3 Things You Didn’t Know Impacted Software Quality

1. Lack of empowerment

We really like this quote of Steve Jobs, where he says “You don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do, you hire them to tell you what to do”. And up till this day, we can’t believe how many organisations hire really talented people, to then tell them what and how they have to do things. Decisions can be made top down, but solutions are always better bottom up!

The top level often doesn’t fully understand the challenge or problem it’s trying to solve. But still tries to come up with solutions which then need to be implemented or developed at the bottom, who don’t really have the context of the problem and what they’re trying to solve.

Without the empowerment of a team to go out and find the best solution for a problem or challenge, you will more often that not end up with a product that only partially fixes the issue, and in some cases it doesn’t work at all.

Given empowerment, people or teams will take more responsibility and pride in the work they deliver. Leading to the right solution that’s build the right way. Ultimately leaving you with a higher quality product in general.

So, next time you want to provide a team with a solution, try empowering them instead, by giving them the problem and freedom to come up with the solution.

2. Headphones and Spotify

We’ve still worked at companies where it was not allowed to listen to music on the job. But that time has long past. With popular streaming services like Spotify and Deezer offering all the music you could ever want at the click of a button. It is now becoming more commonly accepted by companies that people listen to music. The shift to a more open desk policy has also contributed to this move, as surrounding noise can be very disturbing when performing a task that needs your full focus.

However, because people are either zoned in or are listening to their favourite tunes it makes them reluctant to get up and wall over to a colleague to ask a question. Yes, but you have Slack and Skype so you can easily ask a question we hear you say. But, it’s far from the same. We’ll tackle this in detail as it is our third topic.

Because of this hesitation to go and ask a question or have a discussion, people are more inclined to make an assumption, and create something they believe is correct. This could lead to time wasted on rework, which in its turn could introduce regression.

We’re not saying that listening to music is bad, or that it’s the main reason for bad software quality. It’s just something we’ve noticed and observed first hand in practice. So, stimulate your teams to have face-to-face discussions more often, especially if they’re sitting just a few desks apart.

3. No standardisation

Some companies and people shun the idea of standardisation, fearing it will limit their flexibility and freedom. But this is far from true. Standardisation is a must if you want to consistently deliver quality, time in time again.

We have seen companies that moved away from technology and coding standards, only to realize after a while it’s not possible to maintain, support or even finance a wide range of technologies. Let alone integrate with them. The freedom they thought would give them more flexibility, in reality introduced more complexity and had an impact on the quality and delivery of software.

The sole purpose of standardisation is to provide a structure that actively eliminates defects caused through variation. It might seem rigid at first, but once you see the benefits, it’ll become clear that standardisation in some areas of software development is a must.

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