The six P’s of planning are related with the basic requirements of planning. These are:-

1. Purpose: Purpose is the first need in the process of planning. In order to be effective, the process of planning requires that there should be clear understand regarding the purposes for which planning has to be done. In the same way, the reason behind the existence of the organization should also be mentioned. For example the purpose behind the existence of an organization can be to increase profits or to increase its market share. In the same way, the purpose of some organizations is to introduce new products in the market. Therefore, it is very important that the purpose of the organization should be understood clearly.

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Planning is considered as a very important part of management. With the help of the process of planning, the managers can anticipate the problems the organization may have to face in the future and then they can analyze these problems and also evaluate the impact of these problems on the organization. The process of planning continuously takes place and each and every level of management. Some of the important characteristics of the process of planning are:-

1. Planning is an intellectual process: the process of planning involves mental work. The relevant facts in this regard are elated with the knowledge and experience of the manager. It is also very important that the manager visualizes the situations that may develop in the future. Therefore, the manager should be capable of deciding the most appropriate course of action that needs to be adopted in the future with a view to implement the plans. The decisions made by the managers are not based on any guesswork but it is a mental exercise in which the managers are required to anticipate the advantages as well as the disadvantages of all the alternative is that may be available to them. After considerable thinking, the managers have to opt for the best alternative. This is not an easy process and sometimes, some managers tried to avoid this work as it needs creative thinking by the managers. Depending on the capabilities of a manager, the process of planning can be difficult or easy for some persons. The main questions that the manager has to consider while planning involve the question that what needs to be done, how it has to be done, when it has to be done and who will do it. A decision that will be made by the manager in this regard will also depend on the capabilities of the manager making the decision. However if the manager considers all the practical aspects of the decision, the manager will be able to make the right choice at the right moment.

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A plan can be described as the commitment of the organization to a particular course of action in order to achieve the desired. This also means that several plans have to be followed by the organization in order to achieve different objectives. Generally, it has been seen that manages make the mistake of considering only the major programs as the plans. However, there are several future courses of action that also need to be considered as plans. Therefore, the starting of the production of a new product or the establishment of a new factory also needs to be considered as plans. The classification of the plans can be made on the basis of the origin, purpose, used on the type of plans. There are certain plans that are present in the form of standing plans and at the same time, some other plans are single use plans. As the name suggests, the single use plans are only used on one occasion only and are not used again. On the other hand, the standing plans can be used by the organization repeatedly, on more than one occasion. Some of the examples of standing plans include the objectives, policies, procedures and rules and strategies etc. therefore once they have been formulated, the organization uses these plans for a long time and on more than one occasion. But at the same time there are plans like budgets and programs that are only used on one occasion and once they have been used, the organization is required to formulate these plans all over again. Therefore, different types of plans can be described as follows:-

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In the recent times, a great change has been observed in the field of the information technology and as a result of these changes, a large number of the changes have also cropped in the rules of the competition. And also with the changing of these rules in the competition and with the increase in the application of the computers – all this has given birth to a number of the ethical and social dilemmas.
Now at this point it becomes very much necessary to understand the meaning of ‘Ethics’ to have an in – depth under – standing of the information systems and the quality. ‘Ethics’ refers to the system or the code of the morals of a particular person, religion, group or professions. ‘Ethical’ refers to having to do with the ethics or the morality of or conforming to the moral standards of the conduct of the given profession or the group.
Griffin in 1990, formulated the person’s ethics through the operation of the five key fundamental forces in the individual’s environment viz,

1. Family influences
2. Peer influences
3. Experiences
4. Values and morals
5. Situational factors

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Quality Assurance can be defined as the “planned and a systematic pattern of all the actions necessary to provide an adequate confidence that the item or the project conforms to the established technical requirements”
Software Quality Assurance in a true sense acts as an umbrella activity that is actually implied through the software process. Software Quality Assurance helps in the reduction of the amount of the re – work that it must do and which further results in the lowering of the costs and the improved time to the market.

Software Quality Assurance should be able to –

a. Provide for the exhaustive testing.
b. Obtain a mathematical proof of the correctness.
c. Convince one- self that the output from the each phase of the development process is functionally equal to its predecessor.

Software Quality Assurance group has the responsibility for preparing the Software Quality Assurance plan. This plan is very helpful in the identification of the following –

1. Evaluations to be performed.
2. The audits and the reviews to be performed.
3. Standards, those are applicable to the project.
4. Procedures for the error reporting and also for the tracking.
5. Documents to be produced by the SQL group.
6. Amount of the feedback provided to the software projects team.

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