Assessing Product Quality through PMR Analysis: A Perspective

Success of a software product in the marketplace is defined by Quality of the product among other factors Assessing the current quality of the product is essential before it can be improved The assessment needs to be accurate in order to have the right action plan to improve quality Test methods and code reviews used to identify quality gaps in pre-release software are inadequate Product quality can be assessed by analysing PMRs (Problem Management Reports) in post-release software a) A PMR is a well defined document that is used to Report a customer found issue with the product Track the customer issue to closure b) Analysis of PMRs opened in the past are a clear indication of: i) Product components that are Most commonly used and having the most number of bugs, classified by sub-component Least commonly used ii) Sub-components to be focused on, to provide a visible improvement in the overall product quality c) PMR analysis improves the accuracy of the assessment as it is based on actual product usage In turn improves the accuracy / relevance of the action plan formulated to improve quality The paper outlines the quality assessment of a software product through PMR analysis.