The quality of delivered software products, and the processes that develop them, are often viewed from a technical, or developer's, viewpoint. This book discusses techniques to ensure that quality and effectiveness of development include customers' views and needs.

A model for incorporating customer views is presented. The model incorporates a four-phase approach: 1) certification to ISO standards, 2) defining customer driven quality characteristics and evaluating software products using a structured approach and checklists, 3) establishing service-quality levels and implementing process audits, and 4) developing a process-improvement strategy utilizing SEI's CMM as a model.

Various techniques and tools are presented, such as the use of checklists and questionnaires, Fagan inspections, function-point analysis, V-Model, GQM paradigm, and others. The techniques are reviewed in relation to actual case studies.