BSM 14-4 Jul-Aug Final URLs

7/28/2019 BSM 14-4 Jul-Aug Final URLs

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BIRTH OF THE COOLComposing a small team

LIVING ON THE EDGE

Exploring withperipheral testing

July/August 2012 $9.95 www.TechWell.com
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14

18 REGULATION, COMPLIANCE, AND DELIVERYRegulatory compliance may seem daunting, and penalties or non-compli-

ance can be severe. What is the QA proessionals role in making it work?

by Paul Fratellone

MAKING BEAUTIFUL MUSICTHE ART OF SMALL TEAMSIn a jazz combo, each member o the team has a specialty. As the members

play individually, they create a tapestry o music that becomes much greater

than the sum o the individual contributions. A small development team also

works best this way.

by Steve Ropa

22

22

CONTENTS

Volume 14, Issue 4 July/August 2012

featuresCOVER STORY

BUILDING HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE TEAMSUSING A COMMITMENT-TO-PROGRESSRATIO,Part 1Part one o this two-part article proposes a measure that helps calculate the

throughput o an agile team by comparing work committed to work actually

done. Part 2 ocuses on actors and skills critical to achieving a high ratio be-

tween committed and delivered items.

by Aleksander Brancewicz

14

columns10 MANAGEMENT CHRONICLES

HOW TECHNICAL SUPPORT IS LIKE A PAIN IN THE NECK by Payson Hall

A strategic planning session and a recent injury combine to provide insights

into challenges associated with changing negative perception o technicalsupport services.

36 THE LAST WORDPERIPHERAL TESTING: A TYPE OF SYSTEMATIC EXPLORATORY

TESTING by Faisal Qureshi

Faisal Qureshi discusses a new test technique called peripheral testingthat

implements a systematic method that allows exploratory testing while main-

taining a balance to traditional test case-driven testing. He explains how to

test without the drawbacks o exploratory testing and widens test coverage

compared to ollowing test cases rom a test plan.

Better SoftwaremagazineThe printcompanion to TechWell.com brings you thehands-on, knowledge-building inormation

you need to run smarter projects and deliverbetter products that win in the marketplace

and positively aect the bottom line.Subscribe today to get six issues.

Visit www.BetterSotware.com

or call 800.450.7854.

18

Mark Your Calendar

Contributors

Editor's Note

Virtual Resource Shel

From One Expertto Another

Coming Soon:The New TechWell.com

ProductAnnouncements

FAQ

Ad Index

in every issue4

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9

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25

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37

www.TechWell.com JULY/AUGUST 2012 BETTER SOFTWARE 3


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AleksAnder BrAncewiczhelps agile teams achieve outstanding results. In his career, he has coached teams comprising agile new-

bies as well as very experienced agile team members. Besides agile team building, his areas o interest are new media product

management and sotware architecture. He lives with his wie and daughter in Amstelveen in the Netherlands.

PAul FrAtellone is program director o quality and test consulting in the testing business unit o MindTree. Pauls career o more

than twenty-fve years in inormation technology has been concentrated in testing, compliance, and quality management. He

strives to achieve consistent execution to attain a predictable level o quality that is commensurate with the investment, and heenables leadership to objectively measure the success and continuous benefts rom these investments.

steve roPA has been developing sotware or twenty yearseleven o which were in the agile worldand he's been a jazz

trombonist or thirty years. Currently, Steve is an agile coach and consultant at VersionOne Sotware (http://www.versionone.

com), where he specializes in helping teams merge the technical and team-oriented aspects o agile transormations. Steves

blog can be ound athttp://steveropa.wordpress.com/.

FAisAl Qureshi currently works as a senior test engineer at Motorola Solutions Inc. He has published testing articles in Profes-

sional Testerand in Testing Experience. Faisal is ISTQB certifed and has completed digital Six Sigma courses. Prior to working at

Motorola Solutions, Faisal worked as an associate proessor teaching game and simulation programming. His contact is:[email protected].

Contributors

rick crAig has a wide range o experiences as a tester and test manager. Currently a consultant with SQE Training, he specializes

in metrics, management, and process improvement. Rick has spoken at conerences around the world every year since 1984,

including the Better Sotware conerences and every STAR conerence. He is the co-author o Systematic Software Testing, a

regular columnist or Better Softwaremagazine and StickyMinds.comand a Colonel in the USMC Reserve.

erik Petersen is a consultant based in Melbourne, Australia. He's helped build sotware systems across applications, telecommu-

nications, and inrastructure or more than twenty years. Erik has become an encyclopedia o sotware and test process, strategy,

automation, and tools. Contact him [email protected].

PAyson hAll is a consulting project manager or Catalysis Group, Inc. in Sacramento, Caliornia. Payson consults on project

management issues and teaches project management. Email Payson [email protected]. Follow him at

twitter.com/paysonhall .
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11/40

BetterSoftwareand So MuchMore

Sotware Quality Engineering publishes a ton o great content every month

both in Better Softwaremagazine and online at StickyMinds.com, Agile

Journal, and CM Crossroads. So, or this issue, I decided to showcase some

o the authors who write or our websites. Go online to read more rom these

authors or sign up or one o our website-afliated newsletters to have great

articles delivered to your inbox weekly or monthly.

Whats New Gram is a weekly recap o new testing-ocused content that appears on StickyMinds.com, the

monthly Agile Journal showcases the newest agile-related articles rom AgileJournal.com, and CM Journal

spotlights a months worth o new confguration management articles rom CMCrossroads.com.

Our cover story this issue, Building Productive Teams Using a Commitment-to-Progress Ratio, originally

appeared on Agile Journal. Its the frst part o a two-part series that introduces methods to build a team that

embraces required work and delivers robust sotware by tracking how much o the committed work is actually

being done.

