Comments on: Moving away from an inspection/repair culture http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/ a blog about information Fri, 19 Mar 2010 09:20:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Fit Vibes » Blog Archive » When is a Metric not a Metric… http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-136198 Fit Vibes » Blog Archive » When is a Metric not a Metric… Wed, 23 May 2007 13:52:45 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/#comment-136198 [...] Commented on his blog about the inspection/repair culture.  I did reply however I suspect it was seen as a naïve response.  Let me clarify what I mean [...] [...] Commented on his blog about the inspection/repair culture.  I did reply however I suspect it was seen as a naïve response.  Let me clarify what I mean [...]

]]> By: Bill Barnett http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-136133 Bill Barnett Wed, 23 May 2007 10:50:03 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/#comment-136133 A basic set of metrics to track velocity and quality are really important. Without them you can't tell how well you are performing, and you can't assess the impact of changes you make to the team or the process. However, you are right, Andy, metrics are a slippery slope, and someone has to keep the organization's never-ending hunger for new statistics in check or you'll spend way too much of your capacity trying to measure your capacity in new and ever-finer-grained ways. :) Also, just to be clear, I don't have a problem at all with peer code reviews. You can get a tremendous amount of cross team learning by having other practitioners walk through selected areas of the system. (Although I still think Pair Programming, which is part a real-time code review, is infinitely more effective in this). What I'm concerned about is that we are turning our practitioners into specifier/reviewers. Giving a coder some responsibility for reviewing the work of others doesn't bother me; it probably gives everyone a better perspective on the work they are doing themselves. Giving their coding work away, and leaving them only with auditing responsibility -- *that* gives me the shivers. A basic set of metrics to track velocity and quality are really important. Without them you can’t tell how well you are performing, and you can’t assess the impact of changes you make to the team or the process. However, you are right, Andy, metrics are a slippery slope, and someone has to keep the organization’s never-ending hunger for new statistics in check or you’ll spend way too much of your capacity trying to measure your capacity in new and ever-finer-grained ways. :)

Also, just to be clear, I don’t have a problem at all with peer code reviews. You can get a tremendous amount of cross team learning by having other practitioners walk through selected areas of the system. (Although I still think Pair Programming, which is part a real-time code review, is infinitely more effective in this).

What I’m concerned about is that we are turning our practitioners into specifier/reviewers. Giving a coder some responsibility for reviewing the work of others doesn’t bother me; it probably gives everyone a better perspective on the work they are doing themselves. Giving their coding work away, and leaving them only with auditing responsibility — *that* gives me the shivers.

]]> By: Andy Thomas http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-136029 Andy Thomas Wed, 23 May 2007 06:52:45 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/#comment-136029 Intersting points indeed on the outsourcing. Not that I believe we should have no measures for what we do, they are important ways of tracking progress (or not), however to pick up on the point JP makes I believe we spend too much time gathering data and gernerating metrics to satisfy one audit/mgmt need or another. When is a metric not a metric? When it states something that can be easily seen without them. If we spent as much time fixing issues/bugs as we do proving with metrics that they exist I'm sure we'd get more done. Intersting points indeed on the outsourcing. Not that I believe we should have no measures for what we do, they are important ways of tracking progress (or not), however to pick up on the point JP makes I believe we spend too much time gathering data and gernerating metrics to satisfy one audit/mgmt need or another. When is a metric not a metric? When it states something that can be easily seen without them. If we spent as much time fixing issues/bugs as we do proving with metrics that they exist I’m sure we’d get more done.

]]> By: Kevin http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-134949 Kevin Sun, 20 May 2007 23:54:23 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/#comment-134949 Bill's commend of "we are outsourcing the roles from which we grow the next generation of experts" really hit home. I've been involved with "onshoring" for quite some time on the Evolving Excellence blog, even moderating a panel discussion on it at Kellogg last weekend. See http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2007/05/a_tide_against_.html Many reasons for not outsourcing were brought up... keeping knowledge in house, leveraging faster cycle times, etc. But not what Bill brought up. The generational, or knowledge generational, impact of outsourcing could be monumental. Kevin Bill’s commend of “we are outsourcing the roles from which we grow the next generation of experts” really hit home. I’ve been involved with “onshoring” for quite some time on the Evolving Excellence blog, even moderating a panel discussion on it at Kellogg last weekend. See

http://www.evolvingexcellence.com/blog/2007/05/a_tide_against_.html

Many reasons for not outsourcing were brought up… keeping knowledge in house, leveraging faster cycle times, etc. But not what Bill brought up. The generational, or knowledge generational, impact of outsourcing could be monumental.

Kevin

]]> By: Bill Barnett http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-132892 Bill Barnett Wed, 16 May 2007 20:28:30 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/#comment-132892 Our global sourcing models fly directly in the face of this movement. We are arbitraging labor markets, sending work far away to teams who are disconnected from our corporate cultures and imperatives, and finding that we can't rely on them to deliver high enough quality deliverables. so we take our smartest, most skilled practitioners and turn them into reviewers and auditors. I've been concerned about this for while because we are outsourcing the roles from which we grow the next generation of experts -- so it doesn't seem very sustainable. but now you've got me thinking about the corrosive effect of transforming folks from doers to auditors. ouch. Our global sourcing models fly directly in the face of this movement. We are arbitraging labor markets, sending work far away to teams who are disconnected from our corporate cultures and imperatives, and finding that we can’t rely on them to deliver high enough quality deliverables. so we take our smartest, most skilled practitioners and turn them into reviewers and auditors. I’ve been concerned about this for while because we are outsourcing the roles from which we grow the next generation of experts — so it doesn’t seem very sustainable. but now you’ve got me thinking about the corrosive effect of transforming folks from doers to auditors. ouch.

]]> By: Jackie Danicki » The rise of mediocrity http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/comment-page-1/#comment-132260 Jackie Danicki » The rise of mediocrity Tue, 15 May 2007 00:09:21 +0000 http://confusedofcalcutta.com/2007/05/13/moving-away-from-an-inspectionrepair-culture/#comment-132260 [...] JP Rangaswami has words that are music to this measurement skeptic’s ears: We need to keep examining what we do: every time we promote an inspection/repair culture, we tend to implement safety nets; the safety nets encourage slipshod behaviour, and soon we find that all we are promoting is mediocrity. [...] [...] JP Rangaswami has words that are music to this measurement skeptic’s ears: We need to keep examining what we do: every time we promote an inspection/repair culture, we tend to implement safety nets; the safety nets encourage slipshod behaviour, and soon we find that all we are promoting is mediocrity. [...]

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