It is always curious to see how babies imitate what their parents do when they move their hands and make faces in front of them, but does the baby do it innately or learn to imitate? According to a study carried out by the University of Queensland on more than 100 babies, imitation is not something innate in human beings, that is, it is something that babies learn by observing how adults copy what they themselves do until they understand how the game works. On the contrary, for the psychologist Álvaro Bilbao this conclusion may be a bit premature, he understands that what was observed in the study may be due to the fact that said capacity is only developed when a sufficient level of maturity is reached, as happens with speech or with the walk We are not able to do it until we are prepared for it.

When software quality declines, the first thing professionals in the sector do is look at the quality processes that are in place

Regardless of the origin of imitation, an innate quality or a learned quality, what all experts agree on is its decisive importance for learning and improvement in human beings. Not in vain do we have in our brain a set of neurons called mirror dedicated to this purpose. Unlike babies, companies are afraid to copy, but, as we have seen, comparing ourselves with what others do is very good. So good that it will allow us to improve our quality.

Improve quality by imitating

At the moment in which we imitate and compare ourselves with our peers, we test, check, test to determine what is the most correct and efficient. Imitating allows us to be able to expand our limits and go further. Well, what use is this reflection to me in the event that the software product put into production does not reach the expected quality? Exactly, we must imitate what others do so that the quality is optimal.

Copying the processes

When the quality of our software declines, the first thing we professionals in the sector do is look at the quality processes that are implemented in order to identify the link that is allowing this deterioration in quality, that is, which one is not imitating what is makes in the market. This activity is called “Diagnosis of quality processes and tests”. Quality diagnoses and tests are works that we carry out with the aim of quantitatively measuring aspects related to quality during the development and testing processes. The resulting information is provided in the form of indicators whose values ​​express the state of quality from different points of view. In other words, we are measuring the processes that the market defines and that apply in my case, and for those processes I determine what indicators will allow us to determine if they are working properly. Once I have the processes and the indicators, I need to know…

Are they performing properly?

The second activity is to determine the baby’s percentile. Surely you have understood me, it is to determine the minimum and maximum values ​​on which the results of the diagnostic indicators that we have carried out in the previous point should be based on the market average for this type of product. This means that we want to numerically establish the quality that the software product and the development process must have. As a baby would do, we are going to compare with the performance of babies of her age, we are going to compare ourselves with the market. To ensure that we will choose the correct values, we will look for market references and carry out quality benchmarking and tests.

Who is the market?

The market is made up of many companies from different sectors. Each one develops a different product using specific technologies and under various work methodologies. Comparing the data of our indicators and knowing where we stand in relation to the rest is a delicate job that must be carried out by experienced specialists. Several companies, including LedaMC, compile this information in aggregate databases, making it possible for companies to consult the market trends with which to compare themselves.

Defining the strategy

When we are clear about the values ​​that our indicators must show, we can mark the change strategy to convert the processes or procedures that are not effective into adequate ones and all this with sufficient guarantee to trust that the choice has been made based on the behavior of hundreds or thousands of projects. Therefore, if we ever reach production with a software product that is of poor quality, to solve it we must remember how a baby behaves. Learn, imitate the profitable. Solving software quality problems involves going to professionals who help us determine the behavior of our processes and combine these results with data obtained from the market that give us software metric values ​​that will guarantee the efficiency of our testing processes.
Julián Gómez Bejarano, Chief Digital Officer LedaMC