Quality control

Even fairly common software errors can cost up to Ł1000 to correct. Measures you can take to reduce the occurrence of errors may pay for themselves surprisingly quickly.

Such measures might include:

creating a quality policy, and ensuring staff understand the procedures they must follow (the quality system)
adopting an analysis and design method, and a project management method
implementing standards for software and documents
independent checking and testing
using automated software testing tools
monitoring errors (metrics), tracing their cause, improving the processes that regularly cause errors

General recommendations

Quality cannot be "added in" by the quality control process. Good quality products are made that way from the start, not improved by testing at the end of a project

Some individuals consistently produce work of high quality (and others consistently poor quality), so choose a good team

Make everyone in the organisation responsible for the quality of the final product(s). This is the basis of "Total quality management" or TQM Encourage a quality culture in the organisation

Quality reviews

No deliverable should be considered complete, or issued to the customer, until it has passed a quality review
Ensure those paying for the project, and the end users, are involved in quality reviews
Reviewers should be independent of the producers (eg. programmers), and not afraid to mention problems and errors
Senior management should not attend, as this may inhibit criticism (or encourage belittling and nit-picking)
Quality reviews should look at three things:

does the product work?
does it conform to technical standards?
does it do what it is meant to do?

Effect on the corporation

Companies have to work hard to earn a reputation for high quality projects (bad reputations come more easily)

A poor quality project can put a supplier in breach of contract, and the customer may stop all payments to them (even for software and services unrelated to the project in question)

A customer is unlikely to sign a contract with a supplier that has run unsuccessful projects in the past

Can a company limit their liability for poor software?

(Some current UK legal cases concerning contractual liability limitation discussed here)