"defects introduced in early phases cost more to fix the later they are detected." Not. Here's a story [1] that reminds me of a chapter in one of the physicist Richard Feynman's biographies [2] - the story goes how he was flummoxed in his theory around Beta Decay by experimental work - but then, upon examination of the original experimental paper, he discovered that his theory was probably right and that an incorrect experimental analysis had been elevated to folk law. So it is with software. Hells bells - the implications are amazing: " The original claim was that "defects introduced in early phases cost more to fix the later they are detected". The misquoted chart says this instead: "defects detected in the operations phase (once software is in the field) cost more to fix the earlier they were introduced".