From StickyMinds.com, we have Regulation, Compliance, and Delivery, which explains the QA proessionals

role in ensuring compliance in regulated projects.

Finally, rom CM Crossroads, we have Making Beautiul MusicThe Art o Small Teams, which compares

the dynamics o a small team to the workings o a jazz combo.

Also in this issue, youll fnd a peek at our soon-to-be-launched curated site. We are looking or sotware

proessionals who are passionate about their crat and who love to write. I that sounds like you, then check

out page 25 to fnd out how you can get involved.

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue o Better Softwaremagazine. Well have a lot o exciting new updates

in the coming months, so stay tuned!

Happy reading,

[email protected]

Editors Note



12/40

I dont know exactly what caused the problem. I may have

crashed into a wall harder than usual while playing racquet-

ball. I vaguely remember the hatchback o my car lightly hit-

ting the back o the head while I was unloading something.

I may have slept on it wrong. All I know is that about a

month ago, I woke up with a sti neck.

I didnt think much o it. It was a little uncomortable, and

the range o motion was slightly restricted. I had to turn my

head slowly to avoid discomort. But, it

was a busy time, and I charged on with

my day.

As the day wore on, I became more

uncomortable. I couldnt turn or el-

evate my head at all. I learned that

taking aspirin or drinking out o a cup

without being able to tip my head back

was painul (and a little unny). By the

evening, I was not a happy camper. It

became very dicult to lie down. I wasreally appreciating the ty-three prior

years I had enjoyed without ever in-

juring my neck.

Twenty-our hours and a st ull o

ibuproen later, I was ne.

A ew days later, ully recovered

rom my neck lock incident, I acilitated a planning session

with senior IT sta o a local organization. We reviewed the

thirty-year history o the outt. Many o the people in the

room had been there teen years or more and had a long-

term perspective on some o the challenges.

In this organization, IT mostly consisted o application,desktop, and network support (application development was

outsourced), and the past ew years had seen a procession

o rustrated IT leaders with diering visions. The scope o

the support work perormed by IT had expanded with the

growth o the organization and the addition o new appli-

cations, but IT headcount had been rozen and budgets had

been shrinking or the past eight years or so. IT wasnt highly

valued, and their budget had languished as a consequence.

The group seemed honest in their assessment: The support

organization had earned its spotty reputation or service. As

we discussed the kernel o the problem, it became apparent

that there was danger o a deadly embrace. Business users

were rustrated and skeptical o ITs ability to deliver and

hesitant to allocate more resources. Meanwhile, shrinking

budgets and expanding scope were stressing the IT support

organizations ability to recruit and retain sta, and service

was continuing to decay. The bottom line was that resource

relie was not expected in the near term.

The new CIO had been working to improve governance

with the business executives and had succeeded in getting

a list o the current IT projects pri-

oritized. The business execs, though

skeptical at rst, quickly embraced the

notion o prioritizing ITs work when

they realized that this might infuence

the level o service they received.

From a planning perspective, the

challenges boiled down to the ol-

lowing questions:

1. How can we successully address

the top ten projects as prioritized bythe business executives?

2. How can we improve the level o

service we provide to our clients?

3. How can we improve our clients

perception o the quality o the ser-

vice we provide?

Several people in the room were initially surprised when

I emphasized the distinction between items two and three.

Engineers and technical people oten leap to the conclusion

that the best way to improve the perception o service is to

improve service. In reality, this is a necessary but insucientapproach. Marketing people oten assume that i you address

perception, actually improving service levels isnt important

but lets not dwell on those evil impulses.

People who receive occasionally poor service are used

to complaining (justiably) about it. Poor service and jokes

about poor service become an expected part o the culture.

Good servicethe occasions when help is timely and e-

cientmay oten go unnoticed, but bad service gets noticed

and reinorces expectations. This gives expectations a great

deal o inertia, because they have been reinorced over a long

period o time.

When I began to explain my recent neck lock as an ex-

How Technical Support Is Like aPain in the NeckA painul real-lie experience led Payson to challenge an organization's

perception o "bad" versus "good" technical support.

by Payson Hall |[email protected]

Management Chronicles


Good servicethe

occasions when help is

timely and efcient

may oten go unnoticed,

but bad service gets

noticed and reinorces

expectations.
mailto:[email protected]://www.techwell.com/http://www.techwell.com/mailto:[email protected]


13/40


ample o changing my perception and helping me appreciate

a well-oiled neck, one o the meeting participants asked, Do

you mean we should go on a campaign o providing really

bad service, so that people appreciate what they had beore?

I explained that the relevant part o my neck story was

how much I appreciated the lack o pain when it returned to

normal. When did you last wake up in the morning and eel

thrilled that your neck elt normal?

But normal here hasnt historically been very good ser-

vice, another participant oered.

That is exactly why we need to encourage people to look

or an improvement. I said. We need to get people to look

or a change in service levels. I pointed out that I was care-

ully monitoring the mobility o my head or the rst ew

days ater my injury had healed and really appreciated what

I had taken or granted beore, primarily because now I was

aware o it.

We discussed the challenge o changing perceptions. Many

o the people on the business side o the organization had

been there twenty years or more, and it would be dicult

to change their perceptions. Historically, business users had

oten been orced to end or themselves when aced with

technical issues. They were jaded, and their perceptions

would be slow to change. When new people joined the busi-

ness organization, it wasnt long beore they learned rom

their peers that they should expect the IT organization to pro-

vide poor support.

