The duties of Quality planning agent Essay

Interface agent acts as a medium between the stakeholder and other agents. It is responsible for getting the information from the user either it may be quality requirements or the feedback from the client regarding the installed system during the maintenance [1]. The interface agent is also responsible for taking the inputs from user which are needed by the quality planning agent for choosing the appropriate quality model, and plan the QA activities based on the quality requirements of the user.
Quality planning agent is responsible for the planning the quality goals and forming the quality assurance strategy [1]. This agent works with the interface agents by getting the inputs, and formalizes a quality plan based on the user needs. The quality planning agent selects the correct quality model need for the user by analyzing the answers given by the user. It customizes the quality model based on the user needs. The customization process is as follows [8] it analyses the requirements of the user, answers from the generic questionnaire, and select a specific quality profile. It then maps this quality profile to the existing quality models, and searches for exact fit. If the exact fit is not found, then next best is selected and it customizes the quality model for the user. So, that it matches the quality requirements of the user.
The process for the overall quality planning and quality assurance strategy is as follows [2] based on the inputs from users via interface agent the quality planning agent determines the most influential factors for project following the guidelines, out of which it again analyses and determines the important influential factors [1]. After choosing the influential factors, it determines the QA- strategy by forming the framework heuristics, reuse information, and variation factors [2]. After choosing the QA- strategy, the evaluation of QA-strategy is done to make sure the formed correct QA-strategies are according to the user's quality needs or not. This evaluation process involves a series of steps such as risks involved, effects of such strategy, and quality goals achieved by certain quality assurance strategy [2]. After evaluating the QA- strategy, the agent selects the most fit QA-strategy. The quality planning agent dumps everything in the repository.
Monitoring agent is responsible for performing the in-QA activities like executing the selected quality assurance activity, discovering, and handling the defects found [1]. It identifies the errors, faults and defects. Monitoring agent can be regarded as the most important agent as it performs the important activities of the software quality engineering process. This agent gets the data from other agents, and from the repository where the quality planning agent stored the final QA- strategy and techniques. This agent has the knowledge base which can detect the errors and take necessary steps to correct the defects discovered in the QA- activities. The monitoring agent performs the quality assurance activities and stores the information about the activities and the discovered defects in the repository from which the other agents can used this information.