Pain: Poor Quality

I remember taking over a project and listening to a customer say, “this is the worst software product I have ever used, and no one will do anything about making it better.  It is so bad that I will not even bother telling you about it anymore.” Poor quality is a systemic quality issue.  The common term in software development is called technical debt.

Technical Debt is:

• A deficit in code quality that adds up over time.
• A fact of life in software and product development.
• The showing of all the traits of a systemic problem.

Impact: Customer Trust. Organization Reputation. Team Velocity.

• Greater difficulty in writing new code. (Individual)
• Greater difficulty finding and fixing defects. (Individual)
• Lower velocity. Greater variance in velocity. (Team)
• Reduced value of software assets. (Organization)
• Greater difficulty making portfolio decisions (Organization)

Gain: Build Quality-in

Build quality-in is one of the lean principles for product development organizations practicing agile.  The first agile principle states, “Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software / products.”  This principle is a customer centric perspective of the team members building the product right.  Pay attention to, 1) priority, 2) early symptoms, 3) continuous improvement, and 4) valuable benefits. 

An agile coach can help with technical debt remediation by providing guidance as follows:

• Definition of Done (DOD)
• Limiting Work in Progress (WIP)
• Over-commitment awareness
• Limit the opportunistic mindset

KnolShare Agile training and coaching will help your organization team members achieve awesomeness by improving quality through Test Driven Development (TDD) and early integration to mitigate risks of delivering poor quality. Click to learn more about coaching and training.  We help people achieve awesomeness.