That suggested one target audience or changing percep-

tions: people newly hired into the business organization. How

could we inexpensively provide them with a good customer

support experience right ater they joined the organization?One o the initiatives that we identied was a program o

assuring that new users received a welcome soon ater they

started with the organization that included providing them

with a new workstation that was ready to go and a quick

brieng about the sotware used by the organization and

online resources with more inormation about the sotware

(users guides and FAQs). Providing new workstations nor-

mally happened within a week o the new employee starting

anyway, so it wasnt net new work; it was a matter o priori-

tizing the activity so that new people had an initial positive

experience with IT. The FAQs existed, but standard procedure

was to direct users there when they called or tech support(which didnt win hearts and minds). It was urther suggested

that or the rst week, new employees would be assigned a

member o the technical team they could go to directly with

questions. It was even agreed that, ater a week, the ormal

hand o rom their IT buddies could happen over coee,

assuring that the new person had all his questions answered

and knew what normal channels or support were going

orward. Net cost o this initiative was pretty much zero.

Another prong o the approach was to publicize the

changes that the IT organization was making to improve ser-

vice. This might encourage some o the jaded, long-time busi-

ness users to pay attention and look or service improvements.

Management Chronicles

A third step toward managing user expectations was

making sure that the business executives were clear about the

priority that they assigned their projects and assuring they

understood and would communicate to their organization the

service implications o not assigning a high priority to an ini-

tiative.

The organization has its work cut out or it, but these ini-

tiatives (among others) may help users recognize and appre-

ciate improving service. Over time, this may help IT improve

its reputation with its user base, hopeully leading to renewed

appreciation o the service organizations value that can be

refected in uture budgets.

The next time someone says that tech support is a pain in

the neck, remind him that it really is. When it works well,

no one notices, but when it doesnt work people really pay

attention.{end}

This article originally appeared on StickyMinds.com.

Visithttp://well.tc/PainInTheNeck to post comments and

questions for Payson.

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14/40

I use my tablet for entertainment purposes

mostly. However, as reading books is part of my

work, I can classify reading on the tablet as a

work-related activity, which I do quite often. In

general, I find tablets very suitable for reading

but quite cumbersome for writing, so when I

have to write something, I do it on a laptop. I

guess a traditional keyboard combined with a

touch pad or mouse does the trick.

Aleksander Brancewicz

As an early adopter of smartphones and someone

who relies upon email and spends lots of timeout of the office at client sites, I initially embraced

my smartphone as a small, slow window for email

access. The ability to monitor my email and

respond to quick inquiries was helpful, but for

years, I didn't go beyond that.

During the past year, I've seen a number of people

integrating tablet technology very well into a

mobile lifestyle, and I am starting to make inroads

in that regard.

I purchased and read the first book on my iPad

about six month ago. I've read six more since

then, and I now purchase and give away copies

of a really good book (Are Your Lights On?by

Weinberg and Gause) on a flash drive to people

who attend my problem-solving class.

Easy access to reference books, note taking,

etc., is starting to make it less likely I take out

my laptop in meetings. I've been slow to adopttechnologies like DropBox, but they are on my list.

(I also play a KILLER game of Civilization

Revolution and Words with Friends, but please

don't tell the IRS ... I told them the tablet was a

business expense).

Payson Hall

I use my phone to read tech and other news

from around the world (mostly RSS feeds), andalso as a calendar/notebook/organizer. I'm

still waiting for the elusive Ubuntu tablet to be

released.

Erik Petersen

Do you use a smartphone or tablet orwork-related activities, or do you think

they are better suited or entertainment?I use my smartphone for work-related purposes as I do a

fair amount of business-related travel. I would not want to

do without it. The phone actually saves me time and money.

Paul Fratellone

Author recommended books, blogs, gadgets, websites, and other tools for building better software



15/40

Interviewed by: Joey McAllister

Email:[email protected]

Alan PageYears in Industry: 19

Email:[email protected]

From One Expert to Another

For the ull interview, visit

http://well.tc/FOETA14-4


Even i we dont change, even a brief bit of

consideration for diverse approaches can help

us understand the systems were working in.

I dont think the lack

of critical thinking is

conned to testers and

programmersperhaps itsjust most profound there,

since critical thinking is so

important.

Know how to learn. Once

youre on the job, what you

know doesnt matter nearly

as much as what you can

gure out.

Success depends on your ability to

experiment and discover solutions.

I fnd it helpul to stop once in a while and

question our approaches and assumptions and

to think about alternate views and approaches.

It would be great if

degrees in technical

disciplines required

any course on how

to thinkespecially

if the exercises could

be tailored to matchpotential career

choices.

As a leader or manager, its

critical to challenge new

hires to understand how

their little piece of the world

ts into the big picture.

These days, every time I

want to learn about a new

topic, I insist on reading

at least three books on

the topic.

In these days when I can

discover nearly any fact in

a few seconds (depending

on my Internet speed), Id

expect facts to be much

less important than critical

thinking and analysis.
mailto:jmcallister.commailto:jmcallister.commailto:[email protected]:[email protected]://well.tc/FOETA14-4http://well.tc/FOETA14-4http://www.techwell.com/http://well.tc/FOETA14-4http://www.techwell.com/mailto:jmcallister.commailto:[email protected]


16/40

ISTO

CKPHOTO



17/40

liver during an iteration. The distance between progress and

commitment refects how deeply the team members embrace

their work and proession. I we, as a team, commit to ten

work items and only deliver one on a regular basis, then our

promise is not worth much. However, i we commit to ten

work items and routinely deliver eight or nine, then we look

like we are in control and understand what we do.

Moreover, once we equip ourselves with the commitment-to-progress ratio, we create an environment in which teams

can grow based on a measurable pace. Whenever a team ex-

periments with new tools and methods and needs to create

sotware or a dierent problem, it can get back on track

aster.

But how does this translate to throughput? A team that

embraces its job, resulting in a high ratio, is able to respond

quickly and in a predictable way to changing business cir-

cumstances. A company that supports such teams may ocus

on business value. Sotware development is no longer a chal-

lenge, but a proession that builds products tailored to cus-

tomer needs.

