We recently released the early results from our Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment, a survey that evaluates key indicators of quality within software development organizations. After collecting data from nearly 300 respondents, the results indicate that the top two factors driving development organizations to focus on application lifecycle management are:
• The need to quickly respond to customer requests and requirements.
• The need to reduce risk by preventing poor quality from impacting customer satisfaction.
Software quality and reliability are lifelines to customer loyalty, and profitability. Yet development organizations struggle to achieve quality and deliver their products on time and within budget. Survey results indicate that more than one third of companies completed their application development on time and within budget less than 75 percent of the time. The survey also indicates that 70 percent of the companies are undertaking one of following actions to improve the quality of their software development environment:
• Clearly defining quality metrics.
• Undertaking pilot projects or proof-of-concepts pertaining software development quality.
• Seeking executive sponsorship for software development quality improvements.
The respondents represent companies of every size. Sixty-nine percent are small companies (less than $250M in revenue), 22 percent are mid-size ($250M – $2.5B), and nine percent are large (greater than $2.5B). The leading industries represented include high tech (32%), financial services (16%), consumer products/retail (9%), and telecommunications (8%).
Software development organizations can complete the quality-ready assessment online at Seapine’s Web site. Once the initial benchmarking data has been tabulated I’ll let you know how various organizations (by revenue and industry) compare.
