Software Quality Management and ISO 9001: How to Make Them Work for You

Rating:
Summary: Out-of-date; useful in areas for non-ISO 9001 shops
Review: This book is a good step-by-step description of 1994 version of ISO 9001 as it relates to software.

Book strengths are: (1) Not bogged down with history, the politics of standards or doom and gloom if you do not employ ISO 9001 as a foundation of software quality, (2)you are taken through the key elements of ISO 9001 and shown how to develop a quality manual, project quality plans and process documentation and (3) the conformance checklist, which will greatly aid you in sorting out what needs to be addressed.

Book weaknesses: Out of date (published in 1995 and only addresses ISO 9001 circa 1994).

This is still a valuable book for organizations that want to implement a quality foundation, particularly with respect to document control and repeatability in procedures. If you do purchase this book to assist you in pursuing ISO 9001 registration for software and services I strongly recommend augmenting it with "ISO 9001:2000 Explained" by Cianfrani, Tsiakals and West. That book will bring the material up to the 2000 version of ISO 9001. Also consider "ISO 9000-3: A Tool for Software Product and Process Improvement" by Raymond Kehoe, et al, which is a more comprehensive treatment of the subject (note that this book also is out of date with respect to the 2000 version of ISO 9001).