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Software Quality In a Non-Software Company?
Nicros writes "I work for a publicly traded biotech company that happens to write software that is, in fact, kind of critical for the business — without it no data would ever be read from our instruments, and no analyses would be performed on that data. The problem is that as a 'biotech' company, we are not taking software quality seriously. We have no senior management with any history of commercial software development — our C level has really no clue whatsoever what software really is, much less what is going on in software development. All of our quality processes are related to manufacturing our system (not software), so we are constantly forced into ad-hoc development since there is no real process for our development. Repeated requests to hire someone with some real commercial software development experience have gone unanswered. I have been to the CEO directly one-on-one and although he agreed this was an issue, thanked me, and said he would look into it, that was the end of it. He has bigger things to worry about. So the question: Is this just a fact of life and I need to deal the best I can? What else can I do to get some attention on software quality in the company?"
We have no senior management with any history of commercial software development
That reminds me of Arianespace. It took the crash of a 150M$ rocket to make them change that.
Management are possibly right, the important thing is getting the product to market. If the R&D people write bad code, but code that works, and it gets the instrument to market then ship it. If it's instrument based, the software isn't the critical problem (if it works better than the other guys you win, doesn't matter if the primary data analysis software sucks so long as it more of less works).
However, you should try and convince you're management to open source the software. In this industry the probability is that if you don't open source it someone else will write an open source replacement (see Phred/Phrap, and the open source replacements of the primary data analysis software on next-gen sequencers which are starting to appear). That means your company losses control of the primary data analysis and possibly device control software, and that's bad for your company.
Open source has the added benefit that your development costs will fall (you can start using GPL code), it'll help you engage with the scientific community and you'll get people outside the company doing free work for you (seriously people want to get this stuff working, they'll help). You'll also get free peer review on your code which will drive standards up.
Scared of showing your crap code? Don't be, in this industry I've seen enough to know that most of it sucks (a lot of it's written by Biologists with no formal training). The clincher? "ABI are doing it, why can't we!" http://solidsoftwaretools.com/gf/
If you are in the bio tech field then all of your processes need to conform to ISO13485. There is a section specifically about software. Your company won't be in an FDA/CE regulated environment long unless you comply with those quality standards. I suggest you research the guidelines and point them out to your quality manager.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
Rarely does the statement "You've got a problem and you need to solve it" ever get a good response.
If you say "We have a problem, this is how other people solve it, and this is what I will need to solve it. Give me the budget and I'll solve the problem." then you are vastly more likely to get what you want. Then you'll have to deliver, but if you are like me (not that I am the best way to be), you'll find the responsibility gratifying and the deadline invigorating.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE