Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Thursday, Jul 26, 2007 ePaper |
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Opinion
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Books Columns - Books of Account Software quality and car racing
Change four tyres, add more than 80 litres fuel, tweak the car for better efficiency, clean the windshield, clear debris from the front grill, and give the driver water. All in less than 13 seconds. Such breakthrough pit-stop performance in car racing events is possible only with a highly capable crew that has continuously improved its processes, much the same way as in software quality assurance, says Raghav S. Nandyal in Making Se nse of Software Quality Assurance ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com ). “Beyond winning and losing, poor pit stop performance can result in injuries, lost earnings, lost sponsorship, and lost jobs. Along similar lines, without an optimising software development process assisted with an equally capable competency management process, software initiatives will wrap up without a trace in today’s competitive environment.” In racing, you are only as fast as the slowest team member and only as successful as the last pit-stop performance, reads a quote, cited in the book. Likewise, “with software development, you are only as successful as your team’s ability to handle the steepest learning curve limited by the slowest learner on the team and leveraging from a strong software quality assurance competency that enables reuse of competency assets backed by the efficiencies of a mature development process.” Nandyal rues that software quality assurance is one of the first tasks to be axed when the company experiences tight cash flow. He traces the myopic reaction to bizarre and cynical staffing practices, which fill the assurance teams with non-performers! The book has instructive chapters on classes of audits and appraisals, information capture, verification of evidence, and synthesis of final findings. An important chapter speaks about competencies required of professionals in this sphere of work. Useful reference for the assurance practitioner.
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