Knowing the dynamics between commitment and progress

helps us understand the current level o knowledge about the

environment, business domain, and technical domain within

a team. It shines a light on whether the team is undergoing a

true transormation or has had a ew better sprints by chance.

Last, but not least, it exposes issues that a team should tackle

in order to improve. For example, a standard velocity unc-

tion represents progress and user story points per iteration (or

other measures) represent commitment. What ollows are the

main scenarios regarding various values o distance and cor-

relation parameters.

Figure 1 shows an enormous initial discrepancy between

commitment and progress, which is typical or teams juststarting to learn how to estimate and deliver within an itera-

tion. Consider a reshly ormed team with members who pre-

viously worked in an environment where someone else (e.g.,

senior architect) made estimates on their behal. Teams in

which a majority o members are immature with respect to

hard and sot skills may also all under this category. Learning

to estimate and deliver, the team shortens the distance be-

tween lines. Ideally, the lines should converge at some point,

but a more realistic goal is the velocity unction and com-

mitted work items unctioning together with a small dier-

ence between their values. This is what you should aim or as

a team coach through the rst iterations.

Planning work or the next iteration is a basic activity within

iterative sotware development. A group responsible or the

product and business strategy prepares a list o prioritized

items describing what should be done, while a development

team provides an estimate on how many o these work items

can be nalized during the iteration.

Early Scrum books (e.g., Agile Development with Scrum)

teach that the sotware development process is highly empir-ical and cannot simply be reduced to a set o mathematical

ormulas. As a result, any attempt to derive a precise, long-

term schedule with a detailed work path rom any technical

architecture will inevitably ail. Instead, a team should ob-

serve and measure progress while the work rolls out and,

based on observation, adjust their plans and create a orecast

or the uture.

There are two general approaches to building an estimate.

In the rst, the team estimates the size o the work items (e.g.,

user stories and use cases). At the end o the iteration, the

team sums up estimates or all delivered items. The resulting

number is called the velocity. Ater a ew sprints the team may

start calculating an average velocity based on results rom the

past. The only available conclusion is that the team is able to

do on average K work items per iteration. The team perorms

no assessments in respect o comparing the planned and de-

livered items.

In the second approach, as in the rst, the team estimates

the work items. However, they also commit to a number o

work items they believe they can nish within an iteration.

The team not only measures the velocity but also compares

it to the their declared commitment. The goal is to minimize

the discrepancy between the teams commitment and velocity.

In the rst approach, the team members measure only how

much they can deliver. But, what i the team struggles to de-

liver anything at all? Finishing even one user story might be

challenging, especially or agile sotware development new-

bies. Some teams end up in a permanent cycle o over-com-

mitment preceded by a ew sprints without any tangible re-

sults. During these situations, should you (as a team member,

a team coach, or a manager) only keep measuring the teams

velocity? Do the team members ully embrace their work i

they deliver only every second or third sprint, leaving the

other sprints empty? My answer to both these questions is no.

The commitment-to-progress ratio reers to the between-

the-work items the team commits to at the beginning o the

iteration and the ones that actually have been delivered at theend o an iteration. The distance between the commitment

and the progressas well as the correlation between them

describes a value o the commitment-to-progress ratio. A high

ratio means that the distance between what has been com-

mitted and what is delivered remains low and steady. Having

more committed items leads to more deliverables and having

a low commitment implies low delivery. A low ratio occurs

when there is a long-lasting discrepancy between the number

o committed and delivered items or a lack o correlation be-

tween the underestimated or overestimated commitments.

The ratio between progress and commitment shows the

maturity o the teams vision o what and how they can de-


Figure 1: Enormous initial distance followed by run to the high ratio


18/40

Its common or a team to overestimate their potential sub-

stantially when attempting their rst iteration. By stepping

down their commitment, along with some other changes, they

begin to reduce the initial gap. As they achieve better results,

they may eel that all major problems already have been over-

come and again attempt to commit to ar more than they can

deliver. Eventually, they recognize which issues impact their

ability to match their commitment and progress.This is the ideal course, but reality may be more dicult.

Dont count on the learning process being smooth. In most

cases, it is a long and tough endeavor. Depending on team

members skill levels (described urther in part 2 o this ar-

ticle), it may take three to eight iterations to achieve a high

ratio. I it takes more than eight iterations, then the odds are

against its success unless some circumstances change.

Most teams should aim or the high commitment-to-prog-

ress ratio in gure 2. What a team can deliver is quite predict-

able, because the distance between commitment and progress

is short and the correlation is high. There always exist some

local disturbances, and the time it takes to return harmony

between the commitment and progress depends on the scale

o the disturbance. A signicant disturbance might be trig-

gered by a new technology, a new environment around the

team (e.g., a new deployment process), a new business do-

main, or a change in the denition o done, all o which

add variability by introducing new circumstances to which it

takes team members extra time to adjust.

Non-standard tasks or tasks involving a lot o creativity

can disturb your team, sometimes signicantly. For example,

lets examine the creation o a new architecture. The goal is

to combine various technologies, standards, and practices

with respect to given constraints into one working system that

can be easily enhanced, scaled, and maintained. Some proos

o concept might be necessary. With limited knowledge, it islikely that the team will underestimate some parts o this task.

They must build strong technical scaolding, which they later

will ll in with expected unctionalities.

Other sources o variability include a signicant change in

the requirements and a serious issue in the architecture. Their

impact may result in a downgrade o the commitment-to-

progress ratio, and the lines describing commitment and prog-

ress may never ully meet. Team members can always make

wrong assumptions, and they will (and should) try new things

to improve their development skills and processes, which

might urther result in disturbance.

Theoretically speaking, achieving 100 percent correlation

with a small dierence between the commitment and progress

might suggest that nothing is happening. It can be quite wor-

risome, because without absorbing new things and changing,

we become vulnerable while the world around us moves or-

ward.

