Software Certifications CSQA Certified Software Quality Analyst CSQA Exam Dumps: Updated Questions & Answers (October 2025)

A post-implementation audit is conducted to determine any, or all, of the following:

The system objectives were met

The system specifications were implemented as specified

The developmental standards were followed

The IT quality objectives (e.g., maintainability) were achieved

Post-implementation audits are a quality assurance activity. The post-implementation audit is used to assess the ability of the IT organization to perform effective and efficient work. The results of the audit will be used to both improve the software system and to improve the process that builds software systems.

The primary concern of the user during acceptance testing is that the deliverables meet the user requirements. The specific concerns during this phase are:

Meets specifications

All of the deliverables provided by the contractor meet the user requirements as specified in the contract.

On time

The delivered products will be in the hands of the user on the date specified on the contract.

Adequate test data

The customer should prepare sufficient test data so that the deliverables can be adequately tested. For application systems, this may be test transactions to verify the processing performed by the application. The acceptance test criteria for training courses and manuals may be review and examination. For example, the contractor may be asked to put on a training class in order to determine the adequacy of the material.

Preparation for operation

Any supporting activities should be completed in time for acceptance testing. This may involve the ordering of forms, making changes to existing operating systems, and other application systems, developing procedures to use the application, etc. The customer should have identified these needs during the feasibility phase, and worked on meeting those requirements while the contractor was preparing the application system.

User training

The users of the application should be trained prior to the acceptance test phase. This training may be provided by the organization itself, or it may be done by the contractor.

When can it begin

Acceptance testing should occur on the date which was specified in the contract.

Conversion to production

The procedures and steps necessary to put the application into production should be tested during the acceptance testing phase. These are normally customer obligations to prepare files, schedule production, etc. These procedures should be tested just as vigorously as the contractor’s application system.

In order to participate in the various aspects of contracting for software development, it is necessary to establish an acquisition life cycle for contracted software. This life cycle contains the following three activities:

Selecting an Outside Organization

Selecting a contractor is similar to systems design. It is a time of studying alternative contractors, costs, schedules, detailed implementation design specifications, and the specification of all the deliverables, such as documentation. The selection of an outside organization may involve the following individuals in addition to the quality control reviewer:

Systems analysts

User personnel

Internal auditor

Purchasing agent

Legal counsel

Contract Negotiations

In some organizations, the purchasing agent conducts all the negotiations with the contractor; the other parties are involved only in the needs specification. In other organizations, there is no purchasing agent, so the data processing department deals directly with contractors for the acquisition of application systems.

Operations and Maintenance

The maintenance and operations of purchased applications may be subject to contractual constraints. For example, some contracts limit the frequency with which an application can be run without paying extra charges, and limit an organization’s ability to duplicate the application system in order to run it in a second location. In-house personnel can maintain some purchased applications, but others do not come with source code and thus are not maintainable by in-house personnel. There may also be problems in connecting a purchased application from one contractor with purchased or rented software from another contractor. It is important that software from multi contractors be evaluated as to its capability to work in the same operating environment.

If a planning process exists, management should require compliance to that process.

The most important prerequisite for successful implementation of any major quality initiative is commitment from executive management. It is management’s responsibility to establish strategic objectives and build an infrastructure that is strategically aligned to those objectives. This Skill Category describes the management processes used to establish the foundation of a quality-managed environment including leadership concepts, the quality management infrastructure, and the quality environment.

The general principles of a Defect Management Process are as follows:

The primary goal is to prevent defects. Where this is not possible or practical, the goals are to find the defect as quickly as possible and to minimize the impact of the defect.

The defect management process, like the entire software development process, should be risk driven, i.e., strategies, priorities, and resources should be based on an assessment of the risk and the degree to which the expected impact of a risk can be reduced

Defect measurement should be integrated into the development process. Information on defects should be captured at the source as a natural by-product of doing the job. It should not be done after the fact by people unrelated to the project or system.

As much as possible, the capture and analysis of the information should be automated. The QA analyst should look for trends and perform a root-cause analysis to identify special and common cause problems.

Defect information should be used to improve the process. As imperfect or flawed processes cause most defects, processes may need to be altered to prevent defects.