A Mobile Software Quality Framework

White Paper

A Mobile Software Quality Framework How Quality can Accelerate "Speed-to-Market"
By Aaron Hansen, Lionbridge Technologies All Rights Reserved | Copyright Lionbridge 2009 White Paper

At a Glance The tradeoff between speed and quality in mobile software development is an illusion-or should be. A framework is presented for using quality processes to accelerate development. Today's mobile software companies face a daunting challenge: How can they achieve Speed is King quality while getting to market swiftly? After all, speed is king in the mobile market. New The average lifespan of a mobile technologies are constantly being introduced; device is now one year, and new mobile device platforms are emerging at a mobile software is even shorter. prodigious rate; competitors are constantly Meanwhile new technologies and "one-upping" each other in an ever-escalating innovations are being introduced arms race of new features and interfaces. at a breakneck pace. In this ever-Recent developments have seen the advent of changing environment, isn't it widespread 3G networks, location-based inevitable that quality processes services, onboard accelerometers, web-based will begin to slip? After all, quality operating systems, the first widely available takes time and time is the one open source Linux-based mobile operating resource in short supply. system, Near Field Communications enabled devices, advanced touch-based interfaces, and the list goes on. Certainly, as deadlines near, project managers often face agonizing choices: When you already know you can't fix every "must fix" issue before the looming "must ship" date, what do you focus on.and how did you get in this position in the first place? All too often you hear the words, "hope they don't notice" uttered in engineering conference rooms around the world. Most organizations have no idea how to balance quality and time. Furthermore, the quality processes that work well on desktop applications are often erroneously applied to the mobile space-with unfavorable results.
What is Mobile Software? Mobile software is any application that runs on a device that can be carried easily and does not plug into the wall for its primary power supply. This includes wireless-enabled, over-the-air, and standalone software.
White Paper | Copyright Lionbridge 2009 | WP-536-0209-1|Page 2
Are you quality or date driven? Most understand the importance of quality in Anatomy of Speed With Quality theory, but the practical reality is that time-to- market generally takes precedence over quality, Quality process starts before and most mobile software goes to market with the first line of code is written. incomplete testing. Most have the perception, Process accelerators are born out by poorly-understood experience, that utilized. true quality and speed are mutually exclusive. o Source code analysis Truth is, a good quality assurance process o Build automation speeds time to market rather than slowing it o Test automation down. Test and development frameworks/libraries are But let's examine the problem more closely leveraged for reuse. before discussing the solution. We must ask ourselves, "Why has quality taken a backseat to Integrated agile development speed-to-market in mobile software?" Most and test iterations. software shops profess to be "quality driven" rather than "date driven." However, if you ask Results engineers, most will tell you dozens of anecdotes Design flaws are caught illustrating the opposite: tales of the time they before development starts. felt a product shipped before it was truly ready. Source code analysis Most companies aspire to be quality driven, but validates code quality before because they lack the resources and/or check-in. experience to do so they end up being date Builds are automatically driven. This lack of understanding results in validated and regressed release cycles that overrun their schedules, eliminating wasted time on defects discovered much later in the release cycle, and software that requires patching after it is "bad" builds. released. The later a defect is discovered in a Testers focus on feature release cycle the more expensive it is to fix; testing while regression tests especially if the defect is caught after release. are automatic. This p... [download for more]