When faced with the challenge of shortening delivery cycles, the old economy manufacturing companies utilized disciplined quality techniques to reduce scrap and rework and improve productivity. Software developers in the new economy face a similar challenge to accelerate development to meet critical time-to-market business goals brought about by the Internet. Unfortunately, many are abandoning disciplined methods in lieu of a risky "hack and test" approach with potential disastrous consequences for customers and developers. Learn of one company's transformation from ad hoc development to a disciplined and quantitatively managed enterprise. Discover why such a transformation is absolutely essential for high velocity software development.

Including a testing/QA component early in a software project necessarily prolongs the schedule, right? Not so, according to Ross Collard. In this, the third of a three-part series, Collard explains how to anticipate risks and to aggressively manage the process to prevent disaster.

XP teams have the right to do their best work. On the other hand, customers have the right to specify and pay for only the quality they need. How does one reconcile two potentially conflicting points of view? Is quality negotiable? If so, how do we go about negotiating it? This paper will explore the following questions: Is quality negotiable? How can we negotiate quality? What are internal and external quality, and are either or both negotiable? What's the XP tester's quality assurance role? How far should testers go in helping the customer define acceptance criteria?