What Happened to Quality Control?

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Quality   Testing/Test Management  

A big issue during the past few years has been a consistent lack of quality software applications. Instead, there has been a raft of botched applications and failures, and a small percentage of successes. Typically, an application was taken up to a certain point, and then the process stopped, its creators believing that the product’s goals had been reached. But they weren’t achieved for a number of reasons, first and foremost being the rush to get them to market as quickly as possible to save money. Rather than take the funds and manpower that ordinarily would go into testing and debugging, they were funneled into developing the next solution. The results of halfhearted development led either to testing after the fact (when bugs surface – and they usually do) or, in many cases, scuttling projects with great promise. No matter how you look at it, there was unnecessary waste. And it could have been avoided if classic project management principles were followed. It only proves an obvious point: There are no shortcuts if you want to do something right. Shortcuts inevitably lead to mistakes – more often than not, very expensive ones

It’s more than obvious that the developers of emerging technologies in 2009 will have to pay serious attention to the implementation and testing aspects of solution development and not just give lip service …

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