I recently read on a newsgroup about different opinions who is at fault and therefore responsible. The issue was about bugs which are discovered at the end of the iteration or during a following one.
One position was the following. This is the nature of software development and bugs do come up and they should be handled like user stories and be processed in an upcoming iteration. The other was that the developers messed up and since it is their fault they have to fix the bugs in their spare time.
What does each statement mean? In the first it means that the customer will get less value in subsequent iterations as they include bug fixes. The developers get immunity and are not being held accountable for their failures. The customer suffers.
Where as the second one is on the side of the customer as it clearly pushes the fault onto the developers and they need to fix it in their spare time which means long nights and/or week-ends.
First it should be differentiated whether this is a green field project or an existing legacy system which by its very nature tends to be more brittle. Regardless, in my opinion both approaches are too polarized and one approach possible illegal in certain countries. The high goal should be a customer getting all the value they can expect in a fair way and programmers which can have a social life. Another solution to the problem is required.
In the last couple of month I've been reading quite a lot about Lean and how Toyota achieves to make $16B profit while the US car makers are asking for federal help. Lean has some great approaches and one of them is the 5 Whys or Root Cause Analysis. The idea is to ask Why 5 times and the fifth answer provides the root cause. By fixing the root cause you fix all discovered symptoms and the problem should disappear for good.
So, I applied the 5 Whys in retrospective to a project I've been working on a while ago and which had exactly those problems.
Q: Why do we have bugs at the end of the iteration?
A: QA does not accept some user stories as they don't fulfill the acceptance criteria.
Q: Why do the user stories don't fulfill the acceptance criteria?
A: QA and domain expert don't have enough time to specify them on time and therefore the developers don't have access to them during development.
Q: Why do QA and the domain expert have not enough time?
A: They work on other project as well and share their time between those.
Q: Why do the work in several projects at the same time?
A: Matrix Management
Q: Why Matrix Management
A: Upper Management believes that this improves efficiency.
With this process we were able to identify one root cause -- Matrix Management. By removing this cause we should see improvement. In this scenario the solution is rather a structural -- I dare to say political -- then technical. Upper Management needs to be convinced that having dedicated QA and domain experts per project is necessary. Don't assume that this will be easy. I strongly recommend to provide hard data and generate some statistics describing the current situation and how the change would improve the productivity.
I want to re-emphasize the connection between Matrix Management and the problem of not having dedicated resources per team. This was obvious after answer number three but the root cause is the management structure. With that knowledge, you most likely will be able to identify and address further issues.
Once you get this sorted out and you see improvement don't let inertia slow you down. Look out for the next problem and apply the 5 Whys once more.
Just a final thought at the end. Often, if too many people work on too many projects in parallel. This is a symptom for prioritization gone wrong. Fear of postponing the wrong projects causes that more projects are underway as should.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
Note that Toyota uses matrixed management so it's a bit more complicated.
Whose fault is it? (aka The Five Whos) is definitely not the best way to think about things though.
In Lean motion is one of the seven wastes. For software development it translates to task switching which is accepted, even wanted in matrix management.
Quick question: Does Toyota use matrix management in their software development?
I was not intending to use the 5 Whys as a finger pointing tool but to show that the root cause can be completely different and one should not blame without proper investigation, but rather drill down. For that the 5 Whys are perfect. The root cause could as well have been a badly configured tool.
Ralph, it's not matrix management that's the problem. It's the fact each manager is optimizing at his or her own level, and not optimizing at the level above (managing the project portfolio). When managers make decisions that make *their* lives easier, without considering the rest of the organization, that's not lean. And, it's not portfolio management.
Johanna, I agree about the problem with local optimization and not seeing the whole with looking at the value stream. Also, the matrix management example was unlucky; matrix management itself is not necessarily bad. However, it is often a indicator for bad prioritization and management. The root-cause should have been the portfolio management. Lesson learned ... ;)
It was not long cheap wow goldbefore some one knocked atwow gold cheap wow gold for salethe house-door and called, open the door, dear children, your mother is here, and has brought something back with her for each of you. But the little wow goldkids knew that it was the wolf, by the rough voice. We will wow power leveling not open the door, cried they, you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but your voice is rough, you are the wolf.
Then the wolf went World Of Warcraft Goldaway to a shopkeeper and bought himself a great cheapest wow goldlump of chalk, ate this and made gold4power.com his voice soft with it. The he came back, knocked at the door of the house, and world of warcraft gold salecalled, open the door, dear children, your mother is here and Cheapest Wow Goldhas brought something back with her for each of you.
Weekends to peopleig2tmean that they can have a two-day wowgold4europe good rest. For example, people gameusdcan go out to enjoy themselves or get meinwowgoldtogether with relatives and friends to talk with each storeingameother or watch interesting video tapes with the speebiewhole family.
Everyone spends agamegoldweekends in his ownmmoflyway. Within two days,some people can relax themselves by listening to music, reading novels,or watchingogeworld films. Others perhaps are more active by playing basketball,wimming ormmorpgvipdancing. Different people have different gamesavorrelaxations.
