Make Defects Pay with Root Cause Analysis

Although finding and fixing a defect can improve software quality, often its greatest value is to use the defect as a catalyst for preventing a similar problem in the future. If you identify a defect's preventable cause and permanently correct the issue, your organization can quickly recoup the costs to find, fix, and clean-up a defect. Root cause analysis is a powerful technique that has long been used in manufacturing industries to learn from mistakes. Randy Rice presents a simple way to adapt this technique to the software in your organization. Randy recommends practicing root cause analysis on different classes of defects before deploying it on a wider scale. The beauty of this simple approach is that any organization can apply it with minimal investment. Learn the pitfalls to avoid and how to isolate the root cause from other contributing causes to make your defects pay.