Software economics and code quality

So, I heard back from the NRC after I asked about software quality, start-up success and CMMI. They got back to me very quickly with a good nugget of information;

I just have one comment… using CMM-based assessment as a proxy for quality is not a good idea. CMMI is a process model, and as such does not really address product quality (it just assumes that heavy process = quality, and advocates measurement).

So I continue my search for the truth about start-up success and software quality. I just finished re-reading a great paper named “Big Ball of Mud“. The paper is all about softwares defacto implementation architecture. What i have gleaned from this paper is “use an XP style methodology and refactor, refactor, refactor.”

NRC and Software Economics

I think I may have stumbled across a source of information for my software quality and start-up success relationship query. If you have been reading my blog you will know by now that one of my threads of activity is looking for quantitative evidence that software quality and good software engineering practices have a positive influence on a software start-ups success and ROI. Well, I’ve become frustrated with the challenges I have encountered in not finding quantitative evidence. So, I started thinking I should initiate a formal research project, and given my past positive experiences with IRAP and the NRC I could approach the NRC about my query as a research project. So during my searching of the NRC web site I found that they already have such a project underway. I’ve initiated contact, I’ll keep you updated as I discover more information.