What Do Developers Really Think AboutSoftware Quality

Abstract

For an organisation to get the biggest increase in software quality that it can from introducing a more formal and quality-focused process of software development, the attitudes that developers and managers have to any new working practices must be understood, listen to and accommodated. It is only then that software quality will be improved and sustained in the long-term. This paper presents the results of a recent wide-ranging study which explores the attitudes that developers and managers have to software quality generally, and to the introduction and use of quality-oriented working practices specifically. The study is based on the analysis of over two hundred questionnaire responses from software developers and managers in a number of organisations. All of these organisations either had, or were in the process of introducing, a formal quality management system. The study found that developers and managers often had markedly different perspectives on the usefulness and scope of mechanisms for software quality. Sometimes managers were more enthusiastic about a particular mechanism for example the collection and use of software metrics. Whilst at other times developers were more keen on a particular mechanism for example the use of standards. The study also revealed some interesting goal variations between developers and managers. For instance developers rated software reliability as a much more important organisational goal than managers did Conversely, and probably more predictably, managers rated low costs as a much more important organisational goal than developers did. Clearly such goal incongruence would seem a potential source of quality problems. Transactions on Information and Communications Technologies vol 11, © 1995 WIT Press, www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3517