An Economic Model of Software Quality Costs

As of today there is very little knowledge is available about the economics of software quality. The costs incurred and benefits of implementing different quality practices over the software development life cycle are not well understood. There are some prepositions, which are not being tested comprehensively, but some useful Economic Model of Software Quality Costs (CoSQ) and data from industry are described in this article. Significant research is needed to understand the economics of implementing quality practices and its behaviour. Such research must evaluate the cost benefit trade-offs in investing in quality practices where the returns are maximized over the software development life cycle.