GOLDILOCKS - THE QUALITY ASSURANCE VERSION
Once upon a time …
What accuracy of time for historical setting/dating of this material?
How many decimal places of precision are required?
Is real-time really necessary here?
Is time-criticality a constraint on this project's development lifecycle?
… there was a little girl named Goldilocks ….
Why Gold?
Did the customers request a specific colour this early in the design phase?
Did they provide a alternate choice of colour should gold be impossible to source due to fluctuations in the world metal markets?
… who packed a picnic basket to go visit her grandmother.
What were the grandmothers’ dietary requirements and nutritional needs?
Are there anydocumented or suspected food allergies or intolerances?
Has Goldilocks taken out insurance and legal cover in case of any undetected food allergies on the part of the female grandparent?
Goldilocks set off through the forest to grandma’s house …
Why did she set off so quickly without first conducting a feasibility study into the route?
What life-cycle model is she using that suggested implementation so early?
Did she have a prior visit to base her projected arrival date upon?
Was her route and departure time based on historical data?
Had she been following an iterative lifecycle such that this visit was one of multiple visits?
If so, what improvements had been since the previous iteration?
This appears to be a logistics exercise rather than a development process.
… to deliver the basket of food.
Was Goldilocks goal-oriented and quality-driven?
There seems to be no evidence of an enabling infrastructure to help her self-actualize and fulfill her needs.
Does Goldilocks need a nurturing work environment to be truly productive?
Is Goldilocks a "one person team" and is this desirable or would a "team player" be more appropriate?
At the same time, there lived a family of three bears in the forest.
Does "same time" indicates a potential concurrent-processing problem?
Are we going to have to worry about parallelism or will time-slicing suffice?
Does our design methodology support real-time interfacing?
Which platform, operating system and programming language is best suited to developing this implementation?
The three bears were daddy bear, mummy bear, and little baby bear.
Is this a well designed, object-oriented system?
Is this hierarchy the most effective one for the application?
Is inheritance correctly used?
Mummy bear had just prepared porridge for breakfast …
Was this on her list of deliverables for the current milestone?
Could the porridge have been bought in or was in-house manufacture the most cost-effective, time-efficient solution?
… and the family sat down to eat. Unfortunately the porridge was too hot …
Had mummy bear correctly followed procedures when heating the porridge?
Is the design process at fault or were requirements ambiguous/open to misinterpretation?
What were the tolerances when measuring heat?
Were thermometers calibrated and did they measure a wide enough range?
Is there a health and safety issue here e.g. burn/scald hazard?
Should the porridge have been prepared by a specially trained operator in a suitably equipped chamber with safety interlocks?
… so they decided to go out fo a walk to let it cool...
Is this interruption necessary?
Once the team loses focus, it is difficult to recapture a synergistic mindset.
However, a change is as a good as a rest for refreshing concentration.
Couldn’t other team goals be worked on to ensure the team stays cohesive?
Why didn’t Mummy bear perform a personal review prior to conducting a peer review?
While the bears were out walking, Goldilocks chanced upon their little house and, lost and frightened, smelled breakfast and decided she was very hungry indeed.
What kinds of protection scheme for critical resources are in place?
Is there a security issue here?
Were the resources insured and is there an disaster recovery plan in place?
Why was Goldilocks lost - did she not have both major and minor milestones to keep her on track?
Why did Goldilocks wander off he critical path - was this due to inadequate analysis or forward planning?
How does she plan to recover the situation in a cost-effective, time-efficient manner?
Was the house size relevant or does it indicate that the three bears have exceeded a critical sizing resource?
Goldilocks took a spoonful of porridge from each bowl in turn and tasted it. The first bowl of porridge was too hot and too salty, the second bowl of porridge was too cold and too sugary, and the third was just right.
Interesting use of sampling techniques.
However, shouldn’t independent verification and validation be contracted to ensure that her testing parameters were realistic and customer-oriented?
Did the saltness/sweetness/temperature represent range boundaries/extremes or does the varying attributes of the porridge indicate a poor process which allows inconsistencies?
Are their provisions for other combinations of salt/sweet/temperature e.g. cold-salty?
Have test cases been properly formulated or should an individual variable be tested while others are kept constant?
After eating, she went upstairs for a nap.
Studies show that neural activity begins to decline after sustained exertion and that rest breaks promote quality and reduce rework.
Was she "power-napping"?
Upstairs, Goldilocks found three beds. The first bed was too hard, the second too soft, but the third was just right …
Is the tester qualified to test both porridge and beds?
This looks like a reusable test case, but is it correctly tailored and parameterised for beds?
A dedicated test team might be needed, with both porridge and bed domain experts available.
… so she laid down to rest. While she was sleeping, the bears returned. Daddy bear found his porridge, Mummy bear found her porridge, but baby bear discovered that his porridge was all gone!
This indicates poor allocation of resources.
Is the work breakdown structure set up to handle dynamic reallocation so that baby bear will not be the critical path?
Will the process be tailored to ensure that the other deliverables are not rejected as defective by the tester?
Suspecting something was wrong, all three bears went upstairs. Daddy bear found his bed disturbed but empty. Mummy bear found her bed disturbed but empty. Baby bear, however, found someone sleeping in his bed and he started to cry.
This is the second time baby bear has found serious defects in his personal deliverables that affect other team members’ schedules.
If this trend continues, we might have to assign baby bear some additional quality training.
In the worst case, it may be necessary to bring in a better team player and assign baby bear non-critical support activities.
Does baby bear's emotional response to a development problem indicate that he is under stress? This may explain the defects encountered in baby bear's personal deliverables. Does this health problem indicate any liability on the part of the employer?
Hearing the commotion, Goldilocks awoke with a start, and ran down the stairs, out the door, and straight to her grandma’s house.
When the bears saw the problem, did they take proactive steps to prevent a future occurrence?
Are they using root-cause analysis to fix the problem, rather than just fixing the symptom or manifestation?
Did they log the symptom, cause and preventive measures in the Lessons Learnt database?
Are they conducting trend analysis on Lessons Learnt?
More importantly, if Goldilocks knew the way under pressure, was she just slacking off early in the project or is she also suffering from stress which manifests itself in periods of amnesia?
Were sufficient key process areas in place to ensure her original schedule was realistic?
Was she revising her schedule during each iteration of the life-cycle model?
Was Goldilocks self-assessed? An independent assessor is recommended as she appears to lack discipline.
Along the way to her grandma’s house, Goldilocks ran into the big bad wