Establishing Release Quality Levels and Release Acceptance Tests

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Establishing Release Quality Levels and Release Acceptance Tests

Insight ForumApril 21, 2009

http://www.conteneo.co/


• Founder/CEO of Conteneo Inc.• Agile Product Management consulting • Customer needs, roadmaps, business model• Product management mentoring and training

• Agile product guy• VP Bus Dev (Aladdin), VP Eng & Product Dev’t

(Aurigin), VP Systems Eng (EDS Fleet Services)• Board of Agile Alliance

• Author, speaker, blogger• “Innovation Games”• “Beyond Software Architecture”• “Journey of the Software Professional”• Agile PM blog at www.conteneo.co

About Luke Hohmann




Goals

1. Provide a framework for thinking about quality

2. Create better results by building the right quality

3. Practical advice tohelp you succeed What

did I forget?



Agenda

• Some discussion – what’s a release? quality?

• The iron triangle or the quality box?• Release quality levels • Release acceptance tests

NOTA TOOLS

TALK



Discussions (5 min)

• What’s a release?

• What’s quality?



What do we offer? And why?

• We offer things to our market ecosystem (customers, analysts, etc.) to achieve goals• A release is offered to generate revenue• Lo-fi prototypes are offered to improve designs• Betas are offered to gain pre-release feedback

(and maybe generate revenue…)

• To be offered a thing has to have a “quality” that is suitable to helping us realize the goal



What is Quality?

• “Quality is conformance to user requirements.” —Phillip Crosby, Quality is Free (1980s)

• “Quality is the absence of defects that would make software stop completely or produce unacceptable results.”

—Capers Jones, Applied Software Measurement (1991)

• “Quality is achieving excellent levels of fitness for use, conformance to requirements, reliability, and maintainability.”

—Watts Humphrey, Managing the Software Process (1980s)

• “Quality is value to some person.”—Jerry Weinberg, Quality Software Management

(1992)



Is that enough?

• What about the manner in which we create “the thing”? What about the code?

• What if the code is just plain ugly?

• And if you’re using an Agile method, what if your code doesn’t pass the green bar?



Quality is a Relationship

• High Performance is High Quality• to users who notice low performance.

• Elegant Coding is High Quality• to developers who place high value on the

opinions of their peers.

• Zero Defects is High Quality• to users who would be disturbed by those defects.

• Lots of Features is High Quality• to marketers who believe that features sell

products.



The Dichotomy of Quality

• Intrinsic or Extrinsic?• Does quality exist in the things we

observe or is it subjective, existing only in the eye of the observer?

“You take your analytic knife, put the point directly on the term Quality and just tap, not hard, gently, and the whole world splits, cleaves, right in two—hip and square, classic and romantic, technological and humanistic—and the split is clean.”

—Robert PirsigZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

(1974)



Craftsmanship

Value

Total Quality is therefore…

Total Quality

Extrinsic Quality =

Intrinsic Quality =



Agenda


• The iron triangle or the quality box?• Release quality levels • Release acceptance test



Should the triangle be a box?

Scope

Cost Schedule

The Traditional Iron Triangle

Value(Extrinsic quality)

Quality(Intrinsic quality)

The Quality Box

Cost Schedule



It is a system

Scope

Cost Schedule

The Traditional Iron TriangleValue

(Extrinsic quality)Quality

(Intrinsic quality)

The Quality Box

Cost Schedule



What can affect the system?

• Flip-chart exercise



Choosing to affect the system

Value(Extrinsic quality)

Quality(Intrinsic quality)

The Quality Box

Cost Schedule

Let’s hold these as fixed…

Extrinsic Quality• Which features present?• How well do the work?• How well have they been tested?• Do you have enough?• Is this release ready when I need it?

Intrinsic Quality• Craftsmanship of the code• Maintainability• Level of defects (works as specified)



Agenda





Release quality level

• A predetermined quality level chosen by product management that sets expectations regarding the intrinsic and extrinsic quality of a release.

