The Indirect Costs of Quality Problems
Scott MorrisHead of Team Augmentation
Having been with 4mation since inception in 2001 while completing a Computer Science degree at UTS, Scott has played a variety of roles within the business through its almost 20 years of growth.
As a Certified AWS Solutions Architect, Scott has a strong ability to bridge the gap between the technical and business/user world. Scott has a deep understanding of the service we provide our clients having spent years as a Developer, Business Analyst, Team Lead, and Head of Delivery.
His focus now is growing 4mation’s Staff Augmentation service while also heading up 4mation’s Internal Operations to make our work and suite of digital tools as efficient and effective as possible.
Quality problems in web and software development are sadly far too common. Often in a misguided attempt to hit delivery deadlines, Quality Assurance (QA) is not given the attention it deserves, or worse – skipped altogether.
We all know the direct costs of poor quality – frustrated customers, bad user experience, potential data loss or security breaches. But what are the indirect costs of not doing QA properly?
Overtime
There’s nothing more frustrating than having to work late into the night or on weekends to do the work that your development or QA team should have completed in the first place. With everything else you’re responsible for, the last thing you want to be doing is carrying out functional testing. This is a real morale killer.
Credibility
If a poor quality solution sees the light of day, your customers or clients will notice. They’ll definitely tell their friends, colleagues and family, but they may not tell you. The damage this can do to your reputation can be substantial.
Even if it’s an internal application, your reputation will almost certainly suffer.
Pride
Your team wants to be proud of their work. Neglecting QA may save time short-term, but once delivered, poor quality solutions reflect badly on your team, and set them up for negative feedback and painful bug fixes in future. Let’s face it, no developer loves working on buggy systems.
Delays
In addition to unexpected project delays as you get feedback from your users during UAT, if QA is not carried out properly, bugs are more likely to be identified at unexpected times (ie after launch). If this happens your development team will need to stop what they’re doing to fix them. Particularly frustrating for everyone involved – and not an effective or efficient way to deliver solutions.
Need help?
Our dedicated Quality Assurance team members help organisations avoid many if not all of the issues in this article. If you’re experiencing frustration due to poor quality work, please contact us.
