Software
Software presents unique difficulties for QA in that it is unlike most other products of services. If QA is all about controlling variation in the process to produce a consistent outcome, and it is, then what do you do with a process which by its very nature is different each time? Although you can control the way in which a design is approached, encourage the reuse of proven designs, develop tools to deal with the inherent complexity and the huge numbers of individual components and the need for them all to be correct, bespoke software development is exactly that. Each new software system involves some novelty and creativity. The production of software is trivial. Design is anything but. Software, though, is all about design, and it is in design failures that software fails.

Let's not kid ourselves. The concept of controlling the software process to produce consistently good software is an article of faith, but we know that building software using discipline and opening up the process to scrutiny by keeping good records and recording what decisions were made and why, does produce a better outcome than tackling something as complex as this like a bull in a china shop.

The following links to the PowerPoint slides from a talk I gave to the BCS in 1998. I hope you find it of interest.

BCS Talk