In the grand scheme of things, you’d never think software (and software testing/QA) shares any similarity with an appliance like a washing machine. Well, according to our President and CEO, Jeff Van Fleet, perhaps they’re more alike than you think.
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As I think about my dozens of conversations with clients and business leaders, I often wonder how they trade off money versus quality. I see many choosing low-cost, barely-sufficient solutions. |
I hope you are enjoying the summer, spending time with your family, going on vacation, and tackling a few projects around the house.
In addition to work, we all have a lot going on, don’t we? Personally, my wife and I are getting ready to start a significant remodel to our master bathroom. We’re creating a walk-in shower, expanding the closet, and moving the washer/dryer upstairs. It’s taken a lot of planning to get to this point—and it’s got me thinking about what I’ve learned from my parents about price vs. quality.
I grew up lower middle class in terms of income, but it never felt that way because my parents were really good at saving money for the important things. We rarely ate out, but always had plenty of food from our huge garden. And when something went wrong around the house, we rarely spent money on repairs because my Dad built or fixed everything. (I’m pretty handy myself, but not quite ready to tackle this giant bathroom remodel.)
Despite that thriftiness, we always went on summer vacations. It’s funny—I used to think we went camping because it was fun, but it was probably also because it was less expensive. We saw sites all over the east coast, from Maryland and Virginia beaches to Myrtle Beach and Disney World, at a fraction of the cost of staying in hotels and eating out all the time. My parents knew how to be thrifty while still providing us with wonderful memories.
As I got a little older, I remember my parents talking to me about buying appliances. They told me to avoid inexpensive appliances, since they were cheaply made, didn’t last very long, and required frequent repairs. However, they also told me that the top-end ones were full of unnecessary bells and whistles and weren’t worth the price tag. Therefore, their advice was to always choose wisely—spend a little more to ensure you get good quality, focus on the core features you need, and you’ll save money in the long run.
Coincidentally, I recently came across this quote from John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach. “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?” As I think through it, Coach Wooden’s lesson is the same as my parents’. He had limited time and money to develop a basketball team, used both wisely, and focused on doing things right—recruiting the right kids that would fit into his program and teaching them fundamentals first—before moving onto advanced skills.
As I think about my dozens of conversations with clients and business leaders, I often wonder how they trade off money versus quality. I see many companies that aren’t following my parents’ and Coach Wooden’s advice. Instead of managing their software organization by value delivered, they measure it by cost per head. This often leads them to choose low-cost, barely-sufficient solutions like offshore providers or cutting Agile training and simply hoping that your team figures it out on their own. While these approaches deliver short-term cost savings, they hurt significantly more in the long run.
I propose a different approach. How about we take a cue from the old saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” and start measuring software like a manufacturing shop?
Just think about it. As a CEO, CFO, or CIO, wouldn’t it be valuable to know how much code your team (or vendor) “manufactures”—as well as the cost and quality of that code? That way, you can compare them against industry benchmarks to see how much you’re paying versus how much you should be spending. With that knowledge, you can then start making plans to improve your productivity or quality—and you can measure the improvement. Doing this enables you to naturally choose the best value for your business.
There’s no question that we can choose the cheapest washing machine—but I think we all know that it will be a pain in the butt. It won’t clean our clothes as well, it will be noisy, it won’t last very long, and our family will not be happy. Is that really the approach we should be taking with software?
I am curious to know how much you understand about the software your company produces, how much it costs, and its quality level. So we built a tiny 5-question survey for this month’s “Fun Corner” to find out. I look forward to your answers, and I’ll be sure to let you know what kinds of insights we gain. In the meantime, I hope you make it a great month!!
Keep having fun,
Jeff Van Fleet
President & CEO
Lighthouse Technologies, Inc.
Software Testing | Quality Assurance Consulting | Oracle EBS Consulting
