Feedback loops

Posted on March 16, 2007 by Liz
  • Because our customers don’t know what they want, they find out from the people that want the system. They sometimes get this wrong.
  • Because I don’t know what to code, I find out from our customer. I sometimes get this wrong.
  • Because I make mistakes while coding, I work with an IDE. My IDE corrects me when I’m wrong.
  • Because I make mistakes while thinking, I work with a pair. My pair corrects me when I’m wrong.
  • Because my pair is human and also makes mistakes, we write unit tests. Our unit tests correct us when we’re wrong.
  • Because we have a team who are also coding, we integrate with their code. Our code won’t compile if we’re wrong.
  • Because our team makes mistakes, we write acceptance tests that exercise the whole system. Our acceptance tests will fail if we’re wrong.
  • Because we make mistakes writing acceptance tests, we get QA to help us. QA will tell us if we’re wrong.
  • Because we forget to run the acceptance tests, we get Cruise Control to run them for us. Cruise Control will tell us if we’re wrong.
  • Because we forget to maintain the acceptance tests, we get QA to check that the system still works. QA will tell us if it’s wrong.
  • Because we only made it work on Henry’s laptop, we deploy the system to a realistic environment. It won’t work if the deployment is wrong.
  • Because we sometimes misunderstand our customer, we showcase the system. Our customer will tell us if we’re wrong.
  • Because our customer sometimes misunderstands the people that want the system, we put the system in production. The people who want it tell us if we’re wrong.
  • Because it costs money to get it wrong, we do all these things as often as we can. That way we are only ever a little bit wrong.
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3 Responses to Feedback loops

  1. anonymous says:
    March 16, 2007 at 11:35 am

    I’m going to show this to many people, thanks!

  2. ext_39644 says:
    April 1, 2007 at 12:42 am

    It’s a nice recipe list for agile constant feedback. I’ll distribute it as well 🙂

  3. anonymous says:
    April 12, 2007 at 10:31 pm

    Thanks for the mantra Liz. I really enjoyed reading it.

    TheKua

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