Measuring and Managing Software Quality

Ensuring technical quality is a fundamental goal for engineering leadership teams. It can improve the efficiency and productivity of the organization. Yet, remember that technical quality is not independent and can be affected by various factors and perspectives. It’s essential to adopt best practices and measure quality to guide investment.

Improving quality should come while devoting as much energy as possible to the core business. When building for an entire engineering organization, anything you do well will speed up the organization. Adopt best practices that are known to improve quality. Measure technical quality to guide deeper investment. Two practices help with quality efforts for most Engineering organizations out there. Technical Quality Team and Quality Program.

Quality Team

A technical quality team is a group of software engineers responsible for ensuring the quality of a codebase. They do this by creating systems and tools to improve the code’s quality and implementing best practices for development. It is important to note that there can be tension between centralized quality teams and those they support.

Switch team members of the quality team to establish a culture of quality across groups to encourage teamwork. The rotation creates alignment and commitment toward excellence. This helps ensure that all teams are aligned and working towards a shared vision of excellence in software development.

Quality Program

A quality program takes on the broad remit of achieving the organization’s target level of software quality. Run a quality program to measure, track and create accountability. Generate sustainable, reproducible metrics.

Rather than reaching for process improvement, start by donning the performance engineer’s mindset. Identify program goals for every harmed team and a clear path for them to do those goals. Build the tools and documentation to support teams toward their goals. Keep your program lean enough to cancel, and remain self-critical enough to cancel if it ceases driving quality creation.

By adopting a quality program and establishing a technical quality team, engineering organizations can work towards their target level of software quality and improve efficiency.

Low technical quality isn’t a crisis; it’s the expected, normal state. Quality is not an independent force in the universe; it depends on what you choose as your frame of reference. It’s essential to approach quality efforts with a performance engineer mindset and set clear goals for teams. Be mindful of the potential for tension between centralized quality teams and those they support.

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[¹]: Will Larson(2021): (Staff Engineer: Leadership beyond the management track , Larson, Will, Reilly, Tanya, eBook — Amazon.com)