More than a process
Once upon a time, whenever people talked about quality they talked about process. They talked about documented, repeatable process. They talked about unified process. And they talked a lot about metrics. Quality management was a synonym for being obedient, and quality was all about discipline.
But something has changed. More and more people realize now that software development is more complex than any formal process can capture. Software development is a creative activity. It involves people.
In fact, it revolves around people. Customers, developers, managers, testers, marketing people, are all part of this challenging activity. Each of them is required to be creative. Each of them has his own thoughts and opinions. All of them even have emotions.
Capturing the infinite number of interactions between all these people in a formal process is practically impossible. Trying to formalize each and every aspect of the daily work of each of these people is not feasible. Trying to bury the thoughts, opinions, intuition, and emotions of the people creating software under a formal process is dangerous.
It’s not that a formal process is not important. It is important. A process should provide a framework for people to operate in. People should know what they are expected to do, and a process is a great tool for that. But the process alone cannot make a significant change. A process is a necessary ingredient in improving quality and optimizing software development, but it is in no way sufficient.
Some software practitioners understand the relation between quality, process, and people intuitively. But others still don’t get it. For them, this whole thing sounds kind of flaky. For these people intuition, emotions, passion, satisfaction, and even professionalism have nothing to do with quality management, productivity, and business results.
And then today I came across this page. There, just beneath the ISO logo, I found a bunch of familiar and warm concepts:
Considering the needs of all interested parties including […] employees
Establishing a clear vision […]
Establishing trust and eliminating fear.
Providing people with the required resources, training and freedom to act with responsibility and accountability.
Inspiring, encouraging and recognizing people’s contributions.
People accepting ownership of problems and their responsibility for solving them.
People openly discussing problems and issues.
Providing people with training […]
Recognizing and acknowledging improvements.
Making decisions and taking action based on factual analysis, balanced with experience and intuition.
[…] balance short-term gains with long-term considerations.
…
For me, ISO was always about formal process. I guess in a sense it still is. But these quality management principles are more than that. Their spirit is different. They acknowledge the importance of the human element. They accept the fact that there are some things that cannot be formalized, but that this fact does not make them any less important to achieving quality.
I urge you to read this list of principles. Maybe you won’t find anything new in it. But I believe that reading it in the context of the formal ISO standard is thought-provoking. Or maybe just refreshing.
In any case, this list provides, once again, formal recognition to the idea that achieving business goals and creating high-quality products have everything to do with the people who are actually doing the work
posted by Kiran Kumar @ 8:10 pm
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