I often spend weekends withoggsalemy family or my friends. Sometimes my parents take me on a visit to their old friends. Sometimesgamersell I go to the library to study or borrow some books tommovirtexgain much knowledge. I also go to see various exhibition to broadenrpg tradermy vision. An excursion to seashore or mountain resorts is my favorite way of spending weekends. Weekends are always enjoyable for me.
igxe swagvaultoforu wowgold-usaignmax wowgoldlivebrogame thsaleGoldRockUbrogameswagvaultgoldsoonoforuigxethsale
Your blog is very good, it's the best blog I've ever seen, thank you!
By the way, do you like polo shirts, which are very chic, especially the polo t shirts, I love them very much. I also like playing tennis rackets, it can keep healthy, what do you like to do?
polo t shirts women
polo t shirts on sale
polo t shirts for women
polo shirts on sale
polo shirts men
men's polo shirt
men polo shirt
mens polo shirts
mens polo shirt
cheap polo shirts
discount polo shirts
men's polo shirts
women's polo shirts
cheap tennis racket
discount tennis racket
prince tennis racquet
head tennis rackets
wilson tennis racket
babolat tennis racquet
For a pair of sleek gloves that would look great with your suit, pick up the Ross Gloves Italian Sheepskin Gloves with Cashmere lining. These gloves are perfect for those who live in metropolitan areas
spyder skiwhere the temperatures drop in the winter because these gloves are lined with extra warm and soft cashmere for that added layer of spyderwarmth and insulation. The premium Italian lambskin will mold to your hands in a close fit and the slim lines of this glove are convenient enough to slip into your pockets when not neededspyder jacket.
For a great pair of gloves that will keep up with you on the slopes even spyder ski wearin the harshest of temperatures, pick up the Burton' Gore-Tex Under Gloves for $64.95. The Thermacore insulation on these ski jacketgloves will keep your fingers warm even when the freezing wind and slate beats down on you. spyderThe DryRide Ultrashell combined with the Gore-Tex Insert ensures that nothing will get your fingers wet. spyderThe hidden heater and vent pocket stashes extra warmth on the cold days and dumps spyder jacketsexcess heat in the spring. spyder ski wearIf you are worried about your goggles getting steamed up, these gloves help solve that problem with the soft chamois goggle wipe which will keep your vision clear.
The Tax Return Crack-Up<3>
Granted, there are usuallyMicrosoft Office 2010write-ups when presidential contenders make their tax returns available, but the coverage falls far short of the Office 2010
full court press (pardon the pun) that the Clintons have received. What's Microsoft Office 2007different now?Office 2007One possibility is that most upper middle class Democrats, and therefore most Microsoft OfficeOffice 2007 keyeditors and reporters of our nation's big papers as well as Office 2007 downloadtelevision producers, are Obama supporters who think that Hillary should hurry up Office 2007 Professionaland drop out of the race already.Microsoft outlook
Microsoft outlook 2010Whom elite liberals are pulling for really does shape political coverage in ways
It is better to give than to receive. It is easy to be wise after the event.
Hey , what you say is really informative and funny, i like it and hope for more update.buy runescape gold
I think you just did a right thing to make this choice, rs gold you know that's really funny and i am sure you will not regret.
runescape gold
That is really cool. Thanks for finding it. Some really good ideas there, this is going to be a real time sink. I am a china tour lover,You can learn more: China tourism | China travel service | China vacation packages
The PMP Certification establishes a common language among project managers and helps each other work within a common framework. Once you have the PMP, you need to consider how you're applying the processes, tools, and techniques to projects. I took a training course for my preparation in http://www.pmstudy.com and got ready for the exam on day 5!
ataşehir escort - escort bayanlar ataşehir - ataşehir escortları - kadikoy escort - kadıköy escort - kızıltoprak escort - ataşehir escort - ataşehir bayan escort - escort ataşehir - bayan ataşehir escort - halkalı escort - beylikdüzü escort - izmir escort - izmir urla escort - güzelbahçe izmir escort - bornova escort - izmir tire escort - izmir escort bayanlar - izmir kızları - escort bayan - travesti - kadıköy travesti - kadıkoy travesti - kadikoy travesti - travesti kadıköy - ataşehir travesti - halkalı travesti - beylikdüzü travesti - beylikdüzü travesti
The best place to study Chinese online is in China. However, we understand that it isn't always possible to move here to study Chinese language. The next best thing is to study with our experienced teachers in a virtual classroom. Online students enjoy the same excellent way of mandarin Chinese online lessons and custom designed courseware that we provide for our face to face clients.
I would argue for a compromise, maybe less frequent and essential bugs can be noted and passed down to the far future, while both developers and customers can maintain their schedules, if bugs are really serious and must be adressed, then I guess it could partially done during developers spare time and partially during next iteration, this way both sides would remain relatively satisfied, however if you want to be fully satisfied I would recommend to order some gold from this rs gold site it leaves every customer happy.
rent osrs staker anytime 24/7 a day
Post a Comment