34 Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. Chapter 3 A Review of Software Quality Methodologies ABSTRACT Pervasive systems and increased reliance on embedded systems require that the underlying software is properly tested and has in-built high quality. The approaches often adopted to realize software systems have inherent weaknesses that have resulted in less robust software applications. The requirement of reli- able software suggests that quality needs to be instilled at all stages of a software development paradigms, especially at the testing stages of the development cycle ensuring that quality attributes and parameters are taken into account when designing and developing software. In this respect, numerous tools, techniques, and methodologies have also been proposed. In this chapter, the authors present and review diferent methodologies employed to improve the software quality during the software development lifecycle. INTRODUCTION The abstract nature of software products make them very different from conventional products that we can touch and see being built. As a result, the probability of human induced errors in soft- ware systems becomes high. Software systems have revolutionized every field of life. It is hard to believe that software systems are not being applied in any organizational setting. Extensive use of software applications and products in everyday life requires dependable and efficient software applications to run the day to day ac- tivities smoothly. This is equally true in case of business organization and commercial environ- ments. As a result, similar to other products, the quality is emerging as an important attribute of such software systems. Crosby (1979) defines quality as “conformance to requirements” and Pressman (2010) extends this definition to include “adherence to standards”. Pressman (2010) defines Saqib Saeed University of Siegen, Germany Farrukh Masood Khawaja Ericsson Telekommunikation GmbH, Germany Zaigham Mahmood University of Derby, UK DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4301-7.ch003