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Introduction

Quality is a huge concern with offshore outsourcing. Defects are more costly to fix than requirement problems. A strict quality assurance and control program forms an integral part of every offshore delivery model. Performance management involves, among other things, a review and continuous improvement of software development and business processes, validation and verification of work products, regular internal and external quality audits, and customized status reports. We can assist you to implement six sigma methodologies to your business processes to eliminate such defects.

The capability of the organization signing up to deliver a work-product of a particular size is, of course, an important part of the equation governing how long it will take, how much it will cost, and how good it will be. The Six Sigma notion of 'process capability' focuses here on the software projects. In contrast with the manufacturing model, where tangible measures of speeds and feeds and outputs abound, the software factory involves much less tangible measures related to people, communication, understanding, and the use of time.

One of the common misconceptions concerning Six Sigma is that it is all about statistics. In reality it is about the disciplined use of any type of information – quantitative or not. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) incorporates many tools that help project teams understand the "fuzzy front end." DFSS also incorporates needs/context analysis – a method for discovering unstated or latent requirements. These often are the source of opportunities to "delight" the customer by providing capabilities and solutions to problems that are often missed by traditional requirements elicitation methods. Six Sigma extensions of use cases provide another tool that enhances capability to identify the customer's critical-to-quality requirements (CTQs).
 

Six Sigma, more than anything else, is about "managing by fact." All of the pain points discussed originated in a lack of facts. All of the solutions rested on obtaining, analyzing and acting on facts – not on fault-finding, finger-pointing or mass executions.

Our Services

We help organisations to implement six sigma in their software projects using the proven methodologies of DMAIC and DFSS in all the variances including

Project Team's Capability – A team's capability can be quantified by reference to past performance if the same or similar team has done the same or similar projects in the past. In the world of software projects, that may be a big if, as it is common to do them with different teams in each instance. When historical data is available, it can often be used to get at least an approximate measure of capability, often accompanied by a large standard deviation. When local history data is not available, it is often possible to use industry data from various benchmarking sources and/or from commercially available software project estimating tools.

Size of the project - This is the "weight" of the project. If there is not some quantification of the project's magnitude, one of the most important x's in the Six Sigma fundamental equation Y = f(x1, x2,…xn) is missing. In other words, predicting the schedule or cost (Y's) without knowing size means it is being done without one of the most important drivers in a fact-based, quantitative way. Most software projects never quantify size. This contributes significantly to errors in estimating, since the estimates are merely guesses and guesses are rarely accurate.

Organizational Realities – This is another important set of x's that are rarely quantified, but potentially can be. The factors such as number of users, number of locations and degree of executive engagement are some of them. By using Six Sigma to assess the realities of an organization, the firms has improved the accuracy of predictions from about 50 percent to more than 90 percent.

Speed of project completion – There are situations in which the schedule for completion is mandated without regard to any measurable x's. Six Sigma modeling methods can change wishful thinking into a serious fact-based conversation. The facts to be faced may be unpleasant but are realities nonetheless.