I just got this e-mail promoting a slide show from Forrester Research about 5 IT Roles That Drive Cost Reduction. Being an inquiring mind, I was curious as to what they had. I was disappointed but not surprised to see that no relationship between quality and cost was there. For example, no mention of QA or testing, process improvement, etc.
When you consider the billions of dollars ($59.5 billion to be in the ballpark, based on a NIST study), that are spent on software defects, it would make sense that this is one gap to be closed.
This also shows me how far the business case for quality has fallen. Back in the last recession (early nineties), Deming was king and U.S. industry was clammoring for anything about quality. Unfortunately, here in the USA we fell victim to the marketing (TQM) and forgot the discipline involved. So, a few years later we had regressed to the same attitudes that had prevailed earlier.
Here's my point. If you want to cut costs AND increase profits, learn from those defects we all experience. Take those learnings and improve the processes, or at least learn how to catch the defects while they are small and less expensive to fix.
I won't list the other 5, you can read the slide show here:
http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Bottom-Line/5-IT-Roles-That-Drive-Cost-Reduction/?kc=CIOMINUTE03232009CIO1
Just don't forget my nomination of #6 - Software Quality
Have a great day!
Randy
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