Articles

The Real Meaning of Software Quality — And Why Evaluation Matters

The Real Meaning of Software Quality — And Why Evaluation Matters

Cathy Meng
15 August 2025

Over the years, people have often asked me the same question: ”What exactly is software quality?” It's tempting to answer with a list of tools, frameworks, and metrics — but the truth is, those are only part of the story. Technologies will continue to evolve, making certain tasks seem easier. But software quality isn't defined by the latest automation tool or project dashboard. It's defined by how effectively a product meets its intended purpose, how efficiently the team works together, and how much unnecessary effort we avoid along the way. Beyond Technology — A People-Centred Perspective. Quality in software isn't just about code reviews or test coverage. It's about evaluation — constantly assessing whether we're delivering what is truly needed, in the right way. This is where the concept of Muda, from Lean methodology, comes in. Muda refers to “waste,” and it's closely linked to Mura (unevenness) and Muri ...read more

A powerful reminder of the importance of teamwork

A powerful reminder of the importance of teamwork

Cathy Meng
20 March 2025

The safe return of all four astronauts was a powerful reminder of the importance of teamwork in achieving monumental success. It immediately brought to mind the inspiring story of The Janitor Who Helped Put a Man on the Moon, whose seemingly small role was essential to the larger mission. This experience reminded me that while any single individual might not always seem significant, it is through collaboration and the most amazing collective effort that humanity has reached the remarkable heights we enjoy today. As I look forward to the new journey with Raise in 2025, I am filled with excitement for the future — one where young minds grow in resilience, optimism, and unity. Together, we are not just working toward individual success, but toward building a stronger self and much stronger community. Empower your future and together we achieve! We are all in, and this is only the beginning. ...read more

pi.healthcare secure sample registration

pi.healthcare secure sample registration

David Delfouneso
15 November 2023

For a number of years now we have been assisting pi.Healthcare with exporting medical data from their database systems and helping them produce meaningful analysis, reporting and publications. Exporting data from a database is relatively straight forward nowadays due to the fact that most systems have the ability to export database tables as either utf8 comma separated values (.csv) or javascript object notation (.json). However, a common problem that is encountered concerns the sheer volume of data being exported. Millions of records exported as a .csv file can often exceed the importing capabilities of most - if not all - spreadsheet software applications; the usual tool of choice for further analysis. Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers spring to mind. To this end we developed a number of applications designed to manage large volumes of data for specific cohorts. We like to think of these applications as Consultancy Tools and to-date ...read more

pi.healthcare consultancy tools

pi.healthcare consultancy tools

David Delfouneso
20 October 2023

pi.healthcare's consultancy tools are capable of performing a number of important and useful tasks, the first being the ability to import, organise, cleanse, map and desensitise .csv and .json files. Cleansing is the process of ’tidying’ up and transforming the imported data into consistent values and formats such as dates, values, measures and codes. The consultancy tools are able to do this using arrays of internal mappings that have been developed and refined over time. Mapping is perhaps the most important task that the pi.healthcare's consultancy tools carry out and this is where fields from the imported files can be identified and mapped onto a known data type which in turn is used to to unify data from other imported files to produce linked datasets. Finally, aliases are applied to patient and doctor names, dates are advanced or retarded to make the patient data anonymous, thereby making the data viewable ...read more