Software quality is not one-size-fits-all: different software products need different types of testing because they have different QA goals. For example, a real-time system may place much more priority of performance than would a typical desktop business application.

The task of QA planning is discussed in detail in the " http://www.readysetpro.com/whitepapers/qaplans.html - Quality Throughout the Life-Cycle " white paper. The main parts of the overall QA plan are:

• Select and prioritize quality goals for this release
• Select QA activities to achieve those goals
• Evaluate how well the activities support the goals
• Plan the actions needed to carry out the activities

The overall QA plan addresses all quality activities. Quality can be achieved by building in better quality from the start, and by testing to find and remove defects. Specific QA activities include: coding preconditions, reviewing design and code, unit testing, integration testing, system testing, beta testing, using analysis tools, and field failure reports, among others. The rest of this paper will focus in on just the system testing activity.