The quality of software, or any product, can be viewed from different perspectives. This is because there are usually multiple stakeholders, each bringing their own unique views and interests to the table.
Some of these perspectives include:
- The quality of a product as experienced by customers.
- The quality of a product as perceived by the user, which can be highly subjective and personal.
- The quality of the process used to build the product, which is particularly important to members of a software team.
A common issue in software organisations is the tendency to prioritize one specific perspective over other quality perspectives. For example, when customer or user quality is considered more important than process quality. However, this is a fallacy. Although these quality perspectives are often represented by different people, they are inextricably intertwined and each cannot stand on its own.
Focusing solely on customer or user quality while neglecting process quality can lead to a deteriorating codebase, making it difficult or impossible to add new features. Conversely, prioritizing only process quality, while neglecting customer or user quality, may result in a technically impressive product that fails to attract users and ultimately serves no purpose.
Organisations that empower their software teams to invest equally in all quality perspectives will outperform all others who choose not to apply this balance.
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