Focus on QualityKanban Recipe for Success: Step One

Jason Yipj.c.yip@computer.org

jcyip@thoughtworks.com@jchyip

http://jchyip.blogspot.com

KANBAN RECIPE FOR SUCCESS

The Recipe for Success

1. Focus on Quality2. Reduce WIP3. Deliver Often4. Balance Demand Against

Throughput5. Prioritise6. Attack Variability to Improve

Predictability

FOCUS ON QUALITY

“Focus on quality is easiest because it is a technical discipline that can be directed by a function manager.”

David Anderson

How would you make quality problems visible?

Imagine that your team / group had a long history of

delivering high quality, regularly.

What would you feel comfortable proposing that

you don’t now?

WHAT ARE TACTICS TO IMPROVE QUALITY?

Professional testers1. The value of any practice depends on its context.2. There are good practices in context, but there are no best

practices.3. People, working together, are the most important part of any

project’s context.4. Projects unfold over time in ways that are often not predictable.5. The product is a solution. If the problem isn’t solved, the

product doesn’t work.6. Good software testing is a challenging intellectual process.7. Only through judgment and skill, exercised cooperatively

throughout the entire project, are we able to do the right things at the right times to effectively test our products.

http://context-driven-testing.com

Developer unit testing• Automated regression unit tests• Test Driven Development:– You are not allowed to write any production code

unless it is to make a failing unit test pass.– You are not allowed to write any more of a unit

test than is sufficient to fail; and compilation failures are failures.

– You are not allowed to write any more production code than is sufficient to pass the one failing unit test.

http://butunclebob.com/ArticleS.UncleBob.TheThreeRulesOfTdd

Specification by Example

• http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SpecificationByExample.html

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specification_by_example

Code inspections• Pair programming,

http://www.jamesshore.com/Agile-Book/pair_programming.html

• Code reviews• Fagan inspections, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Fagan_inspection• Tool supported code review, http

://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_for_code_review

Collaborative analysis and design

• Inception, http://agilewarrior.wordpress.com/2010/11/06/the-agile-inception-deck/

• Collaborative design, http://jasonfurnell.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/facilitating-collaborative-design-workshops-a-step-by-step-guide-for-rapidly-creating-a-shared-vision-for-execution

Design patterns

“Each pattern is a three-part rule, which expresses a relation between a certain context, a problem, and a solution.”

Christopher Alexander

http://hillside.net/patterns/patterns-catalog

Static analysis tools

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tools_for_static_code_analysis

How might you…

• Learn more about the tactic?• Try the tactic?• Measure whether the tactic was

effective?

HOMEWORK

What is the smallest step you could take to move 1

level up (or more)?

What is your plan to start that step tomorrow?