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Amelia's Term/Phrase of the Quarter

I joined Experimentus in January this year having come from a background that until now, hasn’t had a great deal to do with I.T. (other than the occasional status update on Facebook), so I often need things explaining to me in the simplest of terms and I decided I can’t possibly be the only one! (...can I?!)

I’ve found it intriguing how many terms and phrases I have heard in different contexts that seem to be commonly misused or misinterpreted. So I thought I would take this opportunity to draw attention to them and finally set the record straight (with help from my wonderful panel of experts of course!)

Having read the article mentioned in this Issue’s Newsletter, from the Analyst Dominique Raviart at Nelson Hall that focuses on our four main service offerings, I wanted to find out more about ‘Measurement’ of which we have seen an increase in demand based on qualitative and quantitative metrics. So I asked the experts “how can we measure quality?”

A rather silly question it seems! But that’s what I’m here for after all!
The ‘Business’ defines the quality through clear expectations and objectives. Testing demonstrates whether the quality exists via tangible measurements that reflect those clear expectations and objectives.

So this leads me on to this Issue’s ‘Term/Phrase of the Quarter’...

“We think we deliver good quality!”

This is regularly stated by Developers, Project Managers and even Quality Assurance Functions. Quite often though, they are being normal human beings and a) being overly optimistic and/or b) are in denial! Invariably they are (often badly) measuring quality on the projects delivered into Production and not fully appreciating or including the post Production Issues in their appraisal of quality delivered.

One of our Consultants says he has yet to go into a client big or small that effectively and consistently integrates and evaluates post production defects with the pre–production set and analyses quality delivered (what was found against what got through!). This of course assumes they have a measurement programme in place which is sensible and robust. Invariably, there is a wide gap between “think” and “know (accurately)”.

Therefore, in order to ‘know’ that we deliver good quality it is essential to have tangible measurements that reflect the clear quality expectations.

If you have ever wondered what something really means but are too shy to ask your colleagues with the fear of looking a little bit silly, or have ever heard a phrase you think people often misuse, please drop me an email, I would love to hear from you; and you never know – you might even make it onto the bottom of the next Experimentus newsletter!

amelia.bamford@experimentus.com