The sharp noise finally broke his focus and brought his attention back to the present. Sam sighed and put the book down into his lap. He’d been a long time reading. He sat propped against the window seat’s side listening now. One leg hung over the side of the seat built into the deep window ledge. Several cushions lent comfort and assurance for resting. His other leg stretched forward almost touching the other side of the window seat. Below his hanging foot, leant against the wall and each other, a line of books stretched out across the floor
Arching forward to unfasten the catch, he firmly pushed open one of the window panes. The breeze tried to swing it hard against the outside wall but Sam was ready. Gripping the catch he steadied the window back and set it on the hook. Drawing in a breath of the cold, bracing air he peered out across the broad sky. Small, evenly spaced cumulus clouds hung above the expansive plain casting dark, mottled shadows across the patchwork landscape of grasses and rocky escarpments below. Sam took in another deep lungful of cold air. The room behind him filling with the fresh air.
There it was again. Sharp, annoying, and piercing.
The high-pitched, clearly metallic squeek was more apparent now with the window propped open. Sighing once more, Sam put the book aside so as not to lose his place, or worse, fall out of the window lost beyond all reach. He pulled himself forward closer to the window’s edge and opened the right side pane, this time pushing against the wind. Forcing himself to peer downward from the wide window to where he saw a rusted metal pulley fixed to the wall some three meters below the ledge. The pulley gave another of the short, sharp reports that had cut through Sam’s enjoyment of the book he’d found in the library yesterday morning.
A washing line had been looped through the wheel of the pulley, and it was tugging at the rusted fixture. Looking forward across the sheer wall, Sam followed the line of colorful sheets, shirts, shorts and socks hanging from the line that flapped in the wind. Further beyond, set into the horse’s flank at the other end of the washing line was a smaller window. Sam wondered now.
He looked away and downward past the washing line, far below the sheer wall of the horse’s side. Far across the end of the wall, Sam’s eyes gazed on the flat grasslands stretched out some thousand meters away. The perspective was disturbing. Were it not for some low hanging clouds between the end of the wall and the ground further beyond then the barely perceptible passage of the landscape sliding by would hardly be noticed. He could imagine the wall, from which his window looked out, stretching all the way down to the land so far below. The horse’s hooves lifting to a gargantuan canter across the lands.
Before risking vertigo Sam looked again back across the horse’s sheer side, along the washing line to the window opposite. It’s shutters and panes were likewise propped open. He saw blue washed walls of a room and, squinting, he could see a painting of two fish on the wall beyond. A shadow moved across the picture.
Unable to whistle, he never had been able to do so since a child, Sam cupped his hands around his mouth. “Heyyy”, he called against the breeze. “Hey across the way”, he hollered once more.
A man stepped into view at the window opposite. It wasn’t so far away for Sam to make out a deceptively young face that hid it’s age well. Tousled, mousy hair had been spiked into lighter tones and earrings hung from his ear. A bright friendly face looked up with a broad grin.
“I’m cooking!” It was a statement of delighted laughter, almost edged with surprise. The stranger waited expectantly for the response.
Sam wasn’t sure what to say. “Yes?”, he offered.
“Hotdog?”
Taken aback Sam blurted, “No”. Unapologetically brusque. The man continued to grin broadly at him.
“Maybe”. He tried again.
The man opposite nodded encouragingly then disappeared back into the room. The sizzle of sausages on a scolding skillet sliced across the divide back to Sam.
If the heading above has you concerned then you’re probably not alone, but the phrase is gaining some traction.
Following the keynote presentation on The Future of Quality, written by Goranka Bjedov and presented by Julian Harty, at this year’s PNSQC conference it was a cornerstone of the topic. Further, at this November’s QASIG Event Google’s Approach to Testing presented by Dr. James Whittaker, also spoke to the fundamental changes taking place to testing and the value of quality to producers. When the industry is changing and more momentum is perceived in a specific direction one needs to consider whether to follow the trend, zig when everyone zags, or stick with the same approach as one did yesterday.
It cannot be ignored though. When industry leaders are challenging the approach to testing software as ineffective, insubstantial and expensive those within the industry of software development, especially software testing, need to consider the future of their work or risk becoming redundant.
My key concern with this trending is the producer-centered view of quality taking greater weight and momentum than balancing with user-centered values for quality. Has the end customer become laissez-faire with the acceptance of impactful issues the software they use, especially with the mindset that such issues will probably be fixed quickly? Has the producers of such software become more obssessed with market competition, time to market, and the quick, short-term return on releasing early?
In short, has the current definition and understanding of software quality changed to the detriment of the industry as a whole? I don’t know… yet, but I am watching this trend with concerned interest.
