“If the only thing we measure developers on is productivity, then where is the accountability for the quality of the finished work?” This is a question asked by Enerjy Software CTO Mark Dixon.

Enerjy Software, which provides software integrity solutions to Java development organizations and is based in Beverly, Mass., is concerned not only with the software errors that developers routinely encounter during the app development process, but with the “level of accountability for individual developers,” Dixon says.

“Software bugs are epidemic,” he points out. “And there are many reasons for software failure: poor project management, the growing complexity of software and market changes. But most often, poor code quality is to blame and whoever developed the software—whether a commercial software vendor, an outside technical vendor or a company’s IT organization—is liable.”

Enerjy Software’s executives believe that development managers should be held directly responsible for poor application quality. Though their jobs depend on delivering software that is up to spec and that works, many development managers have little insight as to the quality of code their teams are producing, the company says.

And with maintenance costs exceeding 80 percent of IT budgets, “it is urgent that development managers improve their understanding of the coding behaviors of individual developers,” says company CEO Nigel Cheshire.

Cheshire (pictured) was co-founder and principal of CRM consultancy Ives & Company, and led a software engineering group within the R&D division of Data General Corp., before founding Enerjy in 1996. He says “a manager’s view must be broader than a set of methods, a new feature or a list of bug fixes. Managers must coach their development team on the importance of meeting business objectives, the importance of software integrity and code quality.”

He also points out that “success or failure in these areas affects everyone’s jobs. In this day of outsourcing and offshoring, it is also imperative that individual developers take the initiative in improving their skill sets, and take responsibility for the quality of their work.”

Enerjy has developed a series of white papers focused on software integrity and issues related to it. They can be found at www.enerjy.com.