Checklists can help catch issues in the early stages of any type of project. The trickiest part may be determining a ‘Pause Point’. A Pause Point is a place where it makes sense to stop and take a look at the work that has been done. Perhaps it is a point where pain has been felt in the past, or a spot where there is going to be a hand-off technology wise. It is an opportunity to ask questions – have I forgotten anything? Does this output make sense to you? What do you think of how I handled this obstacle? Do I have my spear?
Once a Pause Point has been determined, the checklist doesn’t necessarily need to be complete to get started. Start reviewing the designated work. Apply your area of expertise, and start at a high level of analysis and drill downward. If the work needs analysis from another area of expertise, show it to someone who can provide that expertise. Get those eyes on it. Get that feedback. Create a checklist.
Experience tells us that there will be challenges that have not been accounted for. Obstacles routinely pop up during development. These unforeseen hurdles often lead to redesigns, workarounds or even new development in order to accomplish the original task. Using a checklist may have induced the right line of questions that could have exposed the issue prior to development. Adding the scenario to the checklist will can prevent it (and others) from happening again.
The point is this – document what you can at every opportunity. It does not have to be a novel. Just write it down. Now we are creating a list of items to check. This list will become a living document, so every time we reach this Pause Point we have a resource to check that ensures nothing is forgotten or missed and anything new can be added for future reference.
At ToolBox Solutions, we plan out manual testing for certain stories in every sprint. There is the potential for a checklist to guide each one of these tasks. We create tasks to pair with the Product Owners and Quality Analysts whenever it can provide value and ensure we are on the right track. These pairing tasks can both produce new checklists and enhance existing ones.
It’s simple. Checked or Unchecked. Yes or No. That’s it.
Tags: Development methodology, IT, software solution
Great blog. Taking a pause moment is the right approach to managing development.
Keep it simple and clear – and always make a list…love it.
Check lists are a great tool at work and in every day life. There’s a great app for the iphone that I use regularily called WunderList which syncs your list with other peoples lists so you can work with someone else on your check list.
Great insight. Similar concepts are useful in category management in order to produce growth in a category – doing certain things at the right time. A checklist would certainly help.
This process provides a great way to ensure the end user has a robust error free experience using the service!
It sounds like it should be so obvious, a simple check list but it is overlooked so often. People sometimes think good process adds a lot of time but invariably it saves time. Great post!
Potential limits of human memory and attention make it necessary to have a checklist. It helps to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task.
Let’s take a minute to pause….
Yes, that’s right. It is very important to have the Pause Points when working on projects as an opportunity to digest, rework and make a checklist of those ideas and concepts we develop during brainstorming sessions of a project. This is a form of regression testing, essential for product quality and client satisfaction.
Great Blog!
Remembering to check and then pause is a great. repeatable process that lets us catch things earlier on in the cycle, reducing time, effort and money in the long run.
Wow. I’ve heard it before, and in many ways it’s common sense – but as the saying goes, common sense is rarely common.
I think the idea of a ‘pause point’ is brilliant. And not just in software development – when doing any task. Often, we do it on instinct for many of our common tasks – why do we leave it off on some important ones?
Done getting your groceries? Pause Point. Leaving the house? Pause point. Just finished a marathon coding session and about to push? Go straight to Prod. Love it.
Introducing pause points, and ensuring there is contingency incorporated into the plan will certainly aid success and help mitigate the many potential pitfalls.
These are core practices for great development.
It is astounding how easy it is to miss something if you don’t take a second to step back and look around. It doesn’t have to take long either.
Barrier to entry is often a blocker for fully testing something complex. Meaning if an individual or a team has to pick up an equally complex piece of testing software then configure it, document the use and workflow of it, store tests in some fashion that matches no matter who is running it – can be cumbersome. In the end though the questions are simple – did it do what it was supposed to do, and how was the user experience? A checklist gets the first part done with almost no barrier to entry, the second becomes a byproduct of how manageable the checklist is over time.
I’m all for checklists as they are extremely useful and prevent us from skipping over necessary steps.
It’s hard to figure out everything that could go wrong in advance. I like your idea of ‘pause points’!
I think it’s important to understand that some projects may need multiple ‘pause points’ compared to others…not because they are failing but rather because they are more complex, require a number of inputs and in general, just need to have more attention to detail.
Great Post.
Quality is so hard to maintain with ever moving deliverables.
Taking a pause moment to review your work is helpful not only with eliminating the possibility of carrying errors through a project but also helpful with projecting the interactions with future tasks to ensure the project is unfolding as planned
Something always gets missed when you’re going to fast, pausing for a moment and reflecting is just good practice.
The Pause Point is an interesting concept, and I can see how benefical it would be to identify issues early