Janus at the gates of Llwelyn Comptus
Reposted from the PNSQC.org forum
At the 29th Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference this coming October 2011 guest speaker Robert Sabourin – adjunct professor of software engineering at McGill University, President and Principle Consultant for Amibug.com, and author of ‘I Am A Bug’ – will be providing a keynote speech on ‘Value Sync’. The following discussion explores talking points about his keynote speech and gives the reader an insight on the importance of being ‘on-purpose’.
When and how did you realize the importance of being on-purpose – the ‘value sync’ – as a pre-requisite priority in planning?
Robert explained that he had always been sub-consciously aware of the principles of being on-purpose within any project effort but the importance of performing value sync came during the late 1980’s when he’d inherited a project in crisis about part way through its planned duration. The project was critical for the organization and its shareholders, and he was assigned to manage the quality assurance team at that time. He found that the testers on the QA team were especially depressed and struggling with the demands of the development team. Upon close examination Robert noted that the ideas for success within the project effort were different for various members of the project team. There was a lot of pressure to hit some sort of release date and they also felt that the software was nowhere near ready for use.
“I see that as being revealing because actually, the ideas in the heads of all the different players were very different and they were really working towards dramatically different purposes and on dramatically different schedules of value”.
Indeed, the intent of the project effort was to demonstrate to shareholders that their capital investment could be turned into new, revenue generating technologies. Neither the testing team nor the developers involved had any knowledge of this purpose and thus the necessity for realigning values was obvious. The realignment involved all members of the team and its extended stakeholders; testers, developers, project management, sales, finance, and board level were involved. The effort of synchronizing values throughout those involved brought many members of the team back from a point close to quitting. Furthermore, by establishing a stronger understanding by all for the shared value each has in the project, the value sync spurred a heroic effort that brought the test team to the highest levels of recognition by the shareholders of the company. The QA team was applauded for ensuring the success of the project and the $2.3 million it generated in new equity.
This was and is ‘value sync’, an effort to align people’s expectations for the effort in hand. As Robert explains, “Once I knew what they really cared about, once they knew what we really cared about, and we were in sync about these things then we found fantastic solutions to problems which we’d never have dreamt of if we had just tried to solve them using tactical testing techniques.”
In his keynote address for PNSQC, Robert will detail three different types of values and how those values may be revealed. He lists these as emphatic values, dynamic values and emergent values.
Why is value sync important for every stakeholder and team member?
It isn’t just cutting down barriers of communication between project members but it is really finding out what matters to everyone involved, including the customer, and then looking at those values that are at cross-purpose and eliminating them. Sometimes someone is trying to get a value out of a project that another person is trying to put in and so we have to normalize that effort in order to be effective.
“It’s almost humorous sometimes”, Robert describes, “the answer is sitting there in front of your face but because you don’t know what people value you fall back to your own default values.”
Robert’s talk will address values related to project development with case studies weaved into his keynote speech. Each case study has a twist, an unexpected lesson learned, that emphasizes the understanding for being on purpose.
Robert further describes the value sync as an all inclusive process. It involves everyone. It includes management, stakeholders, team members, support, sales, and user community. The value sync provides each individual with a better understanding of their own perception of value-expectation and with an understanding of other team member expectations involved. Once communicated openly then alignment can proceed accordingly.
Is being on purpose only relevant during the planning phase, or how frequently during a project should expectations be checked and realigned?
Robert elaborates that the habit of asking daily questions on what is still relevant or what may have changed is necessary in industry sectors subject to quick change. But, in more consistent environments, every two weeks is a fairly typical frequency. A key practice is to listen actively for any context changes. Anytime context changes then that can be a trigger for checking everyone is still on purpose. When such changes occur do people still care about the same things? No, so realign. Once achieved then one ought to have a good understanding of everyone else’s core values in the effort. Active, context-focused listening is fundamental to knowing when value sync is needed.
What combination of skills are needed to facilitate and accomplish successful value sync with everyone clear and on purpose?
Robert clarifies that during the past few years he has become cautious of using the word ‘skill’. He prefers the notion of ‘skill ideas’ to encourage others to engage in the open dialog needed for value sync. But what are skill ideas? “Well, it’s a little bit of grey hair”, Robert smiles, “I got to admit that you have to walk in there with credibility. If you don’t have credibility, you can’t achieve value sync in my experience.” He adds that with credibility one also needs to earn respect and, especially, strong active listening is more important than speaking skills. As Robert puts it, “There are beautiful reasons for things, and many people need time to tell their stories or even the right moment to tell it.”
The use of tact and lateral thinking are important too given there are so many different dimensions to realizing core values. Sometimes introducing randomizing methods to generate ideas and discussing them with others to check relevance. Furthermore, the value sync should only take a few minutes or even seconds to perform, and not months for analysis. Get the information quickly and then act on it; something that quick heuristic analysis can help people think outside the box and expose values that are important.
