IV&V services are a large undertaking – there’s no disputing that. Bringing in an IV&V team involves coordinating departments, establishing goals with stakeholders, and much, much more. It can be disruptive to daily operations (at first), and frankly, it’s going to cost money.
So, the question for most companies is obvious: is there enough ROI to justify the costs?
The short answer is YES, ABSOLUTELY! …But that’s not enough information to make a large financial decision.
Let’s unpack this further.
IV&V Oversight
Software development is a long process with many components. An IV&V team comes on board with the experience and tools to create a detailed overview, keeping everything in order and on pace – even across teams and departments.
Now, it’s possible for a company to keep all of these things organized on their own, but the potential for miscommunication, disagreements, and the like is much higher. A third party team (that has been through these processes many times) has an advantage here. They can look at the process objectively, determine goals and timelines, and act as intermediaries between leaders.
All of this adds up to expert-level of oversight for the entire life cycle of the project – saving time and money by reducing conflict and streamlining assignments.
1:10:100 Rule
The 1:10:100 Rule is a common principle in all types of quality control work. The ratios represent the increasing costs of unaddressed errors. An issue that costs $1 to prevent will cost $10 to correct, and $100 to address once a project has gone live.
The round numbers used make it easy to understand and scale to the true costs of IV&V. The message is clear: the up front costs of prevention save money in the long run. If errors in the early stages of development slip through the cracks, it’s costly to backtrack and fix in later stages. If errors remain through the “go live” stage, the consequences are much, much larger.
From an ROI standpoint, that means that paying an IV&V team for quality control at the outset of development can save money, manpower, and delays in the later stages. The further along in the development process, the more costly errors become.
Higher Quality, Higher Success
The goal of any software development cycle is to produce a high quality, highly functional final result. IV&V focuses on the internal components of development to ensure quality every step of the way. The finished product, then, is something that meets the standards of users, customers, stakeholders, regulatory authorities, and beyond.
Whether your project is consumer facing or for internal use, ensuring quality is a means of ensuring success. A great product will lead to increased sales – a direct impact on ROI. Even for software utilized by staff, quality and usability means increased productivity – translating to better products, better service, time saved, and so on… All of which contribute to ROI.
The costs of IV&V are only a fraction of the overall investment of software development. Adding this measure of quality control and supervision pays off! To learn more about IV&V, and how it can boost the ROI of your development efforts, contact us today!
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