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Manage Development Configuration Integrity

			Solution - Manage Development Config. Integrity - (.PDF 136KB)

The Challenge

In modern systems development initiatives, the dependence upon software has complicated quality results since progress is so difficult to observe. It is common for developed products to have little integrity for meeting requirements due to concentration on just the latest specification from design rather than the expectation of customers or users. Changes during a development effort are often not all accounted and the impact is rarely understood when decisions are required. Technical team results are commonly problematic due to simple coordination issues:

• Software product builds do not have specified functionality expected in releases.
• Test coverage is insufficient to prove requirements are met.
• Changes to infrastructure sabotage application software not expecting a different environment.
• Products are highly dependent upon discipline and skill of individuals.
• Application integrity is highly dependent upon integrity and predictability of middleware.
• Products don’t work after production launch or break soon after.
• Training is difficult to manage due to proliferation of systems and processes in use.
• Individual products specify complex new infrastructure needs.

The Approach

Consistent quality is not possible without process. The integrity of products depends upon development process integrity. Individuals should practice mature methods, but management is responsible to establish standards and to assure compliance through governance activity. Leadership is required to ensure the right skills engage at the right time to facilitate production of quality at every phase of development. Where it is not right to automate a bad process, automation can facilitate execution of a process that proves the capability to result in quality products. It is important to have the skills, process then technology implemented and functioning to ensure integrity of system development results.

The Solution

Software development is as much an art as a science. Standards and practices have proven to build greater integrity into the software leading to much higher quality and project success. By ensuring that errors are found as early in the process as possible, less effort is wasted on developing a product that has errors and more effort is focused on high quality. Systems are available to facilitate a high quality process at software creation time. By using automated build engines and reporting with enhanced testing during the build process feedback is provided to developers to demonstrate higher integrity of code early. Corrections can also be made when the product pieces were just worked on to help improve productivity. Managers gain visibility into the process and product to help control the pace and quality of development efforts that is often doubled or worse due to rework following formal test phases. With systems designed for system configuration and quality integrity teams have a greater probability of success including the effort to produce product as well as the satisfaction of users with the product.

The Benefits

The greatest result from this solution is lower cost of quality. Cost of quality improvements come from people, process and technology. People improvements include: productivity for more immediate correction of results for development activity; higher effectiveness for timing of corrections; reduced waste for tracking errors that automation could find; and, fewer disruptions from other disciplines. Process improvements include: more consistency to customer results; ability to improve where process results are less consistent; and predictability of schedule and cost with fewer interdependent impacts. Technology improvements include: immediate notifications to multiple participants simultaneously for any anomalies; automated comparison to standards identifies errors more accurately; systems are synchronized and updated automatically based on best practice schedules; and teams are enabled to identify and correct errors sooner. By correcting any problems early, the multiplier effect of passing errors deeper into the process reduces impact by at least ten times.

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