• Enables organizations to make confident decisions about their context

• Negotiated with development


www.conteneo.co19

Example from VeriSign Managed Security Services

Release Level Description

Release Level 5 All functionality fully certified. Near-zero probability of high severity errors and a low probability that medium severity errors.

Release Level 4 All new and modified functionality fully certified, except where risk is deemed minimal (e.g. internal facing reports, low probability use cases).

Features not fully certified documented in the test plan and/or project charter. Strategic regression testing of existing functionality performed.

Low probability that high severity errors will be identified in production. Project carries a moderate probability that medium severity errors.

Release Level 3 All new and modified functionality at least partially certified. Features not fully certified documented in the test plan and/or project charter. Partial regression testing performed. Moderate probability for high severity errors. Higher probability for medium severity errors.

Release Level 2 Most new and/or modified functionality partially certified. Features not fully certified communicated to stakeholders. Partial regression testing performed. Higher probability that high and medium severity errors will be identified.

Release Level 1 New and/or modified features not certified by QA. Regression testing may or may not occur. Level 1 releases may be available only for demo or controlled access purposes. High risk for high severity errors.



Set each scale separately

Intrinsic Quality Extrinsic Quality

5 • Everything certified!• Lots of automation!

5 • Customers will rave about this!

4 • All new stuff tested by QA• Full regression testing

4 • Consistency very high• Simple and sophisticated tasks

3 • All new stuff tested by QA• Almost full regression testing

3 • Documented• Complete for basic tasks

2 • Most new stuff tested by QA• Partial regression tested

2 • Not documented• Complete for basic tasks

1 • Not tested by QA• Not regression tested

1 • Not documented • Possibly incomplete



Lower bound for intrinsic quality is very high

• Leading edge enterprises employ technologies that can approach 99% cumulative defect removal rates.

• The norm for US firms is a cumulative defect removal rate of 75%.

• A cumulative defect removal rate of 95% on a project appears to be a nodal point where several other benefits accrue. For projects of similar size and type, these projects:• have the shortest schedules.• have the lowest quantity of effort in terms of person-

months• have the highest levels of user satisfaction after release

—Capers Jones, Applied Software Measurement (1991)



Why is Intrinsic Quality so Important?

• The Impact of code quality on testing• Error Location Dynamics• Error Feedback Ratio• Technical Debt



Impact of Code Quality on Testing

Development: 10 days,

4 people, 4 KLOC, 1 d/KLOC

Development: 10 days,

4 people, 4 KLOC, 15 d/KLOC

How long to test? Assume ½ day to find & fix per defect.

Test time= 2 days

Test time= 30 days

Outcome: no time to finish testing, technical debt increases!



12108 6 4 2 0

0

8

16

24

32

40

48

56

64

Time

Errors Located

Difficult errorstake longer to find:

1 hr/d to 50 hr/d

Error Location Dynamics



The time to finish removing errorsis critically dependent on the error feedback ratio. The three simulations differ only in their feedback ratios.A 20% difference in feedback ratio leads to an 88% difference in completion time, but the next 10% increase leads to a 112% increase.

The time to finish removing errorsis critically dependent on the error feedback ratio. The three simulations differ only in their feedback ratios.A 20% difference in feedback ratio leads to an 88% difference in completion time, but the next 10% increase leads to a 112% increase.

ERROR FEEDBACK: Errors put into a system when attempting to correct other faults.

ERROR FEEDBACK RATIO: The number of problems created per fix.

EFR = ERRORS CREATED / ERRORS RESOLVED

Error Feedback Ratio



Technical Debt

• Once on far right of curve, all choices are hard

• If nothing is done, it just gets worse

• In applications with high technical debt, estimating is nearly impossible

• Only 3 strategies• Do nothing, it gets worse• Replace, high cost/risk• Incremental refactoring,

commitment to invest

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Years

Technical Debt

Co

st

of

Ch

ang

e (

Co

C)

ProductRelease

ActualCoC

Optimal CoC

Customer Responsiveness



Agenda





Lots of Testing Options!

