LKP Consulting Group

Presents

The Real Cost of Software Defects

Objective

To Identify, Quantify and Mitigate Risk introduced in Technology Projects and Increase Project Efficiency through a structured QA organization by applying a formal and consistent QA and Testing Framework.

The Real Cost of Software Defects

The Real Cost of Software Defects

The longer a defective application evolves the more costly it is to repair.
According to the CTO of one software development organization, a bug that costs $1 to fix on the programmer's desktop costs $100 to fix once it is incorporated into a complete program, and many thousands of dollars if it identified after the software has been deployed in the field [1]. Barry Boehm, one of the industry's leading experts on software quality, has published several studies over nearly three decades that demonstrate how the cost of removing a software defect grows exponentially for each downstream phase of the development lifecycle in which it remains undiscovered [2]. Since the original study, Boehm's results have been confirmed in a number of subsequent studies [3]. Further, another major research project conducted recently by the United States Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology showed that in a typical software development project, fully 80% of software development dollars are spent correcting software defects. The same NIST study estimated that software defects cost the U.S. economy, alone, $60 billion per year [4].

The Real Cost of Software Defects

The Real Cost of Software Defects

The Real Cost of Software Defects

QA Function - Value Proposition

Higher quality of software development
Defects Pattern - No QA Function 12 Num ber of Defects 10 8 6 4 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Application Life (Time) # Defects - No QA # Defects - QA

Defects Cost Pattern - No QA Function $1,800.00 $1,600.00 $1,400.00 $1,200.00 $1,000.00 $800.00 $600.00 $400.00 $200.00 $0.00 1

UAT Starts
Cost to fix Defects

UAT Starts

Prod

Cost - No QA Cost - QA

Prod

2 3

4 5

6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13

Application Life (Time)

Increase quality of code at user handoff Reduce cost of defect because of life-cycle detection Effective software risk management with quality tracking
The Real Cost of Software Defects 5

Key Value Messages

More Predictable Application Delivery Higher (and quantifiable) Quality of code delivered Reduction of Business Risk and of Financial Loss and greater Client Credibility

The Real Cost of Software Defects

Contact

LKP Consulting Group, LLC 2870 Peachtree Road, #929 Atlanta , GA 30305 Phone: 770.530.2731 Fax: 678.868.1113 info@lkpgroup.com

The Real Cost of Software Defects

References

[1] "Building a Better Bug Trap", The Economist, June 19, 2003 http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=1841081

[2] Barry Boehm, Software Engineering Economics, Prentice-Hall, 1981

[3] Robert Grady, Applications of Software Measurement Conference, 1999

[4] National Institute of Standards & Technology, US Dept of Commerce, "The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Infrastructure for Software Testing", May 2002

The Real Cost of Software Defects