In this episode Federico and Matthew talk about how to apply a concept from lean manufacturing to rethink the processes of software development. Taking the real example of a “Regression Run” they discuss how to dissect the process to identify waste that the team can then drive to eliminate.

News

• Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2 released.

The process of a regression run and the waste associated with it

• For our team, a regression run is the automated execution of tests that where written for features released in previous releases.
• For every process, the question to answer is “what does the customer wants for this process”?
• If we think of a regression run as a process, we can define that what the customer wants from it is to be able to install a new version of the product and have his/her applications continue to work as before.
• The goal of a regression run is then to find breaking changes for the customer.
• Waste is any activity that does not add value to the outcome of the process. In the context of a regression run it could be any activity that did not identify a breaking change for the customer.
• Types of waste
• Waiting. Time spent waiting for results, for a tool or for fixes.
• Unnecessary analysis. Analyzing a failed test that was not caused by a breaking change.
• Over analysis. Analyzing a test that ensures higher quality than necessary.
• Time of analysis. Time spent between receiving a result and identifying the breaking change.
• Unused creativity. Creativity of the people that could be used to improve the process.

Instead of thinking about identifying and enhancing the value-add activities, you could work on identifying and eliminating the non-value-add activities.