Interestingly, the nature of software development process imposes a very unique difficulty compared to other engineering process. And it is generally overlooked. That is incremental engineering effort on previous product. In other words, ‘versioning’ And I believe this particular fact actually causes lots of trouble to software development teams. Throughout years of experience, software project teams have come up with several good solution for these. I’ll explain how this trouble leads to those solutions later point.
There are many books and articles about building a good software product from architectural perspective. And often times we can see that authors use metaphors like building skyscrapers and bridges to explain their points. However, building software is still significantly different from building skyscrapers or bridges even if we consider planning, designing, engineering effort, duration of work and delivery are conceptually the same. If I were to use metaphors to explain software development process, I will describe it as following with a little bit of exaggeration to point out the difference.
‘Software development is like finishing Empire State Building today and adding 50 more stories two years later. Software development is delivering Golden Gate Bridge today and adding 16 more lanes next year.’
Do you see the trouble here? Let me explain with some more specific example. Let’s say Boeing delivered ‘787 Dreamliner’ airplane a few years ago. And they are planning to build ‘797 Wright Brothers’ as the next generation of the product line. The requirements for this airplane is basically adding 250 more seats inside airplane. But Boeing engineers only allow to build 797 by physically modifying existing 787 airplane.
What has to be changed? I don’t know much about plane, but I can imagine that they have to decide if 797 will be fatter or longer, which changes aerodynamics. It will also affects the size of wings and horizontal/vertical stabilizer. It will changes the weight of the airplane, so engine has to be changed. Then it might require extra gas tank. It requires more power supply and oxygen. It may require longer runway for taking off and landing. They also need to consider hitting by lightening or dealing with turbulence. The need to consider not only the airplane structure but also travelers. Extra bathrooms, emergency exits, flight attendant station have to be changed. Seating for first class and business class might be changed as well. I guess we can go on and on. And remember we’re modifying existing 787 physically.
This is the nature of software development. There is no hard end product like buildings or bridges in software world. It is just the nature and we'll continue to do this. Reasonably small requirement for business can impact engineering effort significantly. Adding or modifying existing feature exposes various risks in the software product. Some feature may not be needed any more or doesn’t make sense any more, but it’s not easy to take out those dead code or features. Let’s think about how we can minimize these risk. On the next blog. :)
Friday, November 8, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
Testers! Earn respect, not demand
I’ve seen many cases where testers complains about how they are treated in the project team. “We are NOT a second-class citizen in this project team!” “They don’t know how difficult it is to test software!” “Testing is not an activity of try and see if it works!” Sometimes there are some conflict between QA/test team and development team. QA team present estimate for testing some feature in the meeting and get offended when development team asks, “Would it take that long? Can't you automate that?” Or QA team shows all the bugs they found and questioning quality of the code.
I believe some sort of stereotype or perception actually comes with occupation. Maybe history of software testing discipline was not well received from the beginning. The point that I’m trying to make here is that we should not blame perception about the occupation. What matters is how you perform your job. And actually you can take advantage of the perception and use it for your own benefit.
Let me give you an example. What is your perception about a gardener? You would think that a person who works as a gardener mostly is not very educated, and it’s kind of work you don’t do, not because you cannot do but because you don’t have time to do or don’t want to do. I don’t think you would respect your gardener for the occupation, but you would respect him as a human being. You still have perception about the occupation.
Let’s say one day your gardener came to you and provide you following information. He measured PH of your garden soil of front and back yard and asks you to let him apply some nitrogen to prevent clover or lawn fungus. And provide you exact dose of nitrogen he will apply based on square footage of your yard. He also provides you the information about the growth of each garden tree along with the climate of your city, and informs you that the branch of front yard tree will block certain percentage of sunlight to your living room in next summer. And he shows 3D pictures of possible garden looks with some flower beds, new trees or relocation of your existing trees and asks you if you would like to try. He always come to your house on time and do the best garden work. He cleans up every single corner of the house and always nicely fold your water hose and sweep the front side of your house. Your garden grass, flowers and trees are all healthy and well maintained, and your garden looks the best in your neighbourhood. People visiting your house always mentions how nice your garden is.
Now, would you respect his passion and professionalism as a gardener? Would you continue to have him maintain your garden? Would you recommend this guy? Would you stand when someone bad mouth about gardener being lazy and not educated?
Respect is not something you demand and get. You EARN respect from others. What is important in your testing job is doing your work with your passion and professionalism. You can differentiate yourself from others by continuously improving yourself and trying innovative approach. When you do that, perception of the QA role become meaningless. People will respect your passion and professionalism. They already have low expectation, but you exceeded far above of their expectation. Guess who gets the promotion?
I believe some sort of stereotype or perception actually comes with occupation. Maybe history of software testing discipline was not well received from the beginning. The point that I’m trying to make here is that we should not blame perception about the occupation. What matters is how you perform your job. And actually you can take advantage of the perception and use it for your own benefit.
Let me give you an example. What is your perception about a gardener? You would think that a person who works as a gardener mostly is not very educated, and it’s kind of work you don’t do, not because you cannot do but because you don’t have time to do or don’t want to do. I don’t think you would respect your gardener for the occupation, but you would respect him as a human being. You still have perception about the occupation.
Let’s say one day your gardener came to you and provide you following information. He measured PH of your garden soil of front and back yard and asks you to let him apply some nitrogen to prevent clover or lawn fungus. And provide you exact dose of nitrogen he will apply based on square footage of your yard. He also provides you the information about the growth of each garden tree along with the climate of your city, and informs you that the branch of front yard tree will block certain percentage of sunlight to your living room in next summer. And he shows 3D pictures of possible garden looks with some flower beds, new trees or relocation of your existing trees and asks you if you would like to try. He always come to your house on time and do the best garden work. He cleans up every single corner of the house and always nicely fold your water hose and sweep the front side of your house. Your garden grass, flowers and trees are all healthy and well maintained, and your garden looks the best in your neighbourhood. People visiting your house always mentions how nice your garden is.
Now, would you respect his passion and professionalism as a gardener? Would you continue to have him maintain your garden? Would you recommend this guy? Would you stand when someone bad mouth about gardener being lazy and not educated?
Respect is not something you demand and get. You EARN respect from others. What is important in your testing job is doing your work with your passion and professionalism. You can differentiate yourself from others by continuously improving yourself and trying innovative approach. When you do that, perception of the QA role become meaningless. People will respect your passion and professionalism. They already have low expectation, but you exceeded far above of their expectation. Guess who gets the promotion?
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