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?"

Comments

Re:Anarchy is an opportunity

[zwei2stein]

Agreed.

Define problem (your product is useless brick without software), show where it would cost your company dearly (someone using your equipment suing your ass off when they make critical business decidion based obn results from your faulty equipment), come up with two alternative solutions. (good internal practices, opensourcing, hirinig third party company)

Make power point presentation, call everyone you can on meeting and present it. Scare higherups to action. Make sure you don't blame anyone for this problem. Make sure you don't threaten anyone's position with solutions.