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A manager has to know when to ignore a precise number. “He has to know that ‘larger’ and ‘smaller,’ ‘earlier’ and ‘later,’ ‘up’ and ‘down’ are quantitative terms and often more accurate, indeed more rigorous, than any specific figures or range of figures.”
via Fat Chance | The Drucker Exchange | Daily Blog by The Drucker Institute.
PierG
IT people is often scared when I say that I don’t like the traditional testing phase in IT projects.
I understand, it’s so relaxing to know that you have a bunch of people to blame when projects go the wrong way: “we did 3 month of testing, we really couldn’t do more to save this project!”.
And if it’s not the testing team, you can always blame the requirements team for gathering them badly. But this is another story, another post 
. Let’s get back to testing.
What I generally don’t like about testing is that you do some operations based on … what the system is designed to do. Someone writes a requirement, someone (else) writes one or more test cases to prove it, someone (else) writes some code and finally someone (else) reads the test case and uses the system giving his interpretation of the behavior … giving a GO/NO GO.
Should I explain why I feel uncomfortable? I hope not but let me add an unobvious thing: where is reality in this long chain? Who’s in charge of saying if the system is doing what is needed and not what someone (else) thinks it should be doing?
Scary, isn’t it?
PierG
We will talk about a new development technique called WDD or Worries Driven Development.
You might know another couple of *DD techniques: TDD and DDD but they are by far less powerful than WDD.
TDD or Test Driven Development has been invented by Ken Beck (@kentbeck). As Wikipedia states “is a software development process that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first the developer writes an (initially failing) automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces the minimum amount of code to pass that test and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards”.
DDD or Domain Drive Design is a little more recent, especially it’s hype, and as Wikipedia says “is an approach to develop software for complex needs by connecting the implementation to an evolving model.The premise of domain-driven design is the following: Placing the project’s primary focus on the core domain and domain logic; Basing complex designs on a model of the domain; Initiating a creative collaboration between technical and domain experts to iteratively refine a conceptual model that addresses particular domain problems.” In Italy Alberto Barndolini (@ziobrando) is really good at it!
WDD is more powerful because it works at a deeper level. It acts at the level of motivations. We tend to do what we do for one of two reasons: to seek pleasure or to avoid pain.
Now our culture tend to push us to the ‘avoid pain’ side so we tend to use it more often as a motivation to do what we do. So what’s more relieving than solving a problem to ‘avoid pain’?
That’s where WDD come from: we do what worries us. Or better we do, schedule, put in priority what can have consequences that can worry us.
So the algorithm is: if you don’t have it, create a problem, throw it in the future, communicate it so that everybody can be worried. Now you are ready to make a lot of overtime to solve it to ‘avoid pain’.
The secret? WDD is not that new: it is quite often used as a primary development paradigm in many offices of medium-big corporations. And it works …. maybe.
PierG
Back in 2001, traditional management had the idea that if everything was documented, things would work out fine.
via Innovation: Applying “Inspect & Adapt” To The Agile Manifesto – Forbes.
Three reasons to read this article:
- because in 2012 90% of management DO have the idea that full documentation means “it will work fine“
- because it’s an interesting article about agility and beyond (adding some lean startup concepts too)
- because most of the stuff that you read comes from Kent Beck and you should read everything from Kent. PERIOD.
Tell us what you think
PierG
Courtesy of gluemoon, Some Rights Reserved
I remember when I did the keynote at XP2007 and someone told me: “amazing how fast you go in your company, I’m happy my users are not asking me to go that fast” I remember I said “they don’t ask because they don’t know you can go that fast“.
I always think of that moment when I see teams with slow process, full of unnecessary steps that are usually in place for at least 3 reasons:
- historical reasons (= no one knows why AND no one asks why they are doing that way)
- “because dept. XYZ/important person ABC once told us to do that way“ (= no one knows why AND no one asks why they are doing that way)
- for the illusion of control
When this happens, I suggest people to try something that I’ve learnt during my hypnosis training: time is not absolute. Time is not absolute in the sense that even if it were absolute, we just perceive it (as we do with reality in general). As we perceive it, we transform it through our senses. And as we transform it, it happens time can go faster or slower depending on … us.
