As software becomes more intricately interwoven into the fabric of business, the stakes for software delivery organizations become higher. Software delivery is now a critical process for meeting business goals and software delivery organizations are under immense pressure to deliver applications quickly, within budgets that either stay flat or are cut.
Despite the best of intentions, the fact remains that software delivery as a process is widely regarded as brokenin that it largely fails to meet time to market and software quality goals1. As a result, considerable rework isneeded to either improve quality or to ensure that the software fits the intended business purpose. When failurehappens, not only is extra work required to make the software meet business needs but it diverts resources awayfrom delivering more software value and innovation. Within organizations with a limited budget and high levels of rework, innovation grinds to a halt.
The chief reason is that quality is treated as an afterthought in many software organizations, with quality verification efforts typically beginning once code has been completed. At this point, testing teams are under pressure to certify the application as quickly as possible. The certification process is perceived as a bottleneck, delaying the application’s progression into production.