High Performance Software Engineering Teams

High Performance Engineering TeamsThe Technical PracticesLars ThorupZeaLake Software ConsultingOctober 18, 2011

Who is Lars Thorup?● Managing software development ● 10 years of agile practices ● 15 years of automated testing● Introducing agile and automated testing with clients● Assessing software projects and companies● Founder of 2 agile consulting companies ● 12+ senior consultants ● 10+ years

What is a High Performing Team?● Short time from getting idea to going live ● weeks instead of months or more● Faster development● Higher quality● Lots of experience from industry how to accomplish this

How to become faster?● Stop doing non-productive things! ● Manual regression testing ● Bug hunting and debugging ● Implementing more than required ● Out-of-date documentation ● Piling up bug reports ● Rediscovering of knowledge ● Working on stuff not in the value stream

How to increase quality?● Test more thoroughly● Test more often● Test cheaper

Automate!● Software companies tell their clients to automate to increase productivity and quality● This advice also applies to the software development itself!

Shorten the feedback cycle● Automate testing ● from weeks to minutes● Close collaboration between Engineering and QA ● from weeks to hours

Dont track bugs - fix them!● Real bugs are always top priority ● Fix before working on anything on the backlog● Decide if an issue is a real bug or an (unwanted) feature● Prioritize (unwanted) features into the backlog● Purge your backlog

Automate the build● Compile code and installers ● Have a visible dashboard to show status● Run tests ● on every commit ● Notify about broken builds ● Top-top priority● Deploy to internal servers ● "Stop the line" and production ● How can we prevent this type ● at the push of a button of break in the future?

Automate the testing● Unit tests ● Is the code doing things right? ● Test one piece of code in isolation● Acceptance tests ● Is the code doing the right things? ● Test the integration of all layers of code

Automated unit testing● Use a unit testing ● Track coverage for new framework for each code programming platform you ● Aim for 75% use ● ... and more for important code ● Java: JUnit ● Include on the dashboard ● C++: UnitTest++, Google Test ● JavaScript: Jasmine, QUnit ● SQL: Probably JUnit

Automated acceptance testing● Test through the UI if you must ● ...as little as reasonably possible● Test just below the UI if you can ● Use your existing unit testing framework● Consider an acceptance testing framework ● like Cucumber

Test Driven Development● Write tests before writing the code to make them pass● Not a testing technique! ● but a design technique● Makes it easy to write tests ● keeping coverage high● Makes the design flexible● Improves communication between Engineering and QA● Speeds up development

Continuous integration - Continuous delivery● Each commit to the version control system ● triggers an automated build ● triggers an automated deployment● Expect developers to commit several times a day

Collaboration between Engineering and QA● QA can test the code as soon as possible● Before it is written ● TDD collaboration ● Write automated acceptance tests● Just after it is written (same day) ● Continuous Delivery makes it available ● Exploratory testing ● Scenarios the developer didnt think about ● Make this step part of "done" for stories● Dont keep a large backlog of untested stories ● Engineering can help QA on testing if required

But: what about legacy code?● Add pinning tests ● special kinds of unit tests for legacy code ● verifies existing behaviour ● acts as a safety net● Can be driven by change requests● Refactor the code to be able to write unit tests● Add unit test for the change request● Track coverage trend for existing code ● and make sure it grows

But: "we cant change the company this much"● Yes you can! ● It requires ● Enthusiasm● Others have done it before ● Support you ● Willingness to invest ● Transparency

But: <your question here>

References● "Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation" by Jez Humble and David Farley● Local software companies following these practices with success ● Wealthfront, Palo Alto ● IMVU, Mountain View ● Salesforce, San Francisco ● Pivotal Labs, San Francisco ● ...

High Performance Software Engineering Teams

by Lars Thorup

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