It is remarkable how a calm descends on the project as the QA drop finally arrives and there is the realisation that adding any new features will just run up the bug count. Consequently test cases are cut down to the feature complete components and bug fixing occurs for the final four days.

QA is done in India over the period of a week, though incremental testing will be done in the US, not to mention the entire QA program is managed from California. Depending on the quality we have delivered so far, we will be receiving a run of bugs through the bug accounting system. I am not concerned; it is what an early code drop is for.

Since this is a political blog, and code is law and law is code, where are the QA professionals to critique legislation? We rely on the liberal nature of contention and debate, but 2007 saw a run of buggy, leaky, rushed and poor quality legislation get rammed through the parliament.

Debate and deliberation certainly improves legislation, but would a process be superior where professionals dominated, such as product requirement developers, project managers, quality analysts, legal experts and code/legislation writers. We do this now with the Reserve Bank and other institutions where apolitical professionals are tasked with a legislative mandate to perform.

Why not legislation?

It could remain democratic through politicians becoming the requirement writers and milestone makers; while other non-elected and apolitical professionals become tasked with taking the project to completion. Then again I just described what the civil service should be. However it is too politicised these days and not delivering suitable outcomes as the legislative excesses of 2005-2007 showed.