What Drives Quality

My 2nd book: What Drives Quality

A Deep Dive into Software Quality with Practical Solutions for Delivering High-Quality Products

Now available in paperback: BenLinders Amazon Bol.

For software developers and testers, architects, product owners and managers, agile coaches, Scrum masters, project managers, and operational and senior managers

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practical and actionable
roadmap to better software
must-read for all persons contributing to the development or enhancement of software
useful advice in an easy-to-read book
valuable contribution to professional software engineering practice
welcome addition to the agile literature

The book What Drives Quality explores how quality plays a role in all of the software development phases, it takes a deep dive into quality by listing the relevant factors of development activities that drive the quality of products. It provides a lean approach to quality, which analyses the full development chain from customer request to delivering products.

Featured on InfoQ SPaMCast Yours Productly Software Testing Magazine Leanpub …

Note: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

It’s a small but powerful book which, just like my successful first book Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives, provides many ideas, suggestions, and examples, that you can use in your daily work.

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About the book

Many methods for product quality improvement start by investigating the problems and then work their way back to the point where the problem started. For instance audits and root cause analysis work this way. But what if you could prevent problems from happening, by building an understanding what drives quality, thus enabling to take action before problems actually occur?

The book What Drives Quality provides a lean approach to quality, which analyses the full development chain from customer request to delivering products. It focuses on the interaction between all involved in delivering high-quality software to customers, quicker, at a lower cost.

I’m aiming this book at software developers and testers, architects, product owners and managers, agile coaches, Scrum masters, project managers, and operational and senior managers who consider quality to be important.

There are many great books on defining customer needs/requirements/user stories, software craftsmanship, QA/testing, DevOps/continuous delivery, and managing Agile teams and organizations. But until now there wasn’t a book that ties it all together. What Drives Quality explores practices from the different domains using an integrated end-to-end quality framework. This book enables professionals working in different areas to build a shared view of software quality and work together to deliver high-quality products.

This book is based on my experience as a developer, tester, team leader, project manager, quality manager, process manager, consultant, coach, trainer, and adviser in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement. It takes a deep dive into quality with views from different perspectives and provides ideas, suggestions, practices, and experiences that will help you to improve quality of the products that your organization is delivering.

Feedback on this book is very much appreciated. Please send your suggestions, comments, ideas or questions to [email protected].

This book is based on the Blog series What Drives Quality.

Getting the book

The first edition of this book has been released on September 30, 2017.

You can get your copy of What Drives Quality i 1st edition:

in my webshop for €8,99: Instantly get the current version in PDF, ePub, and Kindle format. Includes Free Lifetime Support via [email protected].
on Amazon for $9,99: You will get the ebook delivered to your Kindle device.
on Leanpub for $9,99: Instantly get the current version in PDF, ePub, and Kindle format and receive all future updates.
in all major on-line bookstores.

Second edition

I’m updating and expanding my successful second book What Drives Quality to publish a second edition. Intermediate versions are released through Leanpub: What Drives Quality.

The second edition contains additions throughout the book. I have added many practices and experience stories to the existing chapters. I also added a new chapter, Driving Quality, where I explore how to measure and analyze quality, describe the Project Defect Model, and show how you can steer quality in agile. This edition also contains a second foreword by Jan van Moll, Senior Forensic Investigator and Head of Quality & Regulatory at Philips Healthcare.

What more is new in the second edition:

Using use cases for specifying requirements.
How personas can be used to understand the users.
The “dark side” of commitment.
How burnout impacts quality.
Lean startup, using feedback to learn and develop the right products.

The book has grown already from 117 to 172 pages, almost a 50% increase. More will be added in the coming weeks.

Have you read What Drives Quality? I’d like to receive your feedback to further update the book and publish the second edition.

If you like to receive a review copy of the book, contact me!

Testimonials

“This book is a succinct summary of what we know about software quality and how to apply it. It can be read in “agile time”, and delivers a solid overview that can set readers on course to higher quality, lower risk software.”
Bill Curtis, Director Consortium for IT Software Quality and Foreword Author

“I recommend the book for anyone who wants to achieve quality or wants to avoid being the victim of self-inflicted or other quality issues.”
William R. Corcoran, Editor of the Firebird Forum

“Ben’s book is a reflection of his deep knowledge and experience helping teams and organisations identify what quality is in software, why it matters and how to optimise the right qualities for a product.”
Shane Hastie, Director of Agile Learning Programs at ICAgile

“Ben’s book is practical and actionable. I am already using the ideas in my coaching work with teams and their executive leaders.”
Brandi Olson, Agile Strategy, Lean Data, and Coaching

More information

Language: English
Size: 117 pages
ISBN: 978-94-92119-14-8
Published: September 30, 2017
Publisher: Ben Linders Publishing

About the author

Ben Linders is an Independent Consultant in Agile, Lean, Quality, and Continuous Improvement, based in The Netherlands. As an adviser, coach, and trainer, he helps organizations with deploying effective software development and management practices.

Ben is an active member of networks on Agile, Lean, and Quality, and a well-known workshop facilitator and speaker. He is the author of the successful books Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives and What Drives Quality, and creator of the Agile Self-assessment Game.