The pace o returning to a high commitment-to-progress

ratio rom a local disturbance should be proportional to the

scale o the disturbance itsel. Very complex architectureswith many unknowns about technology and business domain

oten trigger large disturbances that take more time to stabi-

lize. On the other hand, small changese.g., a new, mature

team member who integrates quickly with other team mem-

bersshould cause only an insignicant disturbance.

Ensuring delivery o working sotware every iteration is

one o the principles o iterative sotware development. The

end o each iteration is marked not only by the last day o

its settled time limit but also by a large number o delivered

work items. The switched cycle takes place when the delivery

stretches across several iterations. You can spot the switched

cycle easily in gure 3. The distance between the commitment

and progress is quite large in the rst two or three iterations,

ollowed by an eruption o delivered items in the next itera-

tion. All o a sudden, the team delivers high above their com-

mitment. I this phenomenon has a repeatable nature, then its

likely that a team has diculty meeting the acceptance cri-

teria.

I team members regularly do more than initially expected

and add extra items to the end o iterations, its likely that

this is a symptom o an environment that is not challenging

enough. You may come across such a situation when you

begin with lightweight acceptance criteria in order to ensure a

smooth start. Now is the right time to set the bar higher.


Figure 2: High ratio with local disturbancesFigure 3: Switched cycle

Figure 4: Regular under-commitment


19/40

Working in iterations, taking care o quality, estimating

work items eciently, and collaborating with other team

members take time and patience. However, i there is no

chance o reaching a high commitment-to-progress ratio, then

the team coach should react appropriately by discovering and

addressing the underlying reasons. The most common reasons

or continuous over-commitment include the ollowing:

The factors inuencing the commitment-to-progress

ratio are set up in an unavorable way: tasks are

too dicult or your team to grasp, the denition odone is too vague, the environment is distracting,

etc.

The environment cannot be embraced by the team

members in a predictable ashion due to nature o the

tasks (see part 2).

Teammembersdonotpossesskeyskills.

Theteammembersfeelastrongpressure(realorimag-

inary) to deliver more and, as a result, commit to more

than they can handle. Because o this, they cannot

ocus on improvements and tend to repeat the same

faws.

Theteam hasnomotivation to change theirwayofworking.

It might also be tough or experienced teams to embrace

new subjects, which results in a long period o over-commit-

ment. However, the more a team is mature, the less time it

takes or its members to get back to the high ratio.

A teams ability to deliver may crumble ater achieving

signicant improvements in reducing a gap between the com-

mitment and progress. This scenario applies mostly to teams

that have just started developing in the agile environment, but

sometimes it may surprise experienced teams, too.

It is important to distinguish sudden ratio deterioration


This article originally appeared on AgileJournal.com.

Visithttp://well.tc/HighlyProductiveTeams to post comments

and questions for Aleksander.

Figure 5: Regular over-commitment

Figure 6: Sudden ratio deterioration

rom a local signicant disturbance. The disturbance is al-

ways triggered by changes like creating a new platorm rom

scratch, introducing new business goals, new technology, or

acing abnormal tasks. A team in the buzz o daily work may

ail to notice a change at rst, but they can adapt.

In the case o sudden ratio deterioration, a team may

struggle to deliver or reasons unknown to them. All improve-

ment attempts ail, making it seem like there is no way out.The team probably lacks technical or work organization skills

and cannot gure out what the real issues are which hold

them back. The coachs role is to step in and introduce the

team to the new concepts that help them moving orward.

The most common sources o the sudden deterioration are a

new denition o done or a change in work assignments.

Sometimes, a team is assigned a task that they already un-

derstand, and good results ollow. I once worked with a team

that achieved a high commitment-to-progress ratio because

most o the stories touched upon the ront side o their plat-

orm, which every team member knew well. When aced with

work items that required serious back-end development, the

team members were unable to nish even one story success-

ully. A limited knowledge about the back-end logic combined

with a lack o sotware architect skills wrecked their attempts

to combine separate parts into one working whole.

A remedy or sudden ratio deterioration is root cause

analysis ollowed by implementation o improvements. In

most cases, an experienced team coachs support is substan-

tial enough to ensure that a team gets quickly back on track.

At the same time, this situation presents an opportunity to

instill improvement habits in team members. It is a tough ex-

perience, and it may be dicult or team managers to explain

to their bosses why successes turned into ailures. As a team

coach, work to ensure that those bosses come to the proper

conclusions.

In this part o the article I have introduced the commit-

ment-to-progress ratio as a measure that helps establish how

ar the team is able to embrace their tasks. I also described

some positive and negative scenarios o relations between

the committed and delivered work every team might be aced

with. In part 2, I will answer the question How one can

build a team that achieves a high commitment-to-progress

ratio? and present the core skills and actors that infuence

the ratio.{end}

[email protected]
http://www.techwell.com/http://www.agilejournal.com/http://well.tc/HighlyProductiveTeamsmailto:[email protected]://www.techwell.com/http://well.tc/HighlyProductiveTeamshttp://www.agilejournal.com/mailto:[email protected]


20/40

ISTOCKPHOT

O

Regulatory compliance and agile are words that may

not seem to belong together. Nonetheless, agile delivery is a

reality, business drivers rule, and to production we must go.

You must know your risks and understand the impacts to the

business. When regulatory agencies issue warnings to com-

panies not in compliance, those companies stock prices can

take a major hit.

The Latin phrase non scriptum non est means I it is

not written, it does not exist and is appropriate or regu-latory compliance, where documentation is o the utmost

importance. However, it is worse to have your processes

documented and not ollowed than to have no documented

processes at all. Whatever processes are in place must be

documented, veriable, and auditable. Should an audit occur,

anything related to that regulated process and environment

can come into scope and be used to prove a company is ol-

lowing documented policies and procedures.

