Chopsticks

Last week, I met David Putman of Exoftware.  We were both attending Mary and Tom Poppendieck's Lean course in Scotland.

At the end of day 1 we went out for dinner at Wagamama's - a noodly sort of place.

I was sitting opposite David admiring his x-p-something-or-other t-shirt when he pointed to one of Mary's as-yet-unused chopsticks and said, 'Imagine this chopstick is a project.  This end represents the start of the project and this end the finish'.

start --------------------------- finish

I examined the chopstick and said  okay.

'Now', he said, 'where abouts on this project timeline would you least like to find defects?'

I looked closely at the chopstick.  Is this a trick question?  Obviously the worse place to find defects is near the finish of the chopstick - err project - when the cost of reworking the code is highest and you've got the least amount of wiggle room to recover.  I pointed to the finish end of the chopstick and said 'Here!'.

start --------------------------- finish 
                               ^
                             here!

He nodded and I quietly sighed in relief.  There was no trick.

'So', he continued, 'How do you find defects?'

'By testing', I said. 

'And, when you plan your waterfall projects, when do you plan to do the testing?'

start --------------------------- finish 
start -analysis-design-code-test- finish 

'At the end', I said, pointing to the spot on the table where the chopstick had been, since Mary had reclaimed when her first dish arrived.

'So', he smiled, 'You PLAN' - he emphasised the word plan - 'to find defects at the worst point of the project, when you are at your most vulnerable and the defects are the most expensive to fix?'.

'Um, yes, I suppose so', I said, before pointing out that I've recently "reframed" myself as an unemployed writer and "planning" simply doesn't fit with my Bohemian lifestyle anymore.