Software Quality and Management: How the World's Most Powerful Software Makers do it

Abstract

Controlling software quality is a major challenge in modern software development projects. This article looks at software development practices at the two largest producers of software, IBM and Microsoft, and compares them against the Software Engineering Institute's (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM). It concludes that rigorous quality controls and the CMM's basic premise for reaching higher maturity are still the best ways to produce quality software.