Consortium for IT Software Quality

As software permeates every aspect of daily life and as we depend more and more on software in all walks of life, quality of software gets to be of utmost importance.

World has come a long way from the early perceptions of quality as a natural consequence of following a good process. Agile community has asserted umpteen times, reflecting in manifesto of software craftsmanship and agile manifesto, quality of software that add value to users in their context is far more importance than religious, and often dogmatic, adherence to process.

People, process and automation are three different, orthogonal but often inseparably interrelated, factors of what goes into making of a quality software. These form different dimensions that call for attention of a manager of software development project, and not conflicting goals as they are sometime made out to be. Managing software development project is not progressing on one dimension at the cost of another but working with a dynamic balancing of these dimensions through the course of project

Three dimensions of software quality

It is interesting to note, in this context, emergence of a consortium focused on software quality. It is a step in the right direction. I hope that this would help in making life better for its users and customers

Art, Craft, Science or Engineering?

There have been many discussions in the past on whether software development is an art, craft, science or engineering. For convenience, I am listing below the major ones that had profound influence on my thoughts over years

1. Book Software Craftsmanship – The New Imperative
2. From Craft to Science Part 1 and Part 2
3. The great art and craft of software development
4. Software engineering and the Art of Design
5. The art, science and engineering of software development
6. Manifesto of software craftsmanship
7. The privilege and responsibility of software development
8. Commitment
9. What is software design?
10. Software that lasts 200 years

My view is that software development is a combination of all of above. My view is also that software is a construction of human mind or rather minds; and should I say human brains. Yes, mind and brain. Emotion and intellect. What is important to me is this human creation has pervaded virtually every aspect of life and business by now, unlike any other human creation, and hence business critical.

It is an art, it is a craft… beyond all that business depends on it; life and career of many depends on it. Hence, it is important to bring in continually better control, better quality, better transparency and better predictability into software development. Taking recourse to engineering is to this end. Engineering is not an end in itself but a means to an end. Engineering as a manager’s tool to have better control, better quality, better transparency and better predictability. From that standpoint, we find that apparently conflicting perspectives are not truly conflicting; they are different dimensions of software development.

Every successful software development manager knows this and manages his/her business accordingly. These fits into my overall management-engineering framework; result of applying learning into practice, and continually refining my learning based on observation.

Software Factory, MDA, Astra Model Creator, and Astra Test Automat

Often Software Factory and Model Driven Architecture as two orthogonal approaches.

For me, both are two different perspectives of software product engineering. Abstract and concrete modeling and transformation, and production at a software factory as dictated by production process dictated by architecture go hand-in-hand to make a successful product line

We, at Astra Infotech, enable the merge with our Ready for IBM Rational Software Astra Model Creator and Astra Test Automat

Astra Model Creator is now ‘Ready for Rational Software’

Development of quality software requires a rigorous software architecting and design effort, and development strictly controlled by defined architecture and design. Astra Infotech‘s solution Astra Model Creator supporting model driven development is now ‘Ready for Rational Software’

Software Engineering & Healthcare

A few days in hospital where my father was undergoing treatment.

Though this is not the first time I have been in hospital but this time, it got me thinking…

I used to attribute much of complexity of software development to creative content & team factor in it. Now, I find that healthcare is no different.

In fact, there is many parallel in definining customer needs (which goes much beyond specified), evolving technologies, new hypotheses challenging earlier ones, interplay of many skills (Specialized physician & surgeons, Nurses, Technical experts, Office staff), ….

Yet much of it is well defined eg. Much of what Nurse needs to do is well defined and action plan in exigencies are also well defined…. and strictly adhered to

It does not lead to avoidable documentation in the name of following some standards either! Documentation is kept to the right level; the key is more of delivering to customer satisfaction than meeting specification

When will software industry learn & mature? How long can we hide behind the nascent nature of the industry and rapid pace of changes.

It is not Java or .Net or application servers or platforms or SOA or MDA … what not, that matters .. it is uncompromised quality meeting the customer expectations and needs … not just the wants and specifications

Software factory at work!?

One of my customers, with whom I am working very closely for last couple of months is actively into many a things which are part of software factory …. seems to be great and quite interesting …. makes a lot of difference and it works!