The other day when I was up in the mountains in my cabin, I suddenly started thinking about development processes and rapid feedback loops. I sat down to write about it, and here is the result:
There is a saying “culture eats strategy for breakfast”. It’s true. I have seen it in action.
Introducing a new process often requires changing the culture in the company. This is hard or impossible. Radical change creates too much friction. Working with the existing process and modifying it slowly is the most feasible route. Identify your goals and see how you can slowly modify your existing process to achieve the goals.
Let assume that building software faster and with better quality is a good idea in your context. It usually is. Let’s say this is our goal, assuming that it in the end will lead to more profitability.
I firmly believe that to create maintainable software there is one term that is more powerful than all others. That term is rapid feedback loops (RFL). Rapid feedback loops is the common denominator of all agile processes. The only process I know of where RFL is not a central concept, is the waterfall model. It is not the details of the agile processes that make them succeed. It is the fact that they all embrace rapid feedback.
Test driven development tells us every minute if our code works. Continuous integration tells if our code is working in the bigger picture. Integration tests checks whether we are fulfilling the product requirements. Periodical demonstrations and conversations with our customers tell us if we are building the right product. It’s all about getting feedback. If you are writing bad code, or creating the wrong features, feedback nudges you back on the right track. Design reviews can prevent architectural erosion. You need feedback as soon as possible so that you don’t waste time working on the wrong thing. Working on the wrong thing is expensive.
Feedback is a good thing if the feedback you are getting is correct. If it’s not you have a problem. We can usually trust well written unit tests. Integration tests are harder, because they are only correct if they are actually testing a feature we need in the end product. We need to constantly check with our customer that we are on the right track. The customer might be wrong, so we re-check on a continuous basis.
If you want to improve your current process you should start looking at your feedback loops. Slowly introduce feedback on all levels. You don’t need to pick Scrum, XP, RUP, Lean, Kanban, Crystal Clear or ScrumBut. However, you should know roughly what they are about. This way you can pick from a toolbox of practices and make them fit into your existing culture.
I don’t believe in picking an out of the box process if it will crash with your current company culture. However I really do believe in feedback loops and you should introduce them slowly into your current process. There is obliviously more to creating a smooth software machine, but feedback is a key concept.
Peace.
