December 1999
Volume 2 • Number 1

Contents

Document Inspection as an Agent of Change

Software inspections can be the starting point and driving force for continuous process improvement. Defect data collection, root-cause analysis, and defect prevention should be built into every software inspection program. This article provides a case study of its application in support of a management goal: a product that is recognized as the best of its kind on every measurable scale.

Key words: defect detection, documentation, Gilb’s inspection method, process improvement, quantified system attributes

by Dick Holland, Primark Investment Management Services Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

This is the story of a journey, or rather, the beginning of a journey. It is a journey that Primark Investment Management Services has embarked upon while its destination is but a vision–a vision in which its products are recognized as the best of their kind.

Primark has already caught a glimpse of this future; every month a little more of the vision becomes real because its journey is one of continuous improvement. It is also one of constant discovery, new insights, and continuous learning. The company began by focusing on the quality of its software, but ultimately it will lead into every corner of its business.

Part of this article describes the lessons Primark learned from consultant Tom Gilb; it also describes how the organization has put those lessons into practice, and how it has developed and discovered new insights beyond them. The essence of the Gilb “method” is that quality measurement and improvement are embedded in the production processes (those that actually make one’s product). Quality thus requires no external agencies because it is in-process. People define the quality goals for their system, product, or service by means of quantified objectives, stating their current and target values and how they are to be measured. The Gilb method provides strategies for reaching those goals.

The method is firmly rooted in a strong process orientation: It requires that the production processes be identified and process ownership be recognized and assigned. Thereafter, product and process quality, as measured by the values held by the quantified objectives, is raised continuously by means of techniques, which include defect detection by document inspection and defect prevention by continuous process improvement.

It follows, therefore, that the first steps must include setting the quantified objectives and identifying the processes. This may (and Primark found that it did) require redesigning existing processes and recognizing undiscovered ones. It means that the supporting information systems needed to measure, record, track, and report improvements in the objectives require redesign, and it may also require organizational change.

Daniel Petrozzo and John Stepper (1994) in Successful Reengineering define business process reengineering as “the concurrent redesign of processes, organizations, and their supporting information systems to achieve radical improvement in time, cost, quality, and customers’ regard for the company’s products and services.”

This is a good definition of what Primark is doing; the difference is perhaps that it is not a one-off exercise, for it is continuing to develop and improve the infrastructure, tools, and techniques and, above all, to change Primark’s culture so the organization is ready and able to redesign its processes, organization, and systems continuously.

It is in this way that Primark is using the powerful leverage effect of document inspection as an agent of change, and it now knows that it can realize its vision and reach its goal of owning products that are recognized as the best of their kind on any measurable scale.