Where was I?

"Quality is in the process not in the product" This tidbit of info from Deming is truly valuable. How many software shops use most of their budgets in hiring the best and brightest developers but have a much lighter quality control group? Like the 30 developers, 1 qa shop mentioned the other day.

Just from MMM, we know that there is a 30% chance that a change in one line of code will break something else downstream. Let's think about all the changes that occur in a day with 10 developers. It does not matter how good the developers are, things happen. Ask Nokia or MS.

So, it seems that the quality process should be a prerequisite to a good development team, otherwise the effort of that talented team is less than effective: how many companies with truly competent developers release products late that require patches?

The process, I think is what is missing: not a checklist of things that when in place they make a process. Saying that we need a rocket to reach the moon does not make anyone a rocket scientist.