Software Quality Assurance (SQA) is a group of related activities employed throughout the software life cycle to positively influence and quantify the quality of the delivered software.

This report provides an overview of SQA, outlining process and product assurance and the methods and technologies typically employed to accomplish them. These methods include audits, assessment activities (e.g., ISO 9000), analysis functions such as reliability prediction, and embedded defect detection methods such as formal inspection. The overview is intended to help the reader identify specific SQA activities for more in-depth study.

This report also describes several representative publications on the subject of software quality assurance, assessment standards, and inspection to help the reader find a reliable source for further research. It concludes with an annotated bibliography of public-domain papers on the subject of SQA.