Yesterday, I went to the Region Jobs Initiative Software Cluster's roundtable on "Building Quality into Software". Here, representatives from software company's across the Central Valley convened to discuss problems related to delivering bug-free software.
At Decade Software, our Scrum teams commit to closing all defects as the first backlog items of every 30-day sprint. Now, that we have quality under control, what I see as problems and areas of improvement pales in comparison with everyone else at this meeting.
This left me almost speechless. I was afraid they would be angered by anything I said or that they would think I was lying.
Finally, I said...
"This meeting reminds me of Star Trek IV, where Doctor McCoy traveled back in time to the 20th Century. At a hospital, he met a woman undergoing kidney dialysis. McCoy said, 'My God, I had not idea people were still dealing with this stuff'..."
They didn't find my comparison the least bit amusing.
I apologized for being so blunt,—that really was how I felt!—and I reminded them that I am just an e-mail away from answering any questions they might have.
Addressing the very basic problems of culture, communication, and teamwork is the key to solving all of those other problems. In fact, it is the only way to solve those problems.
Process improvements are meaningless without support for change.
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