When you're good you're good!

Ok, now for a small blurb about my work. We've been producing our software product for a long time. For many years it was "the death march to Egghead" (to quote a famous book. Essentially it means it was a real struggle to get the product out the door. It was always late and there were always surprises at the end of the release with functionality not working, etc). We produced a world leading product, but it wasn't easy.

A couple years ago we made a concerted effort to improve quality and our development processes. We purchased a real Requirements Management System, which is now the center-piece of our process documentation. We took the steps necessary to achieve CMM Level 3. And now it is paying off.

For the last several releases we have hit our ship dates. We rarely have "gotcha" issues come up at the end of the release. We can predict how many defects we will find during the development cycle. We know when in the development cycle we will need to focus people on defect fixing, and we know how many people we'll need. We're doing real requirements traceability and our reports are adding value. In short, we're firing on all cylinders.

How well are we doing? Consider this. Our Project Manager phoned up the Project Manager from the hardware group and bet him a round of golf at the best course in town (i.e. $200) that the difference between our planned ship date and our actual ship date would be less than the difference for his product. The hardware guys have also made considerable improvement in quality, process and schedule, but our Project Manager is so confident that we are so good that he's willing to bet $200 of his own money. He literally put his money where his mouth is. I would say that shows confidence!