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The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention - Best Practices

Techniques to Meet the Demand for More-Reliable Software

Go beyond just fixing software defects - help prevent them before they occur. In this practical guide, industry leaders with more than a century of experience among them share their expertise for delivering quality software. They distill hard-won lessons into best practices and proven techniques to help engineering teams improve defect prevention in the software development lifecycle. Minimize defects in the beginning, reap economic and time-saving benefits in the end - and deliver more-reliable software that meets customer demands.

Discover how to:
- Encourage defect prevention efforts - and build a culture of software quality
- Apply the latest methods for gathering and acting on customer feedback
- Analyze and classify defects to prevent future instances
- Identify and mitigate code-change risks
- Build a balanced scorecard to measure software quality
- Integrate prevention techniques into Agile and CMMI processes


About the Authors:

Dan Bean
Dan Bean has been in the computer industry for more than 25 years and with Microsoft since 1993. Like many people with long careers in the computer field, Dan has had the opportunity to work in a variety of disciplines including system design, program management, development, test, and IT. As a member of the Microsoft Engineering Excellence Group, Dan worked on engineering practices incorporating Failure Modes and Effects Analysis and Fault Tree Analysis. In addition to earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science from Washington State University, Dan also earned a Black Belt in Six Sigma from the Juran Institute.

David Catlett
David Catlett has been developing people, tools, and techniques for testing software for more than 16 years. In his current role as Principal Test Architect in the Microsoft Windows Engineering Tools team, he is researching and implementing methods to increase the quality of software while decreasing the cost of engineering. In this role, he is focusing on risk analysis, improving testability, and improving the quality of test code itself. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science/Math from the University of Puget Sound, and more importantly, is husband to Erika and dad to Josh, Emilie, and Sara

Lori Ada Kilty
Lori Ada Kilty has been involved in Balanced Scorecards and metrics for software for many years. After completing her Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science, she was hired by Microsoft to work on tools for home and entertainment software. She has 10 years of Microsoft experience and 20 years of military experience. Before retiring from the military, she was instrumental in developing and deploying an automated dashboard system for command and leadership metrics for her National Guard unit. She has worked with various teams throughout Microsoft in test, development, and program management.

Marc McDonald
Marc McDonald´s career spans the 30-year personal computer industry-from Microsoft Basic on the MITS Altair to Windows Vista-and he holds six software patents. Marc is the first salaried employee of Microsoft, joining Bill Gates and Paul Allen in Albuquerque, where he designed the FAT file system used in MS-DOS and Windows. He was the first employee at Asymetrix and Design Intelligence. He pioneered the standard for free sodas and casual dress in the software industry.

Robert Musson
Robert Musson has more than 25 years of software experience as a development engineer and experience in various management positions. He spent 15 years at Teradyne, helping bring to market a variety of products for the telecommunications industry. White there, he helped deploy the Team Software Process (TSP) to the first industry site. He was vice president of business strategy at a small startup before becoming a member of the TSP Initiative at the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie-Mellon University. He currently is a member of the Defect Prevention group in the Core OS Division of Windows and manages the department of statistical distortions. He has a Master´s degree in Computer Science from Illinois Institute of Technology and a Master´s degree in Business Administration from Northwestern University´s Kellogg School of Management.

Ross Smith
Ross Smith has been making mistakes for more than 40 years. (See the first page of Chapter 1.) He has been in the software industry for almost 20 years, developing and testing software on everything from mainframe systems to handheld devices and PC´s. He has also been a jail guard, Union president, cartoonist, and graphic artist. He began his Microsoft career in Product Support in 1991 and has been a Test Lead, Test Manager, and Test Architect. He has been a long-time member of the Test Architect´s Group, and has worked on every version of Windows and Office since 1995. He holds five software patents, and is currently director of the Windows Core Security Test team. He lives with his wife and four kids on a remote island in Puget Sound.

Joshua Williams
Joshua Williams has been testing releases of Windows at Microsoft for more than 12 years, working across multiple versions and architectures of the OS. He has managed teams testing globalization, drivers, and automation frameworks. He has worked as a Lead, manager, evangelist, and architect in various test teams. He managed the USB test effort through the development and deployment of USB 2.0, regularly presenting at USB and industry events. Most recently, he has focused an large-scale automation systems, and group-wide process improvement strategies.


"Awesome book! The authors deliver practical ideas that help engineering teams embed defect prevention early in their process - and deliver value to customers."
- Patrick Copeland, Test Engineering Director, Google

"A thoughtful and insightful foray into the nature of defects. Immediately and directly applicable to the science and art of software development."
- Richard Newman, Group Senior Manager, Microsoft Game Studios, Japan