Bulldozer00's Blog

QIQO == Quality In, Quality Out

GIGO == Garbage In, Garbage Out

In the world of software development, virtually everyone knows what GIGO means. But in case you don’t, lemme ‘splain it to you Lucy. First, let’s look at what QIQO means.

If a domain-specific expert creates a coherent, precise, unambiguous, description of what’s required to be mapped into a software design and enshrined in code, a software developer has a fighting chance to actually create and build what’s required. Hence, Quality In, Quality Out. Of course, QI doesn’t guarantee QO. However, whenever the QI prerequisite is satisfied, the attainment of QO is achievable.

On the other hand, if a domain-specific expert creates a hairball description of what’s required and answers every question aimed at untangling the hairball with sound bytes, a scornful look, or the classic “it’s an implementation detail” response, we get….. GIGO.

Note that the GIGO vs QIQO phenomenon operates not only at the local level of design as pictured above, it operates at the higher, architectural level too; but with much more costly downstream consequences. Also note that the GIGO vs QIQO conundrum is process-agnostic. Its manifestation as the imposing elephant in the room applies equally within the scope of traditional, lean, scrum, kanban, and/or any other wiz-bang agile processes.