Customer Tests

Business Intent

(Fit, Fitnesse)

UsabilityTesting

Exploratory Testing

Programmer Tests

Design Intent

(xUnit)

PropertyTesting

Response, SecurityScaling,…

From Brian Marick http://www.testing.com/cgi-bin/blog/2003/08/21#agile-testing-project-1

Run at least once each development episode

Run each time a story scenario is completed Assess each iteration

Assess each iteration



Release Acceptance Tests

• Tests owned and written by the product manager / product owner / customer to verify that a story is complete and correct.

• Should be (mostly) automated (more later)• Popularized by Agile methods, useful

everywhere!



Benefits of Acceptance Tests

• Increase team confidence that the system is correct

• Help PMs think through requirements• Informs developer estimates• Concrete definition of completion• Early involvement of QA• Automated regression testing for free



ATs test the users’ experience

• UTs should test application logic in detailgenerally in isolation

• ATs should test: but not...• Interaction & Flow Usability• Performance Look &

Feel• Error Handling• Security



ATDD Cycle



Acceptance Tests are “Quirky”

• Written by PMs/Customers... But executed in code?• ATs require a customer meta-language generic enough

to capture requirements, abstract enough to be maintainable

• Simple enough to be easily understood• They are interpreted by various frameworks• Requires external systems and “spike” development

• Automation tools dictate form/format of tests• http://www.fitnesse.org/• http://seleniumhq.org/• http://robotframework.org

http://www.fitnesse.org/

http://www.fitnesse.org/



Fitnesse Structure



Fitnesse test example

Each row is one test

Fitnesse supports many different testing table styles that can be organized into test suites.



Writing good acceptance tests

• Tell a story of accomplishing a goal• Goal test title• Activities rows in your test suite

• Expect them to be stable, even if the underlying system is going through a lot of change

• Don’t reference domain objects



Consider “Given-When-Then”

• Given some contextWhen something happensThen some behavior

• Given an innovation games planner with a scheduled party

When they cancel the partyThen send a cancellation email to the players

and the facilitator, a cancellation confirmation

to the planner, and ensure that the game play

URL points to the “cancelled party” page



Overcoming common challenges

• You don’t have to automate everything • Get started, but don’t expect quick turns• Help your product managers by writing a

few• Make AT writing a natural part of the

conversation



Our Core Team

• Luke Hohmann, CEO & Founder• CEO & Founder, Enthiosys• VP Engineering, Aurigin Systems• 1982 US National Junior Pairs

Figure Skating Champion

• Laura Richardson, VP Sales• Managing Partner, Uptime• Dir. Business Dev., E-Color• Little League Ump & Tough

Mudder Competitor

• Dan O’Leary, CTO• VP Engineering, Callidus Software• Staff Engineer, Sun Microsystems• Fender Stratocaster Devotee

• Tami Carter, VP Marketing• GM Tech Web/SD Events• Managing Editor, UBM• Poet, Lifeguard & Coal Miner’s

Daughter

• Sue Cook, VP Prof. Services• Owner, Spearfish Innovation• VP Global Operations, HP• Co-Founder Mont Blanc Ladies

Literary Guild and Trekking Society

Advisors & Investors:• Verne Harnish, Founder & CEO, Gazelles• Paul Gemeraad, President of Intellectual Assets, Inc.• Chris Matts, Financial Systems Consultant• Harry Max, Vice President of Experience Design for Rackspace



The Book That Started It All

Collaborative PlayIs the Better Way



Luke HohmannFounder & CEO, Conteneo, Inc.

480 San Antonio Road, Suite 202Mountain View, CA 94040mobile: (408) [email protected]


Technology

Establishing Release Quality Levels and Release Acceptance Tests