How do Colombian software companies evaluate software product quality?

Publication Type:
Conference Proceeding
Citation:
CEUR Workshop Proceedings, 2020, 2725
Issue Date:
2020-11-01
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Software developers confuse product quality with process quality, leading them to think they are measuring product quality when they are not. This is the main finding of our study of software developers in young companies in Colombia. Software product quality (SPQ) reflects two perspectives: conformance to specifications, and satisfying expectations when it is used under specified conditions. Measuring product quality still remains a problem for software development companies in relation to factors such as cost, effort, time, and competitiveness. There are few studies that show the current state of SPQ in companies, how companies evaluate product quality, and which measures they use to develop and launch products that meet high-quality criteria. This paper presents a study of SPQ in seven young software development companies in a developing country. We used a qualitative research approach to understand, through their experiences and knowledge, how 20 employees—developers, testers, and project managers—and their companies evaluate SPQ, and which measures they apply in their companies. Our results demonstrate that software process quality is better understood, and applied, by these software companies than SPQ. A greater difficulty is that most study participants ‘overlaid’ the idea of product quality with process quality, i.e. they talked about product quality as if it were process quality. These findings have implications for companies that wish to increase competitiveness and productivity, as they must develop a working knowledge of SPQ that is not confused with software process quality. It also has implications for educators, to ensure that the distinction between process and product quality is explicitly taught.
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