Hiring an Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) service involves having software in development checked by an objective third-party company that is not already involved in the development process. A business like i3solutions can bring a wealth of experience to ensure a project’s efficiency and functionality, helping it to stay on track and within budget.

A third-party IV&V service will examine whether the product meets necessary user requirements, is built to the correct specifications, and is of a high-enough quality to succeed.  This can be invaluable to organizations who are investing time and resources into a development project.

Why look at Independent Validation and Verification?

IV&V provides enterprises with the data they need to confirm cost reductions and better implement efficiency in the development of their project. Potential risks can be promptly eliminated by preparing reasonable contingency plans and preventing mistakes during the development cycle.

Here are just a few reasons why Independent Validation and Verification Services are incredibly popular for high-value development projects.

Find errors and problems earlier in the development process with Independent Validation and Verification

A development process can be lengthy and costly for businesses, and it won’t come as too much of a surprise when we say that big changes and mistakes cost more to fix the further you are into a development cycle.

IV&V is performed quite early on in a development process and ensures that the software is on track to actually provide the intended solution. IV&V will identify any significant design or implementation errors and avoid unnecessary costs that would arise should these issues be discovered later on in the development process.

Reduce Project Budgets

Organizations make significant investments to ensure that software projects work for the business and function correctly, so it’s no real surprise that budgeting plays a huge part in the appeal of IV&V.

Software development can be a costly and time-consuming process – particularly if the entire coding phase of the cycle is being outsourced to an external development team.

Identifying and fixing non-functional elements of a project and being able to repair and amend them earlier on in the process can help reduce staffing costs, maintain timelines and improve the return on investment for a project. The analysis of development also helps to manage costs by ensuring work is within the original scope of the project.

Produce a High-Quality End Product

A review of the project ensures that quality and functionality remain the core focus. An independent software code validation service will have no biases other than ensuring that the project, development and features are of a high quality, making the process extremely valuable to the project and the organization.

Ensure Best Practices Are Being Met

An independent expert will have a very good grasp of best practices when it comes to the development process. Particularly for non-specialists, it can be helpful to get someone to take a look at the cycle to identify any issues or practices that could impact the project. Acting on these early can keep timelines accurate and help to keep the project within budget.

Encourage Two-Way Communication That Benefits the Project

IV&V demands the fulfillment of particular benchmarks. Performance reports are a big part of the IV&V process, which promote increased communication between decision-makers, staff, and any contractors or freelancers. Opening these communication channels can be key to the success of a project.

What Makes A Third-Party Company Independent?

What makes an independent software code validation service truly independent? IV&V companies should have financial, managerial and technical separation from the company they are conducting the review for to ensure results are accurate and impartial.

Financial independence is defined by a lack of contracts or financial incentives that will influence a decision. IV&V teams should be disconnected from agreed contracts (other than a contract for IV&V services), partnerships and investments to remain truly impartial.

Managerial independence essentially makes sure that IV&V teams are not part of the organization or an organization involved with the development process. This, again, helps to keep work unbiased.

Technical independence refers to the IV&V team’s independence from the initial planning, discovery and development stages. Entering a project with previous knowledge of the planning stages is not helpful when trying to understand what is and isn’t core project functionality, because those involved will be influenced by former knowledge.

The Difference Between Validation and Verification

There are some clear and important distinctions between the terms validation and verification, but both are important to maintaining the quality of a project.

Validation, logically, comes after verification. It is the process of ensuring that the specification accurately reflects the needs of the customer, whereas verification is the process of ensuring that the program meets the requirements.

Any and all actions that contribute to the generation of high-quality software can be included in the verification process. Verification is a fairly objective approach in that it shouldn’t require any subjective judgment to check software.

As an example, a company may be looking to develop a custom Microsoft Dynamics 365 System. When verifying the project, the IV&V team might notice code has become more relevant to a custom CRM project. They would flag this code as it is outside of the intended scope of the project. This helps to save development teams time and resources and can help with future road mapping.

The validation process, on the other hand, is a much more subjective procedure. It involves the third party evaluating how well the system serves a real-world requirement. Modeling requirements, prototyping, and user evaluation are all examples of validation tasks.

Simply put, verification guarantees that the software development process is intended to achieve a certain end goal. Validation verifies that the software build has the desired functionality as defined by the verified plans and that coders have followed those plans correctly.

Choosing an Independent Validation and Verification Partner

Of course, an IV&V partner should be independent for an unbiased and well-rounded view of the progress of the project, but an IV&V partner should also be experienced.

At i3solutions we are extremely experienced software developers and have a diverse and deep knowledge of many IT and software systems. For IV&V services, this gives us the advantage of knowing how different types of software and varying systems could and should operate in businesses like yours.

We offer custom development, installation and maintenance of systems for companies in a wide range of sectors where technology is vital, and we understand how important it is to get a new project right. This is why we’re dedicated to delivering excellent IV&V services to businesses that entrust us with such key projects for their company.

To discuss IV&V for your project, get in touch.