Four Variables Under Stress

Your project is late and you are under pressure. You suspect that you are compensating by reducing quality. Stop! Turn your attention to the FourVariables.

or

You're getting close to the end of your project and some people are feeling stress. They respond by worrying and by making random suggestions for things to do. Turn your attention to the FourVariables.

Resources

• Have the right people.
  • Are they the ones you need, the ones you were promised?
  • Could another tester or a documentation person or a special consultant actually help you?
• Use the right people right.
  • Are the developers doing developer things, designing, coding, testing?
  • Are the customers doing customer things, providing stories, providing test data?
  • Or are the customers designing and the developers attending meetings?

Quality

• Test for correctness
  • You have UnitTests and AcceptanceTests, don't you?
• Test for development speed
  • Do your tests run fast enough so that you can use them frequently?
  • Are you getting your test data well before you need it?
  • Are you wasting precious Resources and Time in meetings discussing how things should and may work, when you could be running tests to see that the system really is working?
    • Does this even make sense? How can you write a test before knowing how something should work?
    • Tests show if it does what you think it should do, not how it works. I always write tests before I know how it works so I'll know if how I've made it work does what I thought it should do.
    • HowVsWhat?

Scope

• Correct Scope
  • Are the stories you are working on necessary to delivery?
  • Have all stories not needed for release been pushed back or dropped?
• Effective Scope
  • Are the stories well-written and clear when you get them?
  • Are you spending precious resources and time chasing facts that weren't in the stories at the beginning?
  • Are you spending precious resources and time reworking software that was based on poor or missing information?

Time

• You can't make new time (unless your masters will extend the deadline).
• You CAN, however, make less time.
  • Are you having unnecessary meetings?
  • Are meetings going on too long because people aren't prepared?
  • Are meetings going on too long because you aren't prepared?
  • Are meetings called too late, with people waiting for key info?
  • Is design being done too late, with consequent rework?
  • Are StoryCards being presented in the wrong order, with consequent rework?
  • Would better StoryCards help developers go faster?
  • Would better AcceptanceTests help developers go faster?
• Hmm, maybe you can make more time after all ...