Skip to main content

How to ensure quality (and performance) in outsourced software development projects?

This is a question I posed on the BCS Elite group on LinkedIn..

What ways to BSC Elite members ensure quality (and performance) in their outsourced software development projects?

I have only worked with in-house dev teams and we ensured quality by having a top-notch technical architect, well developed coding standards/processes and a strong QA function at the end (not that quality can be "inspected in" but knowing that little was going to get passed QA ensured better deliverables end-to-end).

But what is the best "formula" for an outsourced development project?

I could see how you might split the project between different vendors (effectively like we did in-house), with someone doing the design, another the development and another the QA and each acting as checks and balances on the other but I suspect that this would be (1) a contractual nightmare and (2) a recipe for "finger pointing" if things went wrong.

I am thinking in particular of SME's that might only have a very small (or no) in-house development capability that are looking for someone to develop a new application or website "end-to-end" so splitting the work would be a big headache.

The simplistic answer is "pick the right vendor" (a bit like picking the right builder or plumber) but most home owners can watch the building work each day and even someone with no building knowledge can have a gut feeling if its being "done right".

Software development is a "black box" to most senior managers and hence doing weekly code walkthroughs isn't really an option and ergo the first they know that they their new app or website is not a quality job is when it falls over on launch...

Any suggestions / checklists / advice gratefully appreciated!

If anyone reads the Blog please feel free to chip in via the Comments!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

So what else does Operations do? Well, there is a whole organisation run by the UK govermnent to help answer that question! ITIL , or the IT Infrastructure Library, is a library of best practice information that basically tells you everything you need to do to run an IT department. Similarly developers have development methodologies such as RAD, JAD, Agile/XP, and Project Managers have PM methodologies such as Prince 2, PMBok etc to cover off their areas in more specific detail. ITIL breaks it down into 7 key areas: Service Support - deals with the actual provision of IT services such as the service (help) desk, incident management, problem management, release management etc Service Delivery - deals with ensuring that you can continue to DELIVER the service support functions with things like contigency planning, capacity management, service levels etc The Business Perspective - helps to ensure that the IT function is aligned with the organisation's business strategy and that how to...
2 comments
Read more

Top 13 Website Crashes of 2010?

I was doing a bit of research for an article and I started compiling a list of high-profile website crashes in 2010. Pingdom have published a list here - http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/major_internet_incidents_and_outages_of_2010.php as have Alertsite here - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/29/the-biggest-web-outages-o_n_801943.html But I decided to compile my own list from a more UK-centric perspective and came up with my “baker’s dozen” below. # Site Date News Link 1 National Rail Jan-10 http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/05/rail_chaos/ 2 Outnet Apr-10 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/blog/2010/apr/16/outnet-sale-website-crash 3 Apple (iPhone 4 Launch) Jun-10 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1286756/Apple-iPhone-4-pre-order-Website-crashes-new-iPhone-goes-sale.html 4 ITV.com (World C...
2 comments
Read more

Using Gmail aliases to create multiple test email accounts for QA

Came across this today when someone wanted to know how to create multiple email test accounts without involving their IT department (don’t ask!) or managing multiple free email accounts. Gmail allows you to create aliases for your email address automatically. For example, if your Gmail account is joe.bloggs@gmail.com then joe.bloggs+test.case01@gmail.com will work for your account – anything after the “+” sign can be used to create an alias.  These emails will be delivered to your normal Gmail inbox. So when you are testing you can use +test.case01, +test.case02, +test.case03 and so on as your test email addresses (assuming that your application doesn’t get upset at the use of the “+” in an email address. It shouldn’t, its a valid character in the RFC http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3696#page-5 ) So lets say you want to filter these test emails and label so they don’t get lost in your Inbox. Easy, just use a Gmail filter and search for a whatever common “stem” you used ...
2 comments
Read more