Friday, March 20, 2009

Testing phases suck

We finished all of the functionality for the first release of our product with one week and 3 days to spare. The thought was that we would use that time to go back through and write some additional tests in areas of the app that might have weaker test coverage.

The idea seems noble, but it is flawed.

I already see a let down in energy. A team that been used to the rhythm of TDD is being cast into a mold of 1990's era broken process.

How to fix this?

We could just call it done and move on to the next batch of features, but our Product Manager is on vacation and we don't have the next set well defined.

For now I think we are going to try to to use our rcov statistics to gain better focus on what areas we should write test for rather than the current approach which seems too scattered.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Agile Software Tools

Will someone please write a SIMPLE piece of software for assisting teams running a lean/agile approach?

This software would NOT pander to the outdated mind set of corporate America where reports and linear thinking rule the day. (but where all the money for licenses exist)

It would make it dead simple to write, edit, destroy ad split User Stories.

It would be backlog driven.

It would be as easy to use as a Card Wall.

It would support a pull type of scheduling such as Kanban as well as more traditional Scrum like Sprints.

It would treat tests (like Cucumber) as first class citizens or maybe just make them an integral part of the Story.

Really...please...