Coping With Quality Issues in IT Aatif 03 Aug 12 FINAL

7/30/2019 Coping With Quality Issues in IT Aatif 03 Aug 12 FINAL

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Group

Fa-2011/M. Sc. EM/018 Muhammad Aatif Saif Khan

Fa-2011/M.Sc. EM/053 Muhammad Bakhsh Sial

COPING WITHQUALITY ISSUES IN

IT INDUSTRY OF PAKISTAN


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INTRODUCTION

Pakistans IT industrys tremendous promise is marred byplethora of issues including but not limited to product,process and quality at the core level and soft issues likeemployee satisfaction and management competenceconcerns.

According to PSEB, out of approximately 1500 registeredcompanies, only 110 ISO 9001, 23 CMMI and 11 ISO 27001certified companies

It demands faculties to evaluating key areas that need

continuous and continual improvements for reducing lossesincurred due to poor requirements capturing, reactiveapproach to the inherent risks in project management, poorcoding quality directly impacting the employee satisfactionand management anxiety through application of technology

management.


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SCHEME OF PRESENTATION

Introduction

Technology Management &Quality

Factors considered

Data analysis

Deductions from Findings

Conclusion

Col. MuhammadBakhsh Sial

Aatif Saif

Aatif Saif

Col. Muhammad

Bakhsh Sial


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COL. BAKSH


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TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT & QUALITY

Theories Analyzed Determinism versus Constructivism

Time line of Invention to Mass Adoption

TDS of technology


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THEORIES ANALYZED The technology determinism perspective considers the relationship of

society towards technological change as an adaptation dictated by the

potential of the technology (Staudenmaier, 1985). On the contrary, "social

constructivism" perspective, includes the approaches known as social

shaping of technology, social construction of technology (SCOT), and

systems approach among others (Mackenzie & Wajcman, 1999; Pinch &

Bijker, 1987; Hughes, 1986).

The experiences and results of different people have been varying in the IT

industry.

Few believe that wheel of technology drives the growth of social norms in

the industry, however, despite, best adopted technological tools, the ERP

implementers have miserably failed in changing the mind-sets and attaining

desired Customer Satisfaction. Very few people really understand the impact of both approaches in the

local IT industry and resultantly, failing to adopt, any one of them has only

led to poor quality standards adherence in the software development.


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TIME LINE OF INVENTION TO MASS ADOPTION

Pakistan is comparatively late entrant in adoption of

information technology.

The earliest intervention of IT came in the form of banking

and air ticketing systems. However, in early 90s, Pakistan

entered in the IT industry with introduction of degree level

courses offered in the universities. Pakistanis entered the

domain with a flash and soon their acumen and skills wereacknowledged across globe.

Due to lesser control & checks over licensed software use at

personal / individual level, Pakistani youth made full use of

pirated software and in a short period laid hands overdevelopment tools.


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TECHNOLOGY DELIVERY SYSTEM

TDS


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AATIF SAIF


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FACTORS OF QUALITY GROWTH IN IT

Processes

Software Development methodologies

Requirements Gathering

TQM in Software Development

Employee Satisfaction

Role of Management


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PROCESSES

Recipe for quality software resides in thematurity of processes & embracing standards at

organizational level

Well defined and truly implemented processes

result in conformance to specifications &

customer satisfaction

On the contrary, poorly defined processes, non-

existence of QMS, management oversight andlack of business acumen lead to utter disaster in

terms of reputation & business


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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES

Software industry has gone through meteoric

changes and many models of software

development life cycle (SDLC) have emerged in

last three decades. Few prefer adopting classical waterfall model but

more aggressive organisations have moved

towards agile development cycle (employing self-

organizing, cross-functional teams).


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SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT METHODOLOGIES

Constructivism & Determinism Marriage ofConvenience


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REQUIREMENTS GATHERING

Fundamental objective is listening to Voice of the

Customer and translating them into Voice of the

Engineer emanating into conformance to customerrequirements

It shall happen through qualified business analysts

(BAs) having sound domain knowledge under aFunctional Lead & in close consultation with

Technical Lead

Unfortunately, in Pakistan, companies try to save on

resource cost by employing software developers forrequirements gathering. It results into half-backed

and partially captured requirements since technical

resources seldom correctly translate functional

requirements into technical specifications.


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TQM IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

McCall, Richards, and Walters were the first to study the

concept of software quality in terms of quality factors and

quality criteria.

Software firms pay less attention to quality assurance as it

is frequently the first area that is cut back when deadlines

are missed (Miller, 2007).TQM concept represents a fundamental change in the

definition and treatment of quality in product

development. It has redefined the quality as Everyones

Business

Software companies planning to implement TQM must

have critical mass of employees embracing the TQM

philosophy and methods before jumping onto the


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EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

Employee satisfaction is often linked to career

advancement opportunities, challenging nature

of work, salary & other employee benefits,

positive work environment, flexibility in workschedule / telecommuting, training / educational

opportunities and many more factors.