“I’m never worried about being complete”, Robert goes on to say. “I always listen for more but I know I’m always going to get incomplete information. Once you find it, there’s this other thing that I call ‘affinity analysis’”.
Affinity analysis is basically putting together the ideas found from one community or team with the ideas from another, and then noting the correlations and recognizing patterns in common; what is similar and what is different. Then talking with those who hold different values may help find a way to align them. Alignment can occur even if there is a disparity in values because they all care about the effort in hand which can bring them together. The task is not to get everyone to agree but rather to consider what is valued, especially when individuals hold their own reasons for different values. When those different values are recognized and understood then they are reflected in those decisions.
So, much of the effort is in helping people to draw out of themselves what they may not have already consciously perceived as a pertinent value?
“Exactly and that’s where I say; ‘ask, listen, observe.’” Robert nods.
Through asking, listening, and observing one can perceive values that are evident from behavior and not just statements. One becomes more aware of people’s purpose and intent in what they value. Purpose is very personal to individuals and, once observed, becomes a powerful insight into the motivations for their actions and efforts.
“I’ll tell you something wonderful”, he enthuses, “because I get to work with great testers all the time and the communities around us, especially organizations like PNSQC, are fantastic, experienced testers. [Such] testers are good at measuring, assessing and learning. They actually are good at a lot of the skills you need to actively observe projects. They’re just usually applying it to very technical things like a piece of software, or maybe a workflow, or a decision table, or something. But I suggest that if you take some of the really cool skills people have that they’re applying in their everyday testing, especially trying to understand emergent behaviors, they’re going to be able to get to the real cause or purpose very easily”.
Those skills found in testing, especially those needed to get at root cause through measuring, assessing and learning, are key to this process. Robert emphasizes that testers are naturally very good at this.
This approach establishes very strong communication throughout a project team and its extended participants, yes?
Robert explains that communication is tightly coupled with what happens to him when performing value sync. It’s very natural to discover the common values and finding out what people care about, and what they care about sharing with him creates good information channels as the whole team moves forward on the project path. He points out that a good side effect of performing value sync is building very good relationships and strong communication channels.
How often does a project team need to check the value of service or product under development with the baseline sync?
Robert reflects on turbulent projects since 2000; projects subject to rapidly changing requirements, or significant changes in technology, or often frequent shifts in market drivers. He explains that it is a simple question to ask, ‘Are we still in the same business today?’, and he has often found that as you walk through the door you discover you’re not in the same business as yesterday. What mattered yesterday does not necessarily matter today and, in the case of such projects, one might want to ask that question on a daily basis to see if a project team is still on purpose or in need of value sync.
Typically though, for most projects that are not subject to such fluidity of purpose, every two weeks is normal and can be conducted over lunch or in a jam session.
Is the risk of drifting expectations during a project effort, such as changing requirements, a significant modifier to those original on-purpose targets? In other words, how malleable are values to unplanned changes in the design and effort?
Robert identified that used to be the case but not so much with recent projects. “I have to say that people are trying to get things out the door so fast these days that I don’t think I see too much of that”.
But then he adds, “Also, from a point of view of value perspective, it takes a keen eye to catch that. It’s really interesting and, sometimes, politics plays into it where people want to line up with new stakeholders. Let’s say you have a boss and everyone wants to be nice to the boss, and so you find out what does the boss care about. Eventually everybody’s lined up with the boss. Of course, that’s because their ambitions seem to be to look good in the eye of the boss. Actually, a lot of bosses that I know when they notice this they basically ask, ‘what the heck is this? I hired you to be different from me!’”
Robert goes on to stress the importance of core, implicit values that one would find engrained within the environment or culture of an organization. He identifies such values as significant factors for successful enterprises. He also stresses the executive role as essential to ensuring those values are maintained consistently throughout an organization. Robert cites Toyota’s quality systems as the classic example of core values that are principle to what represents Toyota as an enterprise.
“That’s where I see that sort of management perspective; make sure our core values are passed on. Companies that I see really kicking butt and succeeding are the ones that do that very well. And those that are not succeeding are the ones that take short-term opportunities and then they build up almost exactly the same thing that we call technical debt but in the world of values.”
Or even just the kind of cultural models; Japan is a great example where quality is implicit.
Robert grins broadly. “And you said it right now, you said the word, the exact word I was hoping you would say. ‘Cultural’”.
Robert stresses the need for cultural values and expectations to be considered, especially with current off-shoring efforts. There are new challenges present in getting value sync across cultural considerations. We have to learn more about culture; corporate culture, community culture, social culture. He does not suggest that different cultures cannot collaborate but suggests instead we need to consider cultural values as part of being on purpose to ensure broader success for all involved.
Robert concludes, “I’m interested in the value sync cultural perspectives, and that’s the next generation.”
[shh, quietly now...]