A study into the views of top-level executives and CIOs on software quality, announced today by Original Software, reveals corporate apathy and the failings of a multi-billion dollar industry. When asked how the importance of their software quality is perceived within the business, over 40% of CIOs admitted ‘not at all’ or ‘as a nice to have’. Not surprising then that a recent IDC survey revealed that more than 40% of all software applications are released with between one and ten critical defects, the management being fully aware of this at the time of issue.
“Such disregard is surprising given the number of high-profile horror stories the media have recently reported about poor software quality” said Colin Armitage, CEO of Original Software. “The launch of Terminal 5 at London Heathrow was a PR disaster due to a ‘systems fault’, a failed ERP installation into American LaFrance caused the fire-engine company to go into bankruptcy, and medical equipment killing hospital patients when a flaw in the computer code caused systems to administer heavy overdoses – to name just a few.”
The survey uncovered that issues of software quality were making it to the boardroom – not surprising given the consequences when something does go wrong – with more than 80% of CIOs directly involved with forming SQA policies. The greatest SQA challenge facing respondents was balancing cost and resource (53%). This was followed by the quality of the software and its risk to business (30%)
So if they are taking notice, why is there such apathy in the boardroom to software testing? The survey revealed that of companies who had invested in software testing solutions, only 6% were happy that it had met their objectives (the primary ones being to produce higher quality applications – 62% – and improve resource efficiency - 28%).
“Many organizations don’t spend nearly enough effort on improving the quality of the software they produce. More often than not they pay lip service to the concept whilst secretly holding the belief that it is a waste of resources (time, staff and money).” *says Bola Rotbi, Principal Analyst at research firm MWD in her article – the importance of “good enough” in software quality”
Colin Armitage agrees: “Achieving quality takes time, effort and money, and in the current credit crunch constrained times one can understand a temptation to take short cuts. There is an apathy and disregard of test automation, borne perhaps, from the limited success of solutions that came out of the last century, needing months to configure, requiring expensive and scarce specialist skills and simply collapsing in the face of rapidly changing applications. ‘Solutions’ which at best will only address 20% of the problem, only give ‘solutions’ a bad name. It is time for a rethink. CIOs cannot forgo basic IT fundamentals and CEOs and shareholders cannot let them. We need cost effective technology in these cost constrained times.” he concluded.
The survey was conducted by Richmond reports and sponsored by Original Software. The respondents were all delegates of the CIO forum in New York, their companies having average annual revenues of $5.8billion, and IT budgets of $764 million.
