Webinar Summary I had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion with Bill Martorelli, Principal Analyst at Forrester Research Inc; Dr. Richard Mark Soley, Chairman and CEO of Object Management Group (OMG); Siva Ganesan, VP & Global Head of Assurance Services at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS); and Lev Lesokhin, EVP, Strategy & Market Development at CAST. We focused on industry trends, and specifically discussed how standardizing quality measures can have a big impact on reducing software risk. This interactive format allowed attendees to hear four distinct perspectives on the challenges and progress that is being made within organizations directly, and also at systems integrators. Mr. Martorelli started the discussion by … Read More
Category Archives: Outsourced Software
Don’t Blame the Outsourcer
In my travels, I run into a lot of organizations that are not happy with the performance of their outsourcer. In many cases, the core relationship is the result of a cascade effect. The organization delivered an application that had poor structural quality to begin with, and left the outsourcer with the difficult task of meeting their SLA requirements with a faulty application. If you want great results from an outsourcer, here’s job one: make sure the application you’re delivering is structurally sound to begin with. Step two: make sure the tools and technologies you use to ensure structural integrity are also part of the outsourcing agreement and, in the … Read More
Great Expectations and How to Meet Them
There’s a very old mantra around project quality that says, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” I disagree. We recently remodeled the bathroom in our master bedroom. Rather than taking my own sledgehammer to the walls, tub and toilet and then hanging my own sheet rock, my wife and I hired a local contractor who came in, did the demolition and reconstruction, and in the end we wound up with a room with which we’re very happy. I can tell you without reservation that had I done it myself the project would have turned out disastrous because I confess to a certain measure of incompetence when it … Read More
Done Off-Site, Done Right
In 1807, French playwright Charles-Guillaume Étienne penned the famous line, “On n’est jamais si bien servi que par soi-même.” For those who do not speak French, you may recognize this now idiomatic phrase as the oft uttered, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Étienne’s words are a proclamation of self-reliance commensurate with the attitude of the French Revolutionary period during which he earned his acclaim; however, they are quite obviously not a hard and fast rule among businesses today. In today’s world, many companies that want “something done right” – including the development of software – look overseas for other companies to do it right for them. … Read More
For Whom the Bell Curve Tolls
As an IT executive, how do you make sure you consistently deliver good results and help the business innovate? How do you do it when you are relying on your vendors to get 80% of your work done? These topics were top of mind at the Forrester Sourcing & Vendor Management Forum I just attended. In the past couple years I’ve had many conversations with IT executives about vendor management, about productivity, about quality and overall about improving large app dev organizations with many moving parts. There are many approaches that come up – process improvement, better governance, introducing measurement, or replacing your vendor. This is not an easy problem … Read More
Structural Quality Metrics in Outsourcing SLAs
When I speak to customers and prospects trying to incorporate static code analysis into their software development processes, one of the most common questions that I get is “How do we incorporate the outputs of static analysis into SLAS?” Given the prevalence of outsourcing in Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, this question is not surprising. Companies have always struggled to measure the quality of products being delivered, beyond the typical defect densities measured after the fact. To help organizations answer this and similar questions, I thought I would compile some frequently asked questions around introducing Structural Quality Metrics into SLAs. Before I get into the details, I want to caution … Read More
Getting Quality to the Core of Outsourcing
Last week, Capgemini released its second Financial Services World Quality Report. The report cited that while corporations across the globe continue to be constrained by budget issues, the complexity and volume of application software they handle continues to increase exponentially. As a result, Quality Assurance organizations are turning more and more to the cloud and outsourcing as strategies to achieve quality applications, while attaining optimal business value. When it comes to outsourcing in particular, the report states, “With a more comprehensive outsourcing strategy, firms can derive value from transforming business processes, improving time to market, capturing operational efficiencies and further optimizing costs.” As firms continue to increase their outsourcing efforts … Read More