Built-in Quality: How to Improve Software Quality in an Agile Way
Between the 1940s and 1970s, Toyota invented the Toyota Production System, also known as the Just-in-Time System or Lean Manufacturing System, for the purpose of producing massive automobiles efficiently and effectively. The Toyota Production System made Toyota one of the most successful automobile companies in the world and has influenced a wide range of industries. During its development, Taiichi Ohno, the primary inventor of the Toyota Production System, made essential concepts and techniques such as Kaizen (Continuous Improvement), Kanban, and seven wastes, which are used not only in the automobile industry but also in other industries.
The software industry, without exception, is also influenced by the Toyota Production System, and Agile inherits many practices and techniques from it. Built-in Quality is one of them, which adds additional quality assurance steps in each development process in order to increase a product's quality. SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), the most popular enterprise-level Agile framework, also defines Built-in Quality as one of the practices.
This article explains what Built-in Quality is, why it is important, and how it works in Agile development. I guarantee your product quality will improve drastically once you understand it.
I wrote the same topic few years ago and this article is updated version as my experience knowledge have progressed.
