How to regain lost quality

Over time, some software loses quality due to lack of updates, lack of support and changing user needs. To better understand this phenomenon, we offer 3 short articles on the subject.

How can we identify when our software is losing quality?

Several indicators can help determine that our software is losing quality.

First, at the functional level, we have production anomalies, maintenance and deliveries that are becoming difficult, lack of traceability and loss of knowledge linked to past software production.

Secondly, at the non-functional level, we have the appearance of security flaws, the recurrence of slowdown phenomena, aging usability and ergonomics, non-compliance and, last but not least, the most important indicator of all: the loss of users.

Can we decide to stop putting an application into service if it is no longer of high quality?

Yes, one of the reasons for stopping an application can be its insufficient quality. But you have to be careful. In fact, it’s not an audit that will determine whether an application should be shut down. The audit will make recommendations and quantify them more or less precisely. The decision to stop an application is made at a more strategic level, when the non-quality of the application becomes too costly. In other words, upgrading the application is out of budget, and the impact of keeping it running is more negative than stopping it.

Many applications have been shut down for quality reasons, such as the example given at JFTL: periscope, which was shut down mainly because maintenance costs were too high.

Can we assume that the quality is beyond repair and that we need to start from scratch?

Quality is generally always recoverable, but may in many cases require a major investment in time and cost to restore. Depending on the context, the customer can decide whether to carry out the improvement actions or start from scratch, according to the budget and time available. Following an audit, recommendations are made to guide the customer, who remains the final decision-maker.

Our recommandations