A deliberate and focused effort that
extends across the entire development
organization and touches each and every
individual developer is required to
achieve industry-leading quality standards.
It also requires quantitative metrics
to measure success, along with systematic
feedback to effect ongoing quality improvements.
Saigun recognizes that the quality of
a software product is largely governed
by the quality of the process used to
develop and maintain that product. Set
out to redefine how quality is integrated
into the Saigun development process
by extending and improving existing
processes. Saigun adopted an internationally
recognized model to evaluate the quality
of its processes and injected key measures
to inform process improvements. The
result: a fundamental change in how
software is developed, tested, and delivered.
The foundation for this change was a
corporate-wide commitment to make quality
the top priority. Goals were set for
improving the predictability, productivity,
and speed of execution within Saigun's
organizational and developmental processes,
and a strong emphasis was placed on
enhancing the total customer experience.
Ultimately, it is through maintaining
a focus on external customer satisfaction
that we at Saigun, are able to look
inward and implement needed changes
most effectively.
By working with “trend-setting”
Saigun customers—enterprises that
are leaders in their respective industries
such as Insurance, banking, and Energy—Saigun
has been able to garner valuable input
on their software processes. These “trend-setting”
customers represent the highest levels
of demand on high standard, our organization
is well assured of addressing the issues
that are commonly experienced by the
vast majority of other enterprises in
similar markets.
To maximize the effectiveness
of testing, the Saigun has also implemented
customer-based solutions testing. That
is, test methodologies have been enhanced
to better reflect the experiences that
typical customers would encounter, such
as installation and updates, recovery,
and data migration. Methodologies have
been expanded to fit customer profiles,
moving toward 3- to 4-tier Internet
applications. Software testing has been
expanded beyond the core Software system
to include more comprehensive application
stacks.
Internal changes within
the organization were facilitated by
adopting the Capability Maturity Model
Integrated(CMMI) developed by the Carnegie
Mellon Software Engineering Institute.
This comprehensive and well-established
model provides an objective basis for
evaluating the maturity of an organization’s
software processes, and it helps an
organization identify the key practices
necessary to elevate that maturity level.
Despite the challenges,
however, the effort has paid off on
many levels—most importantly,
with a higher-quality product for our
customers. We have a defined, consistent,
organization-wide process, with the
flexibility to tailor that process for
individual projects.
Higher quality also
has an impact on productivity within
the our organization. With quality built
into the development lifecycle, the
defect/fix workload has been significantly
reduced; development work proceeds more
efficiently; and, as a result, more
time is available to focus on functionality
and delivering greater value to our
customers.
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