Compliance Strategy and LeadershipMy rst experience in dealing with sotware that handled

regulated data was with Title 21 CFR Part 11 o the Code


o Federal Regulations, Food and Drug Administration

(FDA) guidelines on electronic records and electronic signa-

tures. More recently, I was responsible or compliance with

Sarbanes-Oxley and the Oce o Foreign Assets Control or

specially designated nationals.

For the FDA projects I worked on, the compliance leader

made T-shirts to get the word out. The ront read, Comply

or die, and the back, ... but we are here to help. Both mes-

sages on the shirt were sincere. In most cases where regula-tions apply, one must prove that a documented process has

been ollowedthat auditable records and reports validating

the processes and related document artiacts are in place, se-

cured, maintained and adhered to. Most regulatory agencies

will only state what is under compliance, never how to be in

the compliant state.

When dealing with highly regulated environments like the

FDA, expect additional layers o QA or compliance manage-

ment within companies. I separated them into Big Q and

Little Q. The Big Q compliance teams at this company

dealt with interpretation and opinions as to what processes

needed to be in place to satisy regulations. I was Little Q or


21/40


this company. There was Q envy, as Big Q also oversaw

the how aspect rom Little Q, which owned the delivery and

maintenance o the compliant state. Getting to the validated

compliant state was no easy task, and maintaining it was even

harder and costlier.

Risk to the business can be extreme, and the need or levels

o compliance knowledge and leadership is serious. Part o the

strategy is to deal with the regulatory representatives within

your organization as accountable stakeholders that are totallyengaged in the ongoing system delivery liecycle.

The AwakeningI was totally unprepared to learn that any piece o sot-

ware and hardware that deals with regulated data alls under

regulatory compliance. This meant that the tools we used in

the delivery o the sotware and handling o regulated data,

like deect tracking, requirements, source or version control,

test case repository, and management systems, now had to

be in the compliant state. We needed quickly to learn new

terms, such as installation qualication (IQ), operational

qualication (OQ), and perormance qualication (PQ).

IQ, OQ, and PQ would need several articles to discuss, but

it is important to call out the need or experienced compli-

ance leaders in traversing the regulated landscape. These

qualication steps needed to be in place, documented, and

validated or the ancillary sotware and hardware prior to

any production deployments or regulated data or processes.

This included requirements management, source or version

control, test case management, and deect management sot-

ware. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) or all tools andprocesses in support o the regulated data were a priority, as

was the training needed or all associates involved with regu-

lated data.

I once thought that having a quality and process ally like

the FDA was going to be a great thing, but that soon turned

out to be a double-edged sword. Fortunately or the team, I

was able hire an ex-FDA auditor to work on the specics o

dealing with regulatory commercial compliance. His knowl-

edge and experience in citing high-risk areas was instrumental

to our success and to remaining within budget. Getting to the

compliant state increased my teams eorts and cost close to

40 percent when compared to a project with no regulations,


22/40

and ongoing maintenance costs (depending upon the rate o

change or the regulated components) increased to around 30

percent.

Avoiding the Land MinesLets examine some aspects o the agile maniesto and set

in motion some changes in executing agile delivery or regu-

lated data and processes.

IndIvIdualsand InteractIonsover Processesand tools

The rst partindividuals and interactionswill not

change. Ensure that your compliance team is a stakeholder

and an active contributor in delivering a compliant system.

There is a clear migration towards pooling resources as reg-

ulations cross and overlap between many internal business

units, but no business will remain compliant without a solid

approach and long-term strategy. Consolidate compliance

through a single, internal audit department supported by tools

that streamline the process o achieving and maintaining the

compliant state.

Tools will not change, as they are ecient mediums to

maintain the documents or artiacts needed or an audit. Pro-

cesses are at the heart o what regulatory compliance talks to.

One must have standard, documented processes and methods.

Document how processes are dened, governed, implemented,

and monitored. In other words, create an SOP on creating

SOPs. That is not a joke. An SOP on compliance training

needs a special citation and should not be overlooked. Ev-

eryone involved in delivering a regulated application must be

trained on those regulations and what it means to be com-

pliant. Periodic training sessions must also be part o the

training SOP. In our organization, Big Q was responsible or

ensuring that the organization was trained.

WorkIng softWareover comPrehensIve documentatIon

Sotware that has regulated data and processes must be

working and, o course, validated. A compliance strategy al-

ready must have decided how comprehensive the documenta-

tion needs to be in order to be compliant. Get buy-in rom Big

Q on how it will be stored, secured, accessed, and reported.

Once you have deployed the regulated aspects o the sotware

into production, documentation must be submitted and com-

plete. There is no way around the documentation require-

ment.

Handling compliant systems via agile delivery must bedone careully, especially when deciding when to introduce

the regulated components into the production environment.

In waterall delivery, this problem is much easier to deal with.

The nal certication o compliance can be completed prior

to the production release, or it can be held o with regard to

the regulated components and deployed closer to production.

During release planning in an agile delivery project, the team

must make these decisions and decide the best time to intro-

duce the regulated components into production. Once the

regulated components are in production, they must be con-

tinually certied as each subsequent production deployment

is made.

We even explored creating a separate database or the

regulated components and data elements. Although that idea

was not easible or us, I suggest giving the idea some consid-

eration or your project. The drain o maintaining the com-

pliant state will negatively impact the schedule and budget.

Knowing which unctional or eature sets directly or indi-

rectly touch regulated components will help you decide how

well optimized the release-and-delivery plan is in regards toregulated components. When changes come down the pike

that touch regulated components, you need to be on top o

the impacts and risks to the validation eorts that have al-

ready taken place and the tests that still remain. Be very aware

o the time it will take to certiy the regulated components.

