How to Avoid the Tricentis Software Fail Watch

We recently launched the 5 ^th edition of our annual report, the Tricentis Software Fail Watch. Each year, we compile the previous year's biggest headlines around software bugs, usability glitches, and vulnerabilities. The resulting stats are always alarming, to say the least. This year's report identified 606 recorded software fails impacting half of the world's population (3.7 billion people), $1.7 trillion in assets, and 314 companies.

We couldn't possibly include every one of these stories in this report without it growing to a ridiculous size. However, as a thank you for downloading the Software Fail Watch, we've included a link to an Excel file where we've collected and cataloged each story, so you can dive deeper anywhere you like.

The Tricentis Software Fail Watch: Why It Matters

What we're definitely not trying to do with this report is shame any companies who find themselves named in it. What we are trying to express is that every organization, in every industry, is at risk of having news of a software failure go from a single Tweet to global news coverage in the blink of an eye.

Tricentis' founder, Wolfgang Platz, describes the Software Fail Watch as a "much needed reality check." In the preface of this year's report, Platz notes:

Today, software plays a larger part in consumer and business interactions than ever before, and, yet, the number of news stories of reports of bugs being released into production only continues to grow.

In my recent conversation with analyst and author Mike Vizard, Mike brought up the challenge of understanding why we are still seeing such a staggering number of stories around catastrophic bugs and production failures if organizations are making such great strides with agile and DevOps.

The Big Takeaway: Speed at the Cost of Quality Is a Recipe for Disaster

Vizard is correct: the industry is inundated with success stories of companies reaching new levels of agility and including more features into release cycles that have shrunk from months to minutes. There's no denying, whether you're a startup or an enterprise, that speed of innovation is often the single largest requirement for avoiding disruption.

But, how many organizations are sacrificing quality to reach that sought-after speed? How many even know their software quality might be declining with each release acceleration benchmark they hit? Furthermore, how many CEOs, CIOs, and other software quality stakeholders (i.e., everyone) understand the butterfly effect of a how one poor user experience shared publicly can ultimately lead to millions of dollars in lost revenue and market share? To make understanding this easier, we've visualized this fast-moving chain reaction through plummeting stock market timelines, an "anatomy of a failure," and a new "brand erosion index" in this year's report.

The media — and, more importantly, your customers and prospects — are all watching very closely for the next big software failure to occur. Where will they find it?

Our advice: Rethink your testing strategies and approach to quality so they're not finding it in your next release.