When there’s a bowl of jelly beans, some people grab a few at random, but most of us have favorites. If you're crafty and have flexible standards, you can maximize consumption by adjusting your criteria as colors dwindle. Classifying defects should not be like choosing jelly beans; you need firm standards.

Many large enterprise technology systems have suffered incidents that had significant impact to the customers as well as the firm itself. But experienced IT professionals know that learning from our mistakes is good, and so, too, is harnessing the lessons learned from a serious incident or problem.

Imagine focusing on prioritized business requirements at the software layer closest to where those business items are implemented. Writing just one check—that is, a programmed verification—per business requirement makes for simple, focused checks, supporting stronger, faster quality around the team.