I have experience of training software engineers in ISO 9000 and CMMI. Once I got consultancy contract for implementing CMMI in medium level company. This was my first consultancy job. One of the hostile senior manager’s held up the meeting with tough questions.
Have you worked in a software company?
My answer: No
Do you know coding?
My answer: No
Have you learnt SW Engineering anywhere?
My answer: No
If you don’t know anything about SW engineering how can you control our quality.
I was expecting this question as a culmination of all above questions
My answer: Don’t ask the Driving license of a Traffic constable!!!
That got me a break through and my discussions continued.
Jokes apart this is a major problem in SW engineering companies. They refuse to abide by Quality principles and give scant respect to procedures.
Most of the SW companies have already sidelined the quality dept and they play very peripheral role.
This can be explained by another joke as below.
Again a senior manager said “all my friends are working in CMMI level companies and they have to sweat it out between 7and 9 pm writing all sorts of bullshits for the sake of CMMI documentations”. What have you got to say for that?
My answer: I would like to know what they are doing till 7 PM.
That answers many questions. Indians are very poor in planning and tracking. They don’t know the meaning of Risk. But refuse to apply their mind in this. They waste their time in fire fighting and cooking up reasons for delay. Mostly blaming the customers for change of requirements. In fact it is becoming more and more a bug bear as many Indian companies are looked down upon for timely delivery.
This is because of refusing to give importance to quality dept. during major issues.
Whereas in Japanese companies nobody can buy from vendor unless quality dept approves it. Products cannot move from one stage to the next without Quality dept approval and so on. Quality department is present everywhere, and should be the sole judge of all issues in every stage.
Understanding Ramayana 