Six Sigma makes inroads in software development organizations
Still, Siviy said, “At a lot of software conferences now you see a sprinkling of presentations that somehow touch on Six Sigma or Lean, and the quality and depth of questions have evolved tremendously. In general, and not just in Six Sigma, as the [software] industry matures you see a wave of interest in measurement and analytical techniques.”
McKesson is a prime example. “Measurement is key,” Childers said. “What you can’t or don’t measure, you don’t know.”
A couple points. First, you can know what you don’t measure. Do you know your parents? Do you measure them? Manage what you can’t measure.
The Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University has great materials. There is a danger in using those materials to become overly bureaucratic but the material was developed out of an excellent understanding of quality management (way back when that was the way this stuff was referred to). David Anderson provides some good insights, see: Stretching Agile to fit CMMI Level 3
Design of experiments is very suited to testing software: Planning Efficient Software Tests – Design Of Experiment For Software Testing.
six sigma does seem to foster a lack of sharing; which is a shame.
Related: six sigma articles and links – six sigma posts – software development posts – design of experiments articles
