Balan Swaminathan

The highest risk that software development organizations face today is allowing defects to creep into the releases made for their high-paying customers. At times, either due to fear of losing the order, or due to overconfidence, organizations allow defects to ship. Time to market and (practically) defect-free products are the two pillars of any successful business. This article reiterates the important points in the defect-free part of that equation. How do you successfully implement system testing to ensure that the doors for future business remain open?

The model detailed in this article is a composite model for Software Quality Assurance (QA) to bring visibility into the software development process of low- and medium-maturity organizations. The QA review and measurement processes are integrated to form this composite model. Even though these processes are distinct, they both aim at providing visibility into the software development process. If managed well, both these processes together will provide better visibility and control over the software development process. On this common ground the composite model has been established. In this article, the ten elements of the model are discussed along with the benefits of implementing this composite model.