Software Quality Assurance

Keys to Project Success - Part 6

Build in Quality from the Start

“The problem with quick and dirty, as some people have said, is that dirty remains long after quick has been forgotten.”[1]  Many times in my career I’ve inherited systems where this quote is so applicable.  There are always various reasons: “They needed a solution really fast so we just banged it out,” or, “It was only supposed to be a temporary solution,” and so on.  The thing is, once the solution is in place, it tends to stay in place, and if it isn’t done with quality in mind, then the future cost of

Shawn Sheridan, Wednesday, 14 January 2015
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Project Management
Quality
Software Quality Assurance
Software Engineering
Testing

Software Quality Metrics — What to Measure When for Competitive Advantage | Part 4

Improving Defect Detection

No software engineering shop is perfect, as human beings are by nature prone to error.  So, not only do we want to determine what we can do to avoid defects altogether, but failing that, what can we do better to “nip them in the bud”, before they explode in terms of cost and organisational reputation damage.  In the formulas that follow, the subscripted capital letter “I” denotes “Introduction”, and the subscripted capital letter “D” denotes “Detection”.

Shawn Sheridan, Monday, 21 March 2011
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Software Quality Assurance
Quality
SQA
Metrics
Software Engineering
Defect Detection

Software Quality Metrics — What to Measure When for Competitive Advantage | Part 3

Reducing Defect Introduction and Repair Costs and Consequences

In order to know what engineering processes to target and how, in order to not introduce defects in the first place and completely avoid the costs of poor software quality, we need to understand where defects come from, how costly they are to repair, and why they are introduced.  In the formulas that follow, the subscripted capital letter “I” denotes “Introduction”.

Shawn Sheridan, Monday, 14 March 2011
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Software Quality Assurance
Quality
SQA
Metrics
Software Engineering
Defect Detection

Software Quality Metrics — What to Measure When for Competitive Advantage | Part 2

What to Measure

Number-of-defects is a poor measure of (lack of) software quality.  ‘Size’ of the defect (what it takes to repair it) and severity of the defect (what damage it caused) are better indicators.  When severity can be quantified in terms of cost, the sum of cost-to-fix and cost-of-severity gives cost-of-poor-quality.

Shawn Sheridan, Tuesday, 8 March 2011
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Software Quality Assurance
Quality
SQA
Metrics
Software Engineering
Defect Detection

Software Quality Metrics — What to Measure When for Competitive Advantage | Part 1

Background

A number of years ago, on my first day of my new job as vice president of the software development team of a leading financial institution, as I was being introduced to my peers in the operations area, one of the supervisors in the customer relations call centre came hustling down the isle towards my new boss and I, a look of frustration on his face, exclaiming, “The whole system is down!  We can’t answer any calls!” 

Shawn Sheridan, Friday, 4 March 2011
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Software Quality Assurance
Quality
SQA
Metrics
Software Engineering
Defect Detection
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