Here are some questions to get
them going:
1. How much does product development, maintenance, and support cost the company? How does
quality relate to cost, and stability to milestones?
2. Why does a particular product??™s schedule keep slipping while other product schedules stay on
track? Is resource allocation adequate, and management stable?
3. How many worker-hours have gone into a particular product? How are they apportioned among
requirements management, planning, design, implementation, testing, and support? Do staff
record them on their time sheets? How long does it take to resolve customer complaints?
4. How stable is each software component? What is the appropriate level of quality?
5. What can be done to minimize the rate of field failures and the cost of fixing bugs, improving
milestone accuracy, quality, and optimizing resource allocation?
6. Do any of those very low-severity bugs, which no one can be bothered fixing, mask a much more
serious bug? (Answer:
If the level of code turmoil
(see section 18.9.8)
is high, then ???yes.???
)
29
3
Risk Management
Risk is the probability of something happening, multiplied by the cost if it does.
The mere mention of the word
risk
scares many project managers. It has become taboo like death or
taxes. Testing is a major defense against risk, and the wise test manager knows how to use risk as a lever
to get more resources and time, and allocate these according to the perceived risk.
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