The background of this article is to provide some problems and solutions of my previous team, all dry goods, to share.
Agile development tools
If you do not use a one-stop platform, then in agile development, team collaboration, testing and integration deployment have their own excellent tools, such as team collaboration can choose to integrate with the enterprise wechat deeper TAPD, or simple cloud, test management can use Zen tao, etc. Characteristics that I feel good team collaboration tools have in common:
- Support agile development collaboration
- Member performance statistics
- Support for team customization of workflows
- Flexibility to adjust iteration plans
- .
Use email to aid your workflow
Despite the use of good agile development tools, there is still a communication cost to constrain the operational processes of team members. Can test engineers start testing? Can O&M release the official environment? Without a clear document/email basis, if important links in the collaboration process are determined only by oral communication or wechat communication, various problems will certainly occur and it is difficult to trace, such as the following scenarios:
Suppose a version iteration on the team has been developed and is about to be delivered to the test engineer for testing… This is the dictated scene:
Front end: I have developed this function, wait for the back end to send the package you can test
Back end: I sent the package, you test
Test: Ok
Fifteen minutes later…
Test: this is a problem, back end you see, screenshot sent to you
Back end: the front end parameters passed wrong, front end you see
Front end: changed, has been sent, test you to see again
. (When similar blocking issues occur multiple times)
Problems arising:
- The development self-test is not sufficient, resulting in the failure of the main process after submitting the test
- The amount of time spent blocking, committing small changes, and being notified to test until the test runs out of smoke is unknown
- After the project is delayed, the responsibility cannot be traced and the test progress is slow? Develop technical dishes?
- Problems arise only by oral, superiors and leaders can not understand the progress of the project and the testing situation
Mail-driven scenarios:
- The detailed content of the test should be included in the email
- Colleagues and superiors have a clearer understanding of the project progress and test situation
- Clear responsibility, it is clear that the development must go through the main process in the test environment, otherwise the test will be called back and the development responsibility will be investigated
- Email aggregations and project collaboration tools provide a clear understanding of project flow and blockages
The goal is not necessarily to strengthen the collaborative process through email, but to use similar tools to avoid the information ambiguity and process irregularities that come with dictating, especially at important points in the agile development process.
If the choice is through the wechat group and @related members, one is the problem of unclear information and delivery rate, such as members did not view in time or the message is overwritten, or chat record empty and so on; 2 it is difficult to intuitive understanding to the project on schedule and scheduling, and progress, function of every module, no progress concept, for the members to the superior leadership cannot be based on the current project progress to the scheduling behind the decision, you can use the gantt chart and similar tools to strengthen this work, the development progress, task, time node is clear.
Interlocking, liability sharing
The responsibility to each team member, the overall quality can have the most basic guarantee, will not be out of the problem blame each other.
The person in charge of each level should not only focus on their own duties, but also pay attention to the overall situation, the progress of their own upstream and downstream processes, and the timeliness of information feedback and sending.
Development has the obligation to conduct self-testing in strict accordance with the main process of test cases. The main process of post-test testing does not have the right to call back the application for test submission to development. Conversely, testing has the obligation to provide test cases and review use cases to development, otherwise development has the right to reject test submission.
This is especially important in teams where bugs are a factor in development performance. Development and testing constrain each other’s responsibilities, improving the quality of work. Development reduces testing for testing, and testing also combs out requirements logic for development, reducing the number of bugs.
How should I write the test email?
Here does not say the format problem, but to elaborate a test, or online email at least to contain what content, is definitely not a sentence to send what version, what project, what content are developed so simple.
The beta email template is one of our earliest specifications, which makes it clear that the email information must include the project name, beta applicant, beta version number, beta content list, application address, beta time, code release/rollback process and other fields, and must be copied to the relevant development and upstream and downstream responsible persons or leaders.
In fact, the recipient of the mail can clearly know, what do you want me to do? When do you do it? Who should I call if I have a problem? How to deal with the problem?
You really don’t have to go online in the middle of the night
Many companies choose to update at night for the same reason: “It will have less impact on users.”
Part of the reason is that during the system restart process, users may not be able to use the situation, and most of the reason is that the development and testing work is not confident, after the release of online, there will still be such and such problems. To make matters worse, development, testing, product, and owners all had to work through the night until the problem was solved, and then all took a day off the next morning, leading to another problem with no response.
Calculate down working hours are the same, why irrational choice of release during the day, everyone easily sent the version after work is good.
On the front end, automatic deployment is a painless way to update code without interrupting user usage. For the back end, you can use a combination of Nginx and web-server for lossless publishing.
How productive a team can be without overtime
There is no doubt that 996 is definitely a bad way of working. Employees lose their good time and become unhealthy. The enterprise loses the enthusiasm of employees, reduces the team effectiveness, and also loses the overall image of the enterprise. As a result, the staff turnover is serious, which makes it difficult to recruit employees. Once hearing 996 resumes, the enterprise does not want to submit them.
So to work overtime or not how much impact on the team’s performance, the vast majority of leadership and business owners are trying to improve the staff’s working hours, reduce business costs, and actually working hours is up, efficiency is compromised, then the idea of employees in the mind is not the positive work, but anyway have to work overtime tonight, put the work in the evening to finish well.
What does a good team leader do? He will find ways to improve the work efficiency of employees instead of working hours. He does not advocate overtime, and even does not give any overtime subsidies. At this time, employees will think: This company has nothing to do with overtime, so they feel they should leave on time after finishing work. Efficiency will go up.
How to build a team
If enterprises or teams choose to organize team building for employees on their days off, it is actually a very silly practice. It is hard to please and has no effect. To exercise? Wouldn’t it be better for employees to go with their families? To have a meal? Employees also seem to have enough to do their jobs. Enhance team cohesion? This is not a team building can be done.
Group is mostly built in order to let employees get harder work, more efficient, more confident, the best way is very simple, is to “win”, with the goal of a project, perfect finish one thing, the last share the honor and the achievements of labor, the rewards of reward, the pay raise, the promotion of the promotion, This is far more direct and effective than any team-building activity.
Temporary idea, hence this article, if have improper, understand long live ❤️