inspiring teams to adopt best practices - tale of two projects

Inspiring Teams to Adopt Best PracticesLaura Stanley Franco

© 2014 Laura Franco

Experienced Software Development Leader

Process and Quality Change Agent Master of the

Difficult Situation

It was the best of times,It was the worst of timesContrasting doubles


A Tale of Two Projects

Single External Customer• 3 releases in 3 years

• New and legacy code

• 5 collocated development teams

• No functional QA

• Small system test team

• Customer paid us $X/defect to reach quality criteria

Many External Customers• 2 major releases per year

• New and legacy code

• 15+ distributed development teams

• Offshore functional QA team

• Small, local system test team

• Customers demand low number of critical defects


Project 1 – Single External Customer

• Defect quality criteria agreed

• One week in-house user acceptance prior to system testing at customer site

• Software shipped in parallel with user acceptance week

• Defects found during user acceptance counted against quality criteria


The Challenge

• One team set a goal – zero defects during system testing at client site

• Some developers planned their unit testing

• Some did not plan/write down their test cases

• Mix of new and legacy code

The Negotiation

Written test cases for NEW and LEGACY code

Written test cases for NEW code ONLY

The Agreement

Written test cases for NEW and MODIFIED legacy code



The OutcomeNew

Modified Legacy

Unchanged Legacy

Unit test case found critical defect in unchanged legacy code!

Chester, the Process Advocate and Change Agent is born!

Developers inspired to plan their unit testing and deliver higher quality code!


Project 2 – Multiple External Customers

• Standard quality defect criteria in place

• System test shortened from 14 weeks to 8 weeks

• Developers ramp down during system test and ramp up on next release

• Developers responsible for fixing incoming customer defects


The Challenge

• Dramatically reduce rework during system test

• Team under pressure to improve quality and add more features

• Large number of critical/major defects during system test

• High rate of incoming customer found defects

The Negotiation

Distributed teams participate in 1 week Mastering Quality workshop

Realistic short-term plan to do now

Long-term plan for roadmap prioritization

The Agreement

Local team participate for 3 days

Regional quality black belt candidates trained 2 days; observe 3 days


Surprise!

Senior team members + architect only ones who “needed” to attend

Team “too busy” so local quality black belt did the team’s pre-work

Workshop cut from 3 days to 2 days

Participants arrived cold and angry!


Reset!

• What to do?

• Listen to team’s pain points

• Revisit the goal

• Focus on circle of control:

• Team owns the problem

• Team has Quality data

• Team has knowledge of module’s weaknesses

• Team owns the solution


The Outcome

• Team generated:

• 33 product improvement and

• 71 process improvement ideas

• Built a tailored team development process

• Distributed 3 code review checklists, requirements and design review checklists

• Created short-term action plan for improving quality


Discussion

• Is there a Secret Sauce?

Let’s stay in touch:Email [email protected]

Twitter @CoachLauraFwww.linkedin.com/in/laurastanleyfranco/


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.linkedin.com/in/laurastanleyfranco/

inspiring teams to adopt best practices - tale of two projects

Technology