Scare Stories

We have all heard them. We provide a small list here obtained from online media in the last few months.

  • Technical issue forces early closure on Toronto Stock Exchange as markets fall
  • Information about 69,000 Phoenix pay system victims sent in error
  • A company sent an Ohio man 55,000 copies of a letter
  • Federal IT systems at risk of ‘critical failure,’ (Canada)
  • Air Canada system failure at check-in kiosks strands hundreds; delays flights
  • Toronto is furious about Metrolinx’s claim that Presto cards rarely malfunction
  • Luxury resort overcharges customers by thousands, then ignores them

This is only a small subset of what we have in the list and the oldest one in the list above is less than 2 months old. These are all within the first two months of 2020!

A couple of questions come to mind:

  • How much did all the above errors cost (or might still cost in the future)?
  • How much of that cost could have been (or could be) avoided by proper application of QA principles?

We all know defects and problems cost more the further into the process one has gone. Later defects (inside or outside software) are almost always more expensive. Some suggestions:

  1. Invest in a QA Assessment to see what you need in terms of QA. A good assessment will tell you what you need and a roadmap will tell you how to get there.
  2. Take the time to review the assessment and apply the appropriate improvements.
  3. Set up checkpoints to ensure that the process is not diverging from what was planned.
  4. Invest in coaching sessions to resolve any issues that arise (before they become a problem).

Give us a call to continue the discussion. We have supplied Assessment, Coaching, Consulting Management and Training to Financial, Telecommunications, Utlities, NFP, and Government to name just a few

Photo by Ari Spada on Unsplash

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