As an example when you are on the dentist’s chair time is soooooooo slow while when you are on holidays … it’s unfortunately too fast .
Now what if we apply this concept to your company, team, business, task, process? Take your ‘lead time’: the time that is needed to go from the beginning to the end of the activity you want to speed up. Describe it putting everything inside: make a nice flowchart, Gantt chart, process map of what make you comfortable. Make it visual.
Now make the magic and say: what if I knew this stuff here can be done 10 times faster? Rule #1 stop saying “it is not possible” and start looking at all the components of your process as if you knew someone can go 10 times faster.
Our brain can be easily tricked: do you remember when your wife (or yourself) were pregnant? Do you remember how many pregnant girls you started noticing? Same stuff when you decide to buy a new car: it seems everyone in the world has that car all of a sudden.
This is called focus: your brain is so focused on this new important stuff that all of your energies go there and you start noticing stuff that you were not noticing before, your brain start automatically acting in a different way trying to satisfy your new needs.
Use the same trick here: convince yourself you can do it 10 times faster, 10xFaster:
What can you make differently?
Can you cut a step in your process?
Can you simplify?
Can you use different people with different skills to it more quickly?
Are different roles beneficial?
Does it help if you change the way in which people communicate?
Do you have to change software?
Are you really sure you have to do that extra manual step?
Don’t let the context (rules, politics, …) limit your new behavior: you can di it 10 time faster!
Do it. For 30′. In team. Deeply. And then leave … because you know, in the moment you start this process, your brain starts to be focused in that direction and this is the best tool I know to start changing.
PierG
For the fan of checklists here is a picture from the Red Bull Stratos mission: anything interesting in the background of this picture?
The Italian Agile Day 2012 will take place in Milan on November, 24th at the University of Milan.
The program is ready: full of interesting lighting talks (10′), std talks (45′) and workshops (90′).
Do you want to meet me? See you there … and don’t forget to tweet with the official hash-tag #IAD12
PierG
Do you agree?
+ operational advantages such as setting up infrastructure in minutes rather than months, completing massive computational projects with a large number of resources quickly, and scaling architecture up and down to provide the needed IT resources only when you need them, deliver targeted IT solutions fast for individual business units – these deliver a “return on agility.” The return on agility delivers business value by allowing you adapt rapidly, while remaining focused on your core competencies rather than distracted by operating IT infrastructure.
But more importantly it allows the business to change and dramatically reduce time-to-market for products. It drives down the cost of experimentation and allows companies to explore many more product directions with minimal risk. In the current economic climate where capital is scarce, being able to develop new products rapidly without the need for major capital investments is crucial to the success of businesses.
from Total Cost of Ownership and the Return on Agility – All Things Distributed.
PierG
Lately I’ve blogged about internal IT projects that do fail and one of the main reasons: lack of Product Owner (Why big projects fail in corporate IT).
Today let me emphasize another major reason: often the team who’s in charge of a project … will leave (I’d say run away as fast as light) as soon as the project is complete. And usually ‘complete’ means ‘when we are exhausted of fighting with the supplier for bugs, change requests and new features’. And all this means that the project is not complete at all. And in any case we know it will evolve.
What is stimulating the project team, in such a context, to work effectively? Work for simplicity? Work to establish a system that will grow up or change in the future weeks / months / years? Are they measured in any way on these goals? Or are they measured on ‘close this fuxxing project quickly that we have already spent all the money they gave us’?
PierG
Once Kent Beck wrote:
doing good engineering is not primarily making good decisions, it's seeking good feedback which lets you quickly discard bad decisions—
Kent Beck (@KentBeck) January 13, 2012
So if there is value in making good decisions, there is even more value in taking daily those decisions that improve our learning experience.
PierG
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