Customers expect software quality to be very high, and yet we frequently hear in the news about bugs or design errors that cost time, money or worse - lives. As software development becomes more complex, innovative, and created by distributed teams, delivering quality is increasingly difficult.

Quality assurance (QA) generally focuses on testing the software in the final stages of a project, when budgets are scarce and the pressure to deliver the product is high. To ensure quality, project managers must balance quality assurance with time-to-market.

This paper details the challenges and solutions available for organizations wishing to improve their software development process, reduce costs, improve quality and increase reliability of planning. It also presents examples of companies that have successfully implemented Strategic QA and, as a result, have become more competitive.