Enhancing software quality through systematic object mapping

Indian Software industries are uniquely placed world over as the software solution providers due to the advantage of high calibre, good English speaking technical manpower employers. The companies enjoy a trusted status among the western companies. However India is still lacking in becoming a world leader in providing quality software solution. The software industries demonstrate compliance to specific western standards implying a mere follower rather than a leader. Countries in the South East Asia, Eastern Europe and also South America pose serious threat to Indian Companies from becoming world leaders. Opinions are floating that most serious development cannot be carried out in India owing to less than mature Quality levels of both the outsourced as well as original software. The basic strategy to demonstrate software quality is to reduce the frequency of the defects and issues and evolving mitigating methods to weaken the severity experienced by the users. In this paper an attempt is made to improve the software quality by mapping the relational objects of the software. Functional defect data was gathered for an application Software and categorised into High, Medium and Low type of defects with underlying need for urgent attention of High category ones. The number of defects generated through test cases for each object (module) is normalised and treated to form relational clusters. Dendrogram is drawn and cluster members are arrived. Ward method of maxima and minima tabulated for each of the category of defects and the mean is found. Defects by test cases is found and graded as needing primary attention to that of less significant ones. Modules contributing to the highest defect density is identified and listed. These defects are systematically analysed and root causes identified. By placing the best mitigating practices the Software Quality can be enhanced.