There is a tremendous gap between DevTest activities and business expectations for software. This disconnect causes a gap that can ultimately expose the company to a bumpy user experience, erratic system behavior and standards and regulatory compliance risk. Learn what needs to change to close the gap and improve software quality. Visit: http://bit.ly/28NGOzP to learn more.

1. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 1
2016-07-15
The Gap Between Business
Risks and Software:
How Teams Measure
Non-functional Requirements

2. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 22
Acceleration
of the software
development lifecycle
Innovative software that
bonds customers to its
products and services
Every business demands:
Speed Quality
Speed and quality are no longer tradeoffs: modern organizations must have both
Software Development Lifecycle Trends

3. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 33
Speed and Quality: What Does That Mean?
NFRs
We must understand the business risk of a release candidate
Different parts of the organization think about speed and quality differently
Business Person Developer Tester
I’m not done
testing yet!
Are we
done yet?
Is the user story
complete?

4. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 44
What Is a Non-functional Requirement (NFR)?
NFR
Examples
NFRs describe how the overall system should behave
Application resiliency
Accessibility
Availability
Reliability
Testability
Regulatory compliance

5. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 55
Parasoft Study Explored the Evolution of Quality
across Dev Methodology
To explore the impact of the accelerated SDLC, Parasoft conducted a survey asking
software developers about functional and non-functional requirements
of Waterfall teams who do so
…compared with 59%
Only 38% of Agile-ish and Agile teams are monitoring NFRs…
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
Agile-Ish
Agile
Iterative
Hybrid
Waterfall
“Yes, my team monitors compliance to
non-functional requirements (NFRs)”

6. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 66
Is Agile Compromising Quality in Pursuit of Speed?
Agile’s quick iterative approach focuses test
teams on bottom up user stories
Testers focus on
new user stories
Non-functional
requirements are
deprioritized
* The Business Risks of the Release Pipeline Survey Results: How Teams Measure Non-Functional Requirements, 2016; commissioned by Parasoft
The Result

7. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 77
Study Findings – INVERSE Correlation Between
SDLC Pace and NFR Measurement
Inverse correlation between Agile methodologies and the likelihood
that teams will measure NFR compliance
Agile’s speed leaves little
time for testing NFRs
Agile
Sprint 1
Sprint 2
Sprint 3
Waterfall’s slower pace leaves
more time for testing NFRs
Waterfall
Develop
Discover
Design
Test

8. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 88
Measurement of NFRs
Management and business analysts are
7x more likely to believe that NFRs are
measures and monitored consistently
Developers and testers do not believe
that NFRs are being appropriately
defined and measured

9. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 99
Gap Between the Business and Dev Team
The Business Dev Team
Deadline pressures
result in ignoring:
 Holistic user experience
 Impact of change on the
broader system
 NFRs
Assumes business risks are
being mitigated—but
neglected NFRs can expose
the company to:
 Bumpy user experience
 Erratic system behavior
 Standards and regulatory
compliance risk
Software
quality

10. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 1010
Closing the Gap Between the Business
and the Dev Team
 Jointly defining business risks at project’s onset
 Understanding KPIs and acceptance thresholds
 Automatically measuring and monitoring NFRs
 Reviewing and continuously improving mitigation of business risk
Better Software Quality

11. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 1111
Recommendations for Quality @ Speed
 Ensure all parties understand
risks and tradeoffs
 Continuously train on the
impact of failure
 Establish quality gates
 Implement escalation processes
 Adopt a continuous
improvement mindset
To rapidly assess the risks of
releasing applications:
Security Availability
Compliance
Quality
Reliability

12. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 1212
Teams Must Collaborate to Mitigate Risk
 Business risks drive quality activities
 Teams collaborate on the
definition of risk
 All team members are trained
on risks and mitigation tasks
 Baseline and threshold criteria
are measured and monitored
 DevTest team activities are
prioritized per risk definition
Policy
NFRs
KPIs and
Acceptance Thresholds
Automated Measurement
and Monitoring

13. Copyright © 2016 Parasoft 13
2016-07-15
Download Report
www.parasoft.com
To learn more