Nigel Cheshire's company, Enerjy, has just launched Enerjy CQ2, a code quality solution for Java development managers. In this exclusive Q&A with JDJ, Cheshire contends that software quality from 2002 to 2004 has diminished: "As an industry, it's time to take this problem seriously."

JDJ: Nigel, thanks for agreeing to talk with us. Let's get right to it: Could you very quickly just "situate" Enerjy in the i-Technology space, say what the company does and how long it's been doing it?

Nigel Cheshire: Enerjy is a division of Teamstudio Group, which has been around since the early part of 1996. We provide software integrity solutions to Java development organizations and, before you ask, I can tell you that software integrity, in a nutshell, means finding the problems in your software before they become problems in your business. In other words, it's about early detection and correction, and raising the quality of the software development process.

JDJ: What then is the latest release/launch/product from Enerjy?

NC: We've just launched Enerjy CQ², which is a code quality solution for Java development managers. We'd been in the business of providing code quality tools to Java developers for a while and, after much feedback from our customer base, came to realize that we were barking up the wrong tree. The problem with our approach was that it's not developers who truly the shoulder responsibility for the quality of the finished application - it's the development manager. When we looked at what was available by way of tools to help development managers monitor and measure the quality of code as it is being written, we found that almost nothing exists today. Hence Enerjy CQ²

But Enerjy CQ² is not just a tool, it encapsulates a new process for development managers to help them better manage and coach their teams. We call it Precision Team Management, which in essence means the three-step process of:

1. Acquiring data from the project team's activities
2. Analyzing that data to detect key performance indicators
3. Acting on the results in terms of coaching developers to improve their metrics

NC: We put the finest marketing brains on the planet on to the task of coming up with a name for our new product, as you can tell. I guess you could say that "CQ" stands for "Code Quality" and " ²" implies it's the second generation. But, at the end of the day, it's just a name!

JDJ: What are the main drivers behind the problem that Enerjy CQ² solves?

NC: Our industry is facing a credibility crisis. You'll remember that back in 2002, the NIST issued a report estimating the annual cost of software errors to the U.S. economy at $59.5bn. You might think that would be a wake-up call to the industry. Well, the interesting thing to me is that the Standish Group reports that in the two years following the NIST report, in other words from 2002 to 2004, software quality actually diminished! So, as an industry, it's time to take this problem seriously.

JDJ: Can you unpack "Precision Team Management" for us, why's that the key value proposition here?

NC: As I said earlier, it's a three-step process: Acquire, Analyze, Act. The key to implementation success for this process is that it has zero negative impact on the development process itself - in other words, the members of the development team continue to work exactly as they did before. It allows the manager to define what quality means in their organization - in terms of coding standards, unit test results, testing coverage percentages, and so on, and then to set thresholds that trigger alerts if those thresholds are crossed. The feedback loop occurs when the manager acts on those alerts, coaching the developers on how to improve their development hygiene and thereby raising the quality of the overall code base, as well as the overall performance of the team.

JDJ: How can it be that Java code quality, and software integrity in general, in these SoX-conscious times, has lagged so far behind as a corporate priority?

NC: We are still an immature industry. Look at virtually any other business process and you will find well-understood and documented standards and procedures for ensuring quality. The problem is no one yet really knows what KPIs to capture from a development team. Software development is still considered an "art," and it's time to change that, but that doesn't mean trying to shoehorn the software development process into a manufacturing discipline. There's a reason software is called software - it's supposed to be soft. In other words, it needs to be agile - to be organic, to the point where as business processes change, the business software that helps to automate those processes changes too. As a result, we need processes such as Precision Team Management that will bring control to the environment, without being stifling.

JDJ: Is it ever possible to actually get to the point where code generates zero errors?

NC: Dijkstra famously pointed out that software testing cannot prove that there are no errors in your code; it can only prove that they exist. But that is not a reason not to do everything possible to squeeze bugs out as early in the development process, and monitor and measure those indicators of quality that we already have reasonably easy access to.

JDJ: Even though development managers are the ones who need Enerjy CQ², how does Enerjy go about making the necessary business case for using Enerjy CQ² in preference to the other solutions "out there" - so that they in turn can convince their CTOs?

NC: There are two things that make this product truly unique. First, unlike some of our larger competitors, there is no need to retool the development team with Enerjy developer tools. Most developers have a carefully assembled set of tools from a variety of vendors, many of which may be open source. We say leave the developer alone - let them continue to use the same tools they are already using. Second, Enerjy CQ² is the only product that uses patent-pending technology to show development managers their quality metrics per developer. If a code quality tool tells you that you have a problem with a particular method, that may be useful, but there is no real call to action. Enerjy CQ² will tell you how your individual team members are doing, and how they are trending over time. Now, if you care about the quality of your code base, that's powerful stuff!

JDJ: Enerjy is, as you say, Massachusetts based; are you getting a sense, from MA, of there being an overall "return" of technology? Is technology back in 2005, do you think?

NC: Yes, no doubt about it. But the other thing we're aware of is that technology buyers are pickier than ever before - you really need to show a clear return on investment for your solution. Any technology company with a mediocre offering will not last long in this market.

JDJ: Best of luck with Enerjy for the remaining quarter of 2005 and, of course, throughout 2006. We'll try and keep up with the speed of you guys! ;-)

NC: Thank you very much.