Software quality assurance and testing can account for a significant portion of your total software budget. What if you only paid from the saving actually realised? Would you be interested?

The Proposition
There are well-documented industry statistics that show how the cost of rework increases dramatically the later in the life cycle that the defect is identified and corrected. At Sogeti we have launched a new service focused on defect identification and removal early in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) to reduce the overall quality assurance cost. The service is based on the proposition that these realisable and identified savings are shared.

How it works

1. Our senior software quality assurance consultants meet with you to agree:

• Scope of the review
• Definition and classification of defects (e.g. major fault, minor fault, etc)
• Agree “standard” cost to rework each category of defect if it were not found and fixed until later in the software development lifecycle.
• Agree basis for sharing savings
• Agree the format of findings report.

2. The Requirements Review is carried out.

3.Findings are documented and presented.

The Rationale
The quality of systems requirements is central to the success of every software system deployment. The industry figures speak eloquently of the importance of the quality, completeness and clarity of requirements:

• 56% of defects caused by requirements (Source: James Martin, An Information Systems Manifesto)
• 82% of the effort required to correct defects caused by requirements (Source: Martin & Leffinwell)
• 44% of cancelled projects caused by issues related to requirements (Source: The Standish Group Chaos Report)

Benefits
Early defect detection has been shown to delivery significant benefits including:

• Less rework, in turn resulting in better schedule/cost predictability, reduced cycle time, etc.
• Shorter time-to-market or time-to-deployment for new systems or enhancements
• Test execution costs/timescales reduced by a factor of 5 to 10
• Maintenance costs reduced by a factor of 10
• Reputation: Would you prefer that a colleague, rather than a customer, found a defect?

Clearly, catching errors at an early stage will result in significant savings, better quality and more predictable delivery dates.

Requirements Review Checklist
Typical items/activities that are included in the Requirements Review are:

• Scope
• Completeness of specifications
• Clarity and lack of ambiguity
• Inconsistencies and conflicts
• Adherence to standards
• Design constraint
• Design neutrality
• Explicit definition of external interfaces
• Level of detail
• Readability
• Requirements conflict or duplication
• Testability
• Traceability
• Usability

Next Step
Contact us to arrange an initial exploratory “no obligation” call or meeting with one of our software QA professionals.