Due to lack of measures at government level, IT

industry has shrunk in last few years resultinginto cut-downs in employee salaries


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ROLE OF MANAGEMENT

Management has a principal role in ensuring time,cost, scope and quality of software, through well-

defined processes, team work, and empowerment

during the software development life cycle.

Project management decisions are often trickyprecisely because they involve tradeoffs based on

fuzzy or incomplete knowledge. Furthermore, bad

project management decisions, such as hiring too few

programmers or picking the wrong type of contract can

put an organization in poor position (Robert, N.

Charette, 2005)


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DATA ANALYSIS


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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

Software houses in Islamabad were approached

based on convenient sampling technique for

seeking their inputs.

Quantitative analysis would be perform in order to

measure the quality issues of IT industry of

Pakistan.

We could gathering information related to:

Issues in software quality practices.

Employee satisfaction effects on software

quality.

Role of Project management on software quality.


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QUESTIONERS

Questions include mostly structured questions from

past research papers and software metrics,measurement related books whose references are

given at the end of paper

Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering,

2nd (2002)

Effectiveness and relevance of software

documentation by Andrew Forward, University of

Ottawa.

Employee satisfaction surveys, Survey Share


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SOFTWARE QUALITY PROCESSES

Separate

Department

for software

quality32%

No

separate

departme

nt68%

Importance of difference

requirement frequency

Separate department

for software quality

Software Methodologies

frequencies stacked bar chart

0%20%40%60%

80%

100%

Functional

Pe

rformance

Reliability

Usability

Strongly

disagree

disagree

neither agree or

disagree

agree

Strongly agree

Mean Median Mode

Spiral 1.86 1 1

Incremental 2.13 1 1

Rolling Wave 2.14 1 1

Waterfall 2.35 1 1

Agile 2.09 1 1

None 2.03 1 1

Legion

1Never

2

To some

extent

3Not sure

4Mostly

5Always


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PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Has Project

managemen

t education

57%

Does not

have Project

Manageme

nt

Education

43%

Manager with

management

related education


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EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION

0% 50% 100%

Positive work

Appropriate

Training/educatio

Opportunities for

Promoted diversity

Never

To some extenNot sure

Mostly

Always

Why employee

chose to stay with

current employers

Employeerating different

aspect about

current job

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Career advancement

opportunities

Challenging work

Salary

Employee benefits

Less travel

Supervision/management

Strongly disagree

disagree

neither agree or disagree

agree

Strongly agree


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COL. BAKSH


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DEDUCTIONS FROM ANALYSIS


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QUALITY IS NOT GIVEN ITS DUE PLACE

Respondents approached were clueless abouttheories of technology management.

Resultantly, no organisation in totality has

grasped the concept of TQM or QA.

The near absence of quality in software

development results in faulty product

Tight financial position leading to use of

developers as quality control staff

Lack of realization on part of management


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LACK OF TRAININGS

Training of any sort is lacking

Employees have to learn themselves mostly

Large software houses are more likely to provide

trainings to their employees

Sense of complacency results in lack of touch

with emerging trends and knowledge domains


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ABSENCE OF RIGHT MAN FOR THE RIGHT JOB

Software developers are additionally employed in

the roles of business analysts and QA staff.

Not hiring and employing the qualified and

experienced staff ultimately results in budgetaryovershoot, lost time leading to failed projects

Large organizations are more likely to address this

aspect than small organizations


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WORK ENVIRONMENT & RESOURCE ACCESS

Employees satisfaction about resources available

is attributed to:-

Flexibility in work schedule

Desk based needs - an IT person only needs a

machine, internet and loads of work


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LACK OF DIVERSITY

Male : Female ratio indicates lesser preference

for women folk due to cultural issues

Male are considered for employment because of

their flexibility for travelling and late sitting

option.


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SALARY ISSUES

Dissatisfaction of employees in small medium

software houses is linked to salary structures anddelayed salaries payments.

However, in companies with bigger portfolio and

running concerns, the employees were foundsatisfied about pay structure and timely disbursal.

Employees also notified that they are not

compensated often for their extra work in terms

of overtime.


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Q & A

"The best way to have a good

idea is to have lots of ideas.

(Linus Pauling)


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CONCLUSION

Pakistans IT industry has to make their grounds through

focused and continual efforts for improving quality

throughout life of a software development life cycle. The

culture of total quality management would help inreducing costs, improving quality of the product leading

to customer satisfaction, thus increased returns on

investment.

It can only be attained, if those involved in business of IT

industry are well versed with domain of technology

management and willing to apply them


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WHY SOFTWARE ENGINEERING ?

The problem is complexity

Many sources, but size is key:

UNIX contains 4 million lines of code

Windows 2000 contains 108 lines ofcode

Software engineering is about managing thiscomplexity.

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Coping With Quality Issues in IT Aatif 03 Aug 12 FINAL