Quality Agile Metrics

I was asked recently what metrics I would collect to assess how well an agile team is improving. I paused for a moment to scan through 12 years of research, discussion, memories and experiences with Metrics on various teams, projects and companies - mostly failed experiments. My answer to the question was to state that I presently only acknowledge one Metric as being meaningful: Customer Satisfaction.

We discussed the topic further and I elaborated some more on my experiences. Regarding specific "quality" metrics, I explained that things like counting Test Cases and bug fix rates are meaningless. I also referred to the book "Implementing Lean Software Development" by Mary and Tom Poppendieck (which I highly recommend BTW) which warns against "local optimizations" because they will eventually sabotage optimization of the whole system. In other words, if I put a metric in place to try and optimize the Testing function, it doesn't mean the whole [agile] development team's efficiency will improve.

It needs to be a whole team approach to quality and value. Specific measurements and metrics often lead to gaming of the system and focus on improving the metrics rather than putting the focus on delivering quality and value.  If the [whole] team is measured on the customer satisfaction, then that is what they will focus on. I have long since stopped measuring individual performance on a team.

I haven't stopped thinking about this question though, so I put this question out on Twitter this morning:

Aside from Customer Satisfaction, are there any other Quality metrics you'd recommend in an #agile environment?

Testers, Learn about Agile (and Lean)

Let me tell you about something called Dramatic Irony. You see it in movies, television shows, plays and in many other places. It happens when you (as the audience or observer) see or understand something that the main characters don't. Often times this is funny, sometimes it's not. Personally, I am one of those that likes to laugh when I see this happen.

On my learning/education quest over a decade ago, I took many different positions and roles within various IT organisations so that I could learn different aspects of Quality. I went through various phases, and the one I am least proud of was the "Quality champion." This wasn't a job title so much as a belief that (mis-)guided my actions. The role/part/perspective came mainly from believing what my employer(s) told me at the time - namely that "the QA/Test team was responsible for quality."

If you have worked in Software Development for a while, and perhaps for a larger organisation, you have likely seen someone who believes they are a Quality Champion. They don't want to see any (known) bugs go out; they check up on everyone in the team to see that they have done their reviews or had someone else inspect their work before passing it onto the next person/team; they join committees to create, document, maintain or present processes that will increase the quality of the delivered products/solutions; and so on.

Ah, the poor misguided fools.  Bless their hearts.

The Future(s) of Software Testing

This topic keeps coming up in various discussions so here are some thoughts on what I think a future may hold for us one day.  What does it mean to predict the future? Does it mean it is inevitable? If it is something appealing, maybe it is something we can work towards.

What does it mean to talk about the Future of Software Testing without talking about "Quality" (whatever that is)? I believe that Testing is a means to helping you attain the desired quality but that on its own it is not an indicator of what the delivered quality will be. I think it is fair to speculate on the practice of Testing in isolation of the idea of Quality. Just like it is fair to speculate on the kind of vehicles you use for travel without saying it is a clear indicator of the quality of the journey.

When it comes to predicting the future, how far ahead do we look? It used to bother me that H.G. Wells chose to go 800,000 years in the future in his famous work, The Time Machine. Some authors go 100 years or even just 5 or 10 to tell their tale. I will not be writing about what will happen in 5 years time and I really hope it doesn't take 100 years. I don't know how long some of these events will take to manifest. I do have some idea of 'markers' that we may see along the way though.

When it comes to Software Testing, two thoughts jump immediately to mind: 1) Software Testing is an inseparable part of the creative Software/Solution Development process; and 2) there will be many different possible futures depending on how you do testing today.  Put another way, there is no one right way to solve a problem, and creating software is a complex problem-solving activity performed in shifting organisations of human interaction so there are many ways to do it. In my opinion, the technical 'fiddly bits' like code, tests and user documentation pale in comparison to the difficulty of those two primary challenges: (1) solving the real problem, and (2) working with others to get the job done.

When we ask what is the future of software testing, we are really asking what is the future of software development. So what will Testing look like in the future? Well, what does Testing look like today? What does Development look like today?

Hobbies and Interests

Several years ago I wrote an article summarising some of the key points I keep in mind while interviewing candidates for a test team. The article is called "Hiring Software Testers in an Information Age" and is available as a PDF on my main site. The article was originally targetted to recruiters who kept asking me for advice on hiring software testers and they would always be surprised at the level of detail that I went through in describing what it takes to hire a good person for a testing position.

Conversations with recruiters over coffee would always start the same. I would say something like: if you are just trying to find a warm body to fill a position, then you don't need to hear what I have to say.  If you want to hire someone who thinks and has a good chance of fitting in with the culture of the team and organisation to provide value, then it is a complex problem that requires insights into what the position actually involves.

There are about a dozen different checkpoints that I go through when considering and interviewing candidates, and the paper I wrote touched on some of the major points but not all of them.  Actually, I even removed some of them from the article as early drafts had too much information.  My intention was to get some of the important points across without writing a book.

Recently, a colleague and friend, Michael Mahlberg tweeted the following:

RT @NolanBushnell: At Atari we hired based on hobbies and not grades in school. We ended up with the best engineering group in the world.

I liked that comment and followed up with a supporting tweet:

On Hiring: if a résumé or cover letter doesn't describe Hobbies or other Interests, I usually skip it.

This sparked some conversation on twitter and I want to elaborate on my comment here.

Quality Center Must Die

It is not a matter of "if" -- it is a matter of "when" HP's Quality Center software will die.  And you, my dear readers will help make that happen.

"How?" you may ask? Simple. There are two things you should do: (1) think, and (2) don't put up with crap that gets in the way of delivering value to the customer and interacting intelligently with other human beings.

But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind the story a bit...

Several months ago I was hired by my client to help train one of the test teams on agile and exploratory testing methods. The department has followed a mostly Waterfall development model until now and wants to move in the Agile direction. (A smart choice for them, if you ask me.) Why am I still there after all this time? That's a good question.

After attending the Problem Solving Leadership course last year, and after attending a few AYE conferences, I changed my instructional style to be more the kind of consultant that empowers the client with whatever they need to help themselves learn and grow.  It's a bit of a slower pace, but the results are more positive and long-lasting.

I am a part of a "pilot" agile/scrum team and am working closely with one of the testers (I will call him "Patient Zero") to coach him on good testing practices to complement the agile development processes. I have done this several times now at different clients, so this is nothing new to me. One of the unexpected surprises that cropped up this time was that this development team is not an end-to-end delivery team, so when they are "done" their work, the code moves into a Waterfall Release process and it all kind of falls apart. There are still some kinks to be solved here and I am happy to see some really bright, caring people trying to solve these problems. So that's okay.