Consulting

Quality Assessment & Quality Improvement Services

Overview
Software quality supports critical business operations. As software technologies grow in power and complexity so does the need for reliable performance. Being able to consistently deliver a high-quality outcome in software development means integrating people, technology and processes. The goal: development teams capable of delivering better software, faster.

In the quality challenge we recognize there are trade-offs between efficiency and effectiveness.
—How much time do you spend building and documenting software?
—How much effort is spent testing and validating software?
—Are processes standardized between departments and throughout the organization?
—Does “good enough” provide the level of confidence needed to run business operations without downtime and unforeseen issues?

Comprehensive software quality services.
We start with an understanding of your business goals to recommend a program that provides meaningful metrics and real business value. In this fashion, we help define what specific technical projects can deliver in terms of ultimate cost savings, enhanced performance and process improvement/process standardization. As experts have shown, the cost to detect and eliminate defects is exponentially greater later in the development lifecycle. We help your IT staff understand what software quality really means (link) to demonstrate the integrated value of testing and other processes.

“The savings potential from early defect detection is huge: about 60 percent of all defects usually exist by design time. A decision early in a project to not focus on defect detection amounts to a decision to postpone defect detection and correction until later in the project when they will be much more expensive and time consuming.” —U.S. Department of Homeland Security
https://buildsecurityin.us-cert.gov

Our experts have demonstrated over and again an ability to improve software quality from the ground up and top down. Our many years of experience have focused entirely on software quality and security, providing and implementing programs from a business relevance perspective. Your quality programs can be examined and improved

• from an organizational outlook;
• from an individual project perspective.

Our services include:
Test Process Improvement
Test Automation
Detailed Risk Assessment
Independent QA Execution
The Perspective that Makes Sense
Test Process Improvement (TPI)
If you need to introduce better efficiencies in your QA or development processes, our TPI services:

• Are proven to make IT/QA/Testing staff better at what you do.
• Provide intelligent knowledge transfer to make your organization self-supporting.
• Analyze whether money is being spent and, if need be, suggest re-focus of these investments.

Test Automation
If your QA teams are not able to keep up with development, or you are undergoing budget pressure let us help you:

• Recognize real ROI; do more with less, reduce your budget or keep staff count down.
• Increase test coverage.
• Determine which tool is right for your company through performing a tools analysis.
• Consider further reducing costs via offshore testing. You get the advantage of a blended team managed from our U.S. offices, with experts in the architecture of automation techniques and management of test/automation plans.

Detailed Risk Assessment
What is your software security or data protection status?
1-Regulatory pressures require recurring review of all your critical applications.
2-You have had, or may be at risk for, security breaches.
3-Risk is not accurately understood in the company. Current or future business planning could be improved through an independent risk assessment.

• Our risk-based approach reduces the required effort and saves budget long-term.
• We can add independence to your recurring assessment streams.
• Current or future business planning can be vastly improved with an independent risk analysis.
• We have excellent references from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (formerly NASD, National Association of Securities Dealers.)

Independent QA Execution
For better control over your outsourced projects our years of experience will enable you to:

• Separate your concerns; move QA to a shop separate from your offshore vendor to create appropriate checks and balances.
• Ensure top quality by working hand-in-hand with your development organization.
• Define an acceptance gate based on functional and non-functional requirements.
• Gain a repeatable higher quality of outsourced deliverables.

Take advantage of our practices, techniques and expertise to integrate quality assurance and software testing best practices in your organization. Rethink your model to take control of QA processes and testing. Unlike other practitioners in the field, our services also provide risk-based security testing that checks for vulnerabilities.

Quality assurance solutions: the perspective that makes sense for you.

Effectiveness can be hard to measure. Software testing is the standard means of estimating the quality of software but has its own challenges. For today’s applications, it is not feasible to exhaustively test an application against all combinations of input it will see. Our approach to will enable you to better balance the need for both effectiveness and efficiency of quality. Typically we recommend:

• Using Risk Management to determine the overall effectiveness necessary for software and to guide efficient mitigation of critical risks.
• Moving quality to the front of the lifecycle through artifact analysis, establishment of quality processes and defining (or improving) acceptance criteria for validation activities.
• Tracking defect and root cause information such that inefficient/ineffective processes can be identified and improved over time.
• Measuring testing and analysis activities using a rigorous metrics program.

What software quality really means:

• Functional reliability – Software performs as defined by the software’s requirements.
• Fault-tolerance/robustness – Software is resilient and robust to unexpected conditions and input.
• Testability – Testing can be performed easily and effectively identifies critical bugs.
• Maintenance – Software can be adequately supported, maintained and upgraded in future.
• Performance – This is determined by the availability, scalability, and efficiency of the software.
• Security – Assure software keeps your data confidential, has integrity, authenticates properly, and can be monitored for intrusions.