Sunday, October 31, 2010

Stop finding Defects !

Yes, please. Let's focus, instead, on "Preventing Defects".

We need to develop software faster and with better quality than ever before. We cannot afford to have an extensive "bug fixing" cycle. Finding defects towards the end of the software cycle is expensive. We all know that and yet many teams continue to do just that. This is perhaps the only industry where we tolerate that process and devote extensive time in the development cycle towards finding and fixing them. We wouldn't dream of a process like that while building houses or cars. Or even while cooking a meal at home. So why do we allow that while building software?

Could it be ignorance? Or complacence? Neither is acceptable in this day and age.

I'd like to suggest that we have tools and techniques at our disposal that will go a long way towards preventing defectings. What is lacking is belief that it's possible. Try it in the small and the belief will come.

Try BDD (Behavior Driven Development).

"Finding Defects" is an industrial age activity. "Preventing Defects" is a knowledge era activity. And in case you didn't notice, we are in the knowledge era.

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