2013 Issue

52 In a quality-controlled production environment, quality is engineered into the process from the start to the finish, and not just tested for at the end of the process. I n my travels as a consultant, I find most software development groups have never considered managing soft- ware production quality throughout the process, instead of only at the end. A typical software development group has a dedicated teamat the end the software con- structionprocess that tests the software tobe sure it meets the functional requirements of the software, and has a relatively low remain- ing defect count. A good rule of thumb for a software environment is to have one quality assurance tester for every threeprogrammers. This is a good start, and companies that have this arrangement have a reasonable confidence level that the software they produce has a low error count. Advanced Software Quality Management, however, is about more than just verifying requirements and testing for errors. Con- sider the software development lifecycle. Software progresses froman initial concept, toa scopeof requirements, through adesign process, a coding stage, a testing stage, and finally a releasable product. Testing for qual- ity after the coding stage is a start, but does not adequately protect the process against failures introduced in previous stages of the software development life cycle. This is an important consideration because the least expensive place to locate an er- ror is within the phase it was introduced. It is far more expensive to locate an error after it has cascaded from the phase it was introduced into a later phase. In contrast to the above example, consider a distinct testing step established for each designated phase. Software Concept Software ideas, like other good ideas, are abundant. The challenge every software delivering organization has is to be sure the idea being considered will be the best use of resources and in the best interest of the organization at that time. Software ideas that Advanced Software Quality Managem