Relating Software Quality Models and Process Methods to User Value

The ultimate object of software development should be to deliver value to all stakeholders. The traditional approach to delivering this value is to ensure that the software developed is of the highest quality. A number of quality models have been proposed to specify or describe what constitutes high quality software. The ISO9126 is one such model and perhaps the most comprehensive. Similarly, there are several methods, frameworks and guidelines for ensuring software quality in either the development or use process or both. Software Quality Management and Risk Management are probably the two most popular methods employed by developers during software development and implementation to deliver quality. In this paper the authors examine whether, and to what extent, the implied value propositions of software products as portrayed by the ISO9126 quality model and the prescribed processes in Software Quality Management and Risk Management, map onto user value perceptions and experiences. An ontology of value, in the form of a value tree, is developed and used to identify and analyse the key value dimensions of the ISO9126 quality model and the Software Quality Management and Risk Management process methods. These are then mapped onto contextualised user value characterisations derived from the extant literature. Differences identified are analysed and discussed and the authors suggest approaches that could narrow the perennial gap between idealised quality product and process models and stakeholder perceptions and actualisations of software value.