I shouldn't be such a curmudgeonly troll when it comes to software tools that are supposed to make things easier for me. But I am.
- The Agile Tracking software I have used does not make things easier.
- The Bug Tracking software I have used does not make things easier.
Red Thread of Failure?
The red thread of failure, and the root of my dissatisfaction is communication, or lack thereof. Communication is munged, obscured and buried in software tracking tools.
We falsely assume because something is written down, that it is also clearly communicated. Not so.
A client said to our software team a few projects ago,
I'll summarize our discussion & queue it up in Brand X. (Brand X is tracking software)I replied,
That's fine, as long as we recognize that Brand X is where critical information goes to die.If I possessed extraordinary senses (visualize the pinball wizard from the tune by The Who), then perhaps a few cryptic lines buried in an email, or saved in a software tracking tool, would suffice.
But, This Is Easier
The forward-thinking folks at Affinety Solutions found a way to make my programming easier. Affinety founder Steve Holewa contracted me a few years ago to update parts of their software. During a flurry of recent updates, Sys-Ops expert Holly initiated sending links of short videos she had recorded using ScreenCast.com.
Holly's screencasts include narrated screen illustrations of the bugs I have caused and the nice-to-haves she has found in code I have staged for her in QA.
Two of the subtleties I like about Holly's screencasts that simply would not translate from words buried in a software tool:
- See - I can see the sequential steps she took, and the data entry she made, to re-create the bug.
- Hear - I can hear the tone in her voice as she describes an issue to judge emotional cues like urgency or frustration.
Sliced Bread
This might not be the Stradivarius of shortening the bug fix cycle, but it might be the sliced bread of subtle cues in communication that enable efficient off-site feedback cycles.
Thanks Holly.
Cues
ReplyDeleteThanks for the spelling correction Matt!
ReplyDeleteThey (Affinety Solutions) nailed it. Absolutely brilliant! I've been thinking. Why not use video to communicate development wiki content. Eg. We have a large architectural content (pretty heavy and large) that I provided on the Wiki. Hardly anyone reads it (obviously my bad.) I wish I could turn my samples and wiki faq pages to short videos. I reckon training on how to produce such videos would be far valuable than people being sent to boring Agile courses. Seing is believing! I am inspired. Thanks Bob.
ReplyDeleteErgun,
ReplyDeleteCheers mate. I wouldn't have taken the time to blog about what seems like an obvious solution to a long-time problem if I didn't find it so helpful to my day-to-day slog of bug fixes and tweaks.
Bob
PS - Liked your "Scale Matters" post http://negativematter.blogspot.com/2010/05/scale.html and the topical inclusion of the NASA images of the HUGE Gulf of Mexico oil spill calamity.
"Communication is munged, obscured and buried in software tracking tools. We falsely assume because something is written down, that it is also clearly communicated. Not so."
ReplyDeleteVery well put.
You end up with co-dependency on your tracking software.
"Man, Bugzilla is a mess. We have hundreds of bugs going nowhere."
"But look at all the great bug life-cycle and back-and-forth communication tracking we have in there. If we didn't have Bugzilla, we wouldn't have a place to track all of it!"
Is there value in tracking it? As you point out, just because it's captured doesn't mean it's clearly communicated (or useful).
Rob,
ReplyDeleteSome kind of tracking workflow is helpful. Thanks for the comment.
Cheers,
Bob.