Targeting the last set o sprints as the time or deploying the

regulated components will save on re-certiying those compo-

nents. Moving regulated components to production without

certication can be extremely costly to the organization.

ConclusionPenalties or non-compliance quickly reach into hundreds

o thousands (and possibly millions) o dollars, and the nega-

tive public exposure can damage a companys reputation. In

some cases, besides monetary damages, a company might be

orced to go back to paper until all the exposures are miti-

gated. The trend or governments across the world to impose

continued regulations will increase. As QA proessionals, the

burden to deliver quality in the compliant state alls squarely

into our hands. Quality is a marathon and not a sprint, and

the investment to maintain the compliant state needs to be

articulated clearly to management. It is a continual process

that must be integrated into the abric o the organization.

The cost or compliance is high and can be deemed a cost o

doing business, but that is not good enough. As QA proes-

sionals, we need to explain the cost and risk-benet equation

o testing and regulatory compliance and articulate to busi-

ness owners the real cost o quality in attaining the compliant

state{end}

[email protected]


This article originally appeared on StickyMinds.com.

Visithttp://well.tc/RegulationComplianceto post comments

and questions for Paul.
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23/40

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NY/NJ Area October 1618

Austin, TX October 1618

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(Advanced Testing Training Week)

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24/40

ISTOCKPHOTO



25/40

Have you ever watched a jazz combo? The perormance starts with the leader counting

o the rhythm, then stepping away. Then the drummer begins to lay down a beat. Even at

this stage, the audience can eel a groove hit the room. Soon, the piano joins and adds both

melody and harmony to the piece. Energy is fowing rom the chords as the team starts

to see and eel the direction o the piece. Now its time or the other instruments to join

in the un. A typical combo will have a couple o dierent instruments--maybe a sax and

a trombone, or some other combination. Whoever starts o will state the melodic theme

or the song, although sometimes the whole group does this together. Ater that, everyone

gets a chance to do a solo, in which they improvise on the main theme, key o o past

experiences, and apply their musical knowledge. It is not uncommon or jazz musicians

to jibe each other, making jokes and comments while they are playing. The energy in the

room builds and builds as the musicians play together, sometimes one at a time, sometimes

in tandem. When you watch a jazz combo really swinging, it can be hard to tell who his

having more un, the audience or the musicians.

What in the world does this have to do with sotware? Actually, quite a bit. Lets look

at how small teams work and interact, rom within this metaphor. In the agile community,

we have asserted over and over again that we need small, cross-unctional teams. And yet,

what really is cross-unctional? Can cross-unctional really work? The more traditional

view o sotware creation involves the need or separate, unctionally ocused teams that

are experts at their domain. The teams only interact as they are passing work items rom

one to the other. When development is done, we hand o to test. Test will nd deects and

hand them back to development. And the dance continues in this light orever.

In a jazz combo, or any other small musical group, each member o the team has a

specialty. As the members play individuallybut oten togetherthey create a tapestry o

music that becomes much greater than the sum o the individual contributions. A small de-

velopment team works best this way. We have some set o programmers, testers, documen-

tation specialists, and some representative o the business working together. Team members

gain their energy rom each other. They try new things and get eedback right away rom

anyone who wishes to listen and share.

The team members dont need to just ocus on their own areas either. A tester can very

easily and eectively orm a duet with a programmer. They will play o o each other

with their ideas. The tester will write a test to express some piece o unctionality that the

sotware will have. Then the programmer will answer with the code that will cause thetest to pass. So we write another test based on this back and orth interaction. In music

this interaction is known as call and answer, and it is especially eective with the testing

and programming cycle. More oten than not, a programmer will pair with another pro-

grammer. This duet is very eective and powerul as well, and should be embraced as oten

as possible.

Lets explore some o the roles that are important in a development team. Usually there

is some sort o coach or leader. In the Scrum world, you might hear about the Scrum-

Master. Each o these names is meant to describe someone who is both a part o, and to

some extent outside o, the team itsel; in a jazz combo, this is the directors role. Not every

combo has a director, but many do. Sometimes that director is part o the team, only di-

recting long enough to initiate and introduce a number to the audience. In sotware devel-

opment, the director represents the team to the stakeholders, and helps plan the meetings,stand-ups, and the likeessentially counting o the beat. I the rhythm seems to be getting

lost, the director can help the team identiy this act and help with corrective actions.

A team also needs an individual who has the ability to identiy what needs to be devel-

oped. In agile, this role belongs to the product owner. Now consider a jazz combos basic

rhythm section: The drummer lays out the shape o what is to develop; the bass takes this

one step urther, presenting the progression o chords that identiy the order in which the

chords that make up the actual harmonies and melodies will be played. Lastly, the piano

comes in with the rich, ully realized chords. Accordingly, the product owner has to play all

three roles o the rhythm section, explicitly: identiying the work to be done or the shape

o the upcoming work.

And, o course, we also have the rest o the musicians who are like the testers and pro-

grammers who have some specialization. In most bands, there are not only specialists as ar



26/40

as the instrument they play, but how they play it. In the Duke

Ellington band, not only was Cat Anderson known or being

a great trumpet player but he was also known as a high-note

specialist. I applied to the agile sotware development environ-

ment, not only are there specializations like programmer and

tester, but there are also some olks who are best at UI or at

database work. There was never a rule that only Cat Anderson

could play the high notes, or that he could only play certainnotes, and there should never be a rule that only your UI guy

can work in the UI. That would lead to a very thin team.

There are many reasons why small groups are desirable.

Members o a small combo are best able to work together


This article originally appeared onCMCrossroads.com. Visit

http://well.tc/BeautifulMusic to post

comments and questions for Steve.

