The Quest for Quality Software
Hello People! I am going to start a series of posts talking about Software Quality.
Quality, today, is not just about a company having a market differential to sell more and increase profits, but a pre-requisite that must be conquered in order to get their product into the global market. Quality is a subject that is frequently discussed but rarely practiced. Missed deadlines, low productivity, inefficient quality control and high costs seem to be some of barriers that new technologies cannot overcome.
But in the end, what is software quality? In order to address the issue, it is necessary that we understand what “Quality Software” means exactly. There are several definitions. Some people tried to explain quality in a simple way and came up with definitions such as:
“Quality is to comply with customer requirements.”
“Quality is to anticipate and meet the customer’s wishes.”
We can also say that all the problems related to software quality fall in one of these two categories: lack of Quality of Compliance and lack of Quality of Performance.
Quality of Compliance refers to the adherence of the product to the purpose for which it was built. On the other hand, Quality of Performance refers to the capacity of the product to perform its desired function. In terms of software, this means lack of bugs, infrastructure (hardware) fault tolerance, user error tolerance, etc.
But why one should worry about software quality? There are some obvious reasons, as nobody likes to use a software program with bugs. These technical problems can cause enormous losses, such as the malfunctioning of a million dollar satellite. They can also cause multiple digit losses to a banking institution, prevent telephone carriers to provide long distance calls (and this has already happened with AT&T) or even cause a blackout in various cities. Ask people in India how inconvenient blackouts can be…
This is not all. Quality, today, is crucial for the survival of a company that wants to be successful in the global software market. An organization cannot succeed in this market if they do not produce quality software and if the clients do not have access to high quality products and services.
Contrary to what many think, the return on investment in quality is short. When quality improves, so does productivity, and the costs decrease due to lower rework rates and minimum waste. Not to mention the improvement in customer satisfaction, which often results in increased market share.
In the next post, I will talk about the costs of investing in quality. Stay tuned!
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