology on the other hand waterfall model is not applicable perfectly in the present scenario therefore quality in agile should have to be compared with the present and mostly used technology. 2.3) Agile Software Assurance (Noura, M. Andrew & B. Gray, 2007). Agile methodology is presented since 90’s in many books, articles journals etc but a little research is conducted upon the quality assurance in agile. The main purpose of this paper is to search for the answer that how quality is assured in agile _________________________  Maria Sagheer, Tehreem Zafar, Mehreen Sirshar  Department of Software Engineering,  Fatima Jinnah Women University, the Mall  Rawalpindi, Pakistan