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and play o o each others strengths and weaknesses. They

can react to changes that might come rom the stage dy-

namics. Whereas many large bands require a hety amount

o coordination and very little room or improvisation, the

small combo thrives on improvisation. Everyone adds what

ts best, and the eedback is immediate. The energy builds,

not just rom each contribution but also rom the cumulative

eect. The band doesnt stop and argue when someone makesa change during a jam session, band members pick up the new

tempo and use this change to make the music better than ever

beore; the same thing happens in sotware. The team is able

to communicate and work together. The dierent players are

not going through some intermediary,

but directly to each other. The energy, the

pace, and the quality o the product all

come out through this tight, requent in-

teraction.

So now picture this: The team comes

together or a planning meeting; the di-

rector establishes the tempo by iden-

tiying, with the help o the team, the

velocity or the upcoming work; the

product owner then lays down a groove,

describing the melody and harmony o

the iteration. She does this by providing

the depth o description and acceptance

tests that show not just what we will be

doing, but how each story interacts with

the others. Now the rest o the team

picks up the melody as shown by how

the programmers and testers pair up and

work on stories together. The teams en-

ergy builds as the code is tossed back

and orth in short phrases. Each member

employs his strengths, but helps to con-

tribute to the overall outcome wherever

he can. At the end o the iteration, the au-

dience expresses its appreciation or an-

other antastic perormance. Now we can

chill or a little while, enjoy our success,

and look orward to the next gig. {end}

[email protected]
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27/40


Coming Soon
http://www.techwell.com/http://www.techwell.com/http://www.techwell.com/


28/40


Coming Soon

person said, We are currently running experiments showing

dierent Google+ buttons in YouTube in order to provide the

best user experience. They replaced the thumbs up/thumbs

down buttons with a G+ logo and +1, Like, or Share. This

drew a strong response (with some strong language, as well)

rom Wil Wheaton [4] comparing the change to orcing

people to like something beore letting them see it. Whilesome people saw this as a logical architectural step, merging

Google+ unctionality into a YouTube interace goes beyond

standard crowd wisdom interace testing.

Annoying any users is bad enough, but Delta Airlines

alienated some o its most valued customers in an exercise de-

signed specically to do the opposite. In a blog post [5], Delta

explained that it was all part o improving the search and

shopping experience, with a phased installation o search as

they were careul not to disrupt the booking experience or

our best customers.

When you are doing these live user experiments, one key

idea is to only use a small sample (say 5 percent) to limitthe impact o change. Delta apparently chose a much larger

groupall non-requent fyersto release a major unction-

ality change that needed to be understood and veried with

internal testing. Whether it was due to lack o testing or lack

o ollow up on internal testing, Delta now has close to a

worst-case scenario with a lot o bad press, a U.S. Department

o Transportation investigation, and a massive exercise in

trying to reassure the requent travelers [6] who were meant

to be unaected.

The Wisdom of Crowdsby Erik PetersenTechWell.com Curator

Theres a lot to be said or the wisdom o crowds. I heard

James Surowiecki [1] speak about it at the 2008 Agile Coner-

ence and its a ascinating topic. At the recent Agile Australia

conerence, Doug Blue rom Seek (an international job-seekerwebsite group) spoke about letting the audience decide

the ne-tuning o the user interace as a last step in usability

testing. By selecting a small group o users, Seek is able to

monitor crowd wisdom to help select the preerred interace.

Some o the changes are almost invisible to the users, or ex-

ample, tiny pink pixel highlights on an email me more jobs

link increased its usage by 27 percent. Doug also explained

his approach in this interview [2].

While this type o testing is becoming a standard across

the industry, it is very easy to get it wrong. Doug explained

that something as simple as having two drop down lists on

a salary search impacted the number o job applications theyreceived. There is also the danger in mixing user interace

testing with unctionality testing in a live environment, as

Google and Delta recently discovered.

What would todays equivalent be or the amous trash

[3] icons o early PC desktops? I you utilize crowd wisdom,

the choice would have to be an icon pairthe thumbs up/

thumbs down, like/dislike icons. Recently, Google, a pioneer

o crowd wisdom interace testing, appeared to overstep the

mark by replacing these icons in YouTube. A Google spokes-
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29/40


Coming Soon

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What went wrong? The requent fyer searches appear to

have been tweaked to ocus on quality, giving the astest re-

turn trip in a smaller time window (typically on a more ex-

pensive day trip), while the standard searches returned a much

wider variety o return trips (including cheaper red eye and

multiple stop options). As the cheapest fights are highlighted

in search results, the impression was that requent fyers weregetting overcharged. It also took Delta three weeks to undo

the changean eternity in the Internet Age.

Using the wisdom o crowds is a great test tool to tweak

user interaces and its becoming a

standard practice. The New York

Times has a dedicated site, beta620

[8], that it is using as a testbed or new

apps, and in Europe, crowd wisdom

is being used to design a olding chair

[8]. Think through your experiments

well and youll be well rewarded. I

you throw unctional change into themix, make sure you test it rst and un-

derstand the impact o the change on

your users!{end}

Links:[1] http://www.inoq.com/news/2008/08/

wisdom-o-crowds

[2] http://www.brainmates.com.au/

interviews/5-minutes-with-doug-blue-

director-o-seek

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Trash_%28computing%29

[4] http://marketingland.com/enough-with-googleifcation-says-wil-wheaton-

youtube-doesnt-need-it-11091

[5] http://blog.delta.com/2012/05/18/are-

displays-on-delta-com/

[6] http://minnesota.cbslocal.

com/2012/05/22/transportation-depart-

ment-looks-into-deltas-ticket-glitch/

[7] http://dailycrowdsource.com/20-

resources/projects/630-new-york-times-

beta-tests-crowdsourcing-with-beta620

[8] http://www.psk.com/2012/04/audi-

crowdsourced-chai.html
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