CSK needed 2 runs off the last ball to win the match against RCB. The bowler made a mistake, allowing CSK to score the runs and win the match with 1 ball to spare.
9. The Engineering time elapsed between UI Freeze
and RTM was high to support various languages
The Internal customers needed more flexibility to
make late changes to the UI
External customers always happy with more
languages to be supported. More often a race
against time to support many languages.
10. Did we need a formal Process improvement program to
resolve the problems we were faced with ?
Going ahead with Lean Six Sigma
Getting trained on the Philosophy and various Lean Six
Sigma tools
11. The Kaizen event- Attacking of problems by stakeholders
from Globalization Development, Test, Localization
Engineering and Translation.
Coming up with the Key Process Improvement projects
Implementation of the high priority projects. Creation of
necessary tools.
12. Integration of the key process improvement projects in
the overall workflow
Projects following the DMAIC cycle
Usage of Lean Six Sigma tools
13. Why do we test ?
What is the role of Automation in testing ?
Can Software testing really benefit from the formal
process improvement techniques?
14.
15. Detection of bugs
before customers do
Helps facilitate Quality
Makes Development
process Productive
Helps facilitate Product
specific decision making
Why
do we
test ?
22. Never treat Test group in Isolation
Establish flow. Create a culture of Internal
customers
Drive from the top
Define the measurement system at the outset
23. Change brings discomfort.
Limited applicability in
Core Research based
projects
Can have challenges
implementing in
New technology areas
- The prime reason why Process Improvement industry thrive is because Human beings are not perfect. The rate and scale of mistakes may vary from individual to individual but the human beings are designed to make mistakes, some repeat the same, some commit new ones. But basic premise remains that We are creature of mistakes.
- Process Improvement programs help Reduce human mistakes Reduce variance Add more predictability
- It is not a forum to overly showcase a successful case studies and singing praises of how good we did. I wont even have a results slide - It is also not a means to share nitty-gritties of Lean Six Sigma Anyone who claims that he can teach Lean Six Sigma or any process improvement methodology in 20 minutes is either a Genuis or a liar. Most likely the latter. I am neither.
- It is about sharing a journey but... More than that about sharing how that journey helped us rethink the meaning of testing. - It is about sharing this journey that was more an exercise in managing a complex change but... More than that about sharing how that journey break our own "Thai Elephant Syndrome" and look beyond. When a Thai Elephant is small, its trainer ties one end of the rope around the elephant's leg and the other end to a rigid pole. The baby elephant tries to sever this rope and set itself free, but the rope is too strong for a baby elephant. Eventually it gives up. Even after Elephant becomes a three tonner, the mahout continues to use the same rope. The reason is, as a baby elephant it is conditioned to think that it cannot break the rope. The Elephant does not realize the awesome power it now has. This story is not only true of Thai Elephants only but also has a striking resemblance with the way us humans think and act. I feel one of the reasons why people fail to take risk or choose to stay safe in life is because of the passive thinking that is strangled like the giant leg of Thai Elephant. So, the next time your mind wanders and tells you that you are not capable to do something, just ask yourself- "Am i strangled from my past thoughts like the Thai Elephant ?" Nothing is impossible! If you think you can, you can! Beat your fears, Insecurities and back yourself to do the new. Just break-away from those imaginary shackles from the past.
Process Improvement, in essence is a competency. The education in formal techniques can provide more discipline, new tools, and fresh ideas to supplement the grass-roots expertise currently on the team. Three significant production and business process improvement methodologies have been formalized over the past forty years or so. These include Six Sigma, Lean, and Lean Six Sigma. 5 As can be guessed, Lean Six Sigma is a hybrid merging techniques from both its parent models. Lean focuses on elimination of Waste. Six Sigma focuses on reduction of variation and defects. Its principle advantage over Six Sigma is that it can be implemented faster, because it does not rely absolutely upon precise measurement, which is a cornerstone of Six Sigma. On the other hand, its advantage over Lean alone is that it directly incorporates some of the valuable, holistic philosophies of Six Sigma, whereas Lean alone is more of a specific technique used to apply Six Sigma. Lean Six Sigma appears to be an appropriate choice for Globalization Services to study and apply to its own processes. This choice will be confirmed as further research and training are completed. When using Lean and Six Sigma concepts together, it allows to improvise your processes in a better way and you concentrate on both the aspects(elimination of waste and reduction of variation). Applying Si Sigma alone to a complex process does not allow to eliminate the Non value add activities and applying Lean alone does not give you a perspective of measuring your process capability and reduce defects. For example: Usage of Pareto analysis for CPR count in UI Kaizen event gave us an insight into which bug category is contributing more to the CPR count and doing Value stream mapping allowed us to do 5 Why analysis to get to root of the problem. The Globalization Services team should assign a leader responsible for managing a disciplined and holistic program of process improvement. This leader should coordinate and prioritize process improvement projects at the highest level and directly lead specific cross-functional improvement projects through virtual teams. The leader and virtual team leaders should all become trained in Lean Six Sigma and then champion the techniques’ use by the rest of the Globalization Services organization. By far, the largest and most complex, cross-functional process that the Globalization Services team can impact is the software localization process. This process encompasses a large number of activities performed by Globalization Services including internationalization for localizability, UI translation, and testing. Identifying and incorporating breakthrough improvements to the UI globalization process should be a significant focus of process improvement over the next three years. Lean concepts Kaizen event Value stream Mapping(Current, Future) 5 Why analysis Six Sigma concepts Pareto Analysis SIPOC diagrams Fishbone Diagram(in Centralized Packaging) DMAIC model followed in all the projects Control charts(in LMS) Value stream mapping is a lean manufacturing technique used to analyze and design the flow of materials and information required to bring a product or service to a consumer. At Toyota, where the technique originated, it is known as "material and information flow mapping" It can be applied to nearly any value chain. Training should be associated with Continuous reinforcement
DMAIC refers to a data-driven improvement cycle used for improving, optimizing and stabilizing business processes and designs. The DMAIC improvement cycle is the core tool used to drive Six Sigma projects. DMAIC is not exclusive to Six Sigma and can be used as the framework for other improvement applications. DMAIC is an abbreviation of the five improvement steps: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. All of the DMAIC process steps are required and always proceed in this order: Lean concepts Kaizen event Value stream Mapping(Current, Future) 5 Why analysis Six Sigma concepts Pareto Analysis SIPOC diagrams Fishbone Diagram(in Centralized Packaging) DMAIC model followed in all the projects Control charts(in LMS)
The nature of the work conducted by the Globalization Services organization was truly engineering based and was functional in definition. For the rest of this paper we would see how this journey helped us reassess these fundamental questions around testing and evolve our own answers.
The nature of the work conducted by the Globalization Services organization was truly engineering based and was functional in definition. For the rest of this paper we would see how this journey helped us reassess these fundamental questions around testing and evolve our own answers.
The value from Software testing itself can be viewed from different perspectives – it helps find defects before our customers find it, it helps make the development process productive, it helps provide information to the stakeholder so that they can take product specific decisions, it helps facilitate quality (but not infuse quality in product) and so on.
The adoption of Lean Six Sigma philosophy, among other things, renewed the focus of testing from “just” detection to prevention as well. Most of the tools offered by Lean Six Sigma approach required us to be looking at the overall process in an holistic manner, question the various aspects of the existing process and inculcate the thinking that “any waste in the process should be eliminated”, and hence prevented. What we learnt that while focusing on preventing defects is one of the fundamental philosophies that we should adopt (and eventually did adopt) but due to the inherent complexity of the software, involvement of diverse teams, culture, different technologies- it is not possible to prevent each and every defect that can arise as a result of Software development process. Prevention can happen only on the more predictable defects that keep coming with every release. Basic concept of Lean is elimination of waste. Example of Value Stream mapping and doing 5 Why analysis helped us identify the waste in the process. Examples of some bugs
The nature of the work conducted by the Globalization Services organization was truly engineering based and was functional in definition. For the rest of this paper we would see how this journey helped us reassess these fundamental questions around testing and evolve our own answers.
As we ventured into our journey of formal process improvement, the meaning and the goals associated with Test automation also evolved. The earlier approach towards test automation involved that there is a right priority associated with where we needed to invest i.e. All complex test setups must be automated. Product build verification tests should be automated as next priority. Product functional tests should be automated next. The priority framework was good but was based on some fundamental assumptions and they were- The Test automation should assist in “Detection” process. The role of Test automation was more in making the execution of tests efficient than really helping in detecting the bugs.
So, the Test automation thinking was earlier more based on Detection philosophy. With the advent of changes that came in through the formal process improvements, the role of Test automation further bifurcated as follows- Test Automation for Defect prevention. Test Automation for Defect detection. Test Automation for driving efficiency/saving time. To elaborate further, Test Automation for Defect prevention focused primarily on developing the necessary tools and armory that eventually helped eliminate defects of common types from happening. The charter for Test Automation for Defect detection represented tools and scripts that could help find defects in more complex areas of testing. These did not necessarily represent a sequential sort of UI automation. Test Automation for driving efficiency/saving time was somewhat similar to the automation that was done before but this was more disciplined now. There was a good focus on the question- The tests that being automated- do we need those in first place or could we do away with executing those tests altogether?
The nature of the work conducted by the Globalization Services organization was truly engineering based and was functional in definition. For the rest of this paper we would see how this journey helped us reassess these fundamental questions around testing and evolve our own answers.
Any process improvement philosophy that treats Software testing or any group in isolation is bound to be less effective than the one involving more holistic involvement for various integrated groups. It is essential to draw a picture of how the deliverables of one group impacts the other and the flow of activities or value generation at various phases are understood well. Any process improvement philosophy works very well if and only if it is driven from top management. Such programs work well with a very well defined process goal and better tracking/measurement systems in place. Depending on the scale of Process improvement program, the necessary Organizational changes need to be brought in for achieving speedier execution. Good process improvement programs have well defined roles. Someone needs to play a role of devil’s advocate.
Some of the areas, where Lean Six Sigma can be challenging to reap benefits in include- Change brings discomfort and not everyone equally brought in. For more Research based (creative) projects- Such projects are non-linear and non-workflow based and hence are more individual talent based. The areas where there are new technologies introduced are not quite predictable in nature. One can’t lean something you don’t know about and that’s what the new technology areas actually are.
With this basic premise in place, we could observe the following advantages of adopting Lean Six Sigma. It helped us in Institutionalizing Innovation. i.e. rather than relying more on Individual based Innovation, the opportunity areas were more visible for the team to develop innovative solutions. The usage of process improvement tools helped in speeding up Root cause analysis and solution finding. It helped us in driving team synergy in a matrixed, global world. With the team located in many countries, the adoption of Lean Six Sigma could help us drive the shared vision effectively. It helped us add more discipline to our overall approach to continuous improvement. It helped us build more accountability to the process. Less focus on Individual heroism. Helped to look at the problem as seen by Customers First identify the notion of value and then the Value stream People are trained to look at their work as processes Attain perfection through Continuous Improvememnt Six Sigma: Aligning Voice of customer to Voice of the process There is always a variation in the process but some variation is outside the range. Six Sigma helps to find the reasons of unacceptable variation.
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