Scrum, unit testing, code reviews and automated daily builds practices are not an end—they’re just the means to creating quality products, on time, every time.

These tools are but the first step in the process of creating great software.

• Using an agile methodology means that you can iterate towards a solution.
• Using an iterative model means incremental deliveries, each complete and ready for testing.
• Incremental deliveries mean continuous integration that avoids surprises later in the cycle.
• Continuous integration means frequent releases and the opportunity to exercise your entire test suite including unit tests, automated QA and the smoke test.
• Continuous testing means that you ensure quality from the start of the development cycle.

This process improves your chances of delivery high quality software, but, what about timeliness?  How long does it take your team to deliver a shippable version of a new product, from planning to production?

People, new to Agile, usually fall into a trap that makes the new process take longer than expected.  We know because we fell in it, too.  The trap scenario goes something like this,

• You decide to have three-week Sprints.
• At the end of the first Sprint, you run into a number of bugs.
• You decide not to promote the release to production.
• Instead, you plan to do a mini Sprint to clean up the bugs from the previous Sprint.
• After two weeks, more bugs rear their head, so you do another mini-mini-Sprint to clean those up.
• You finally deliver the content of Sprint 1 in six weeks instead of three.

What happened?  It seems like “Agile” takes twice as long as you originally estimated.  Unacceptable, right?

Of course, the problem is not at all with Agile, but with the fact that you’ve been doing this as a mini-waterfall: develop, then test.
To really get the benefit of using an Agile methodology, you must develop and QA in parallel.

• Execute your unit tests on a nightly basis to make sure that development is delivering quality stuff.
• QA must test every daily build.  Development needs this feedback as soon, and often, as possible.
• Development’s first priority must be to fix any bug found before continuing with anything else.
• Use Bugzilla or similar tool to clearly represents the status of every single known bug, otherwise things will fall through the crack.
• Create a version control tag for every candidate for production.

This cycle will help you deliver on time and with high quality.  Your client will be happier.  Your developers and QA folks will be happier

At Nearsoft we make sure that our Nearshore Engineers deliver on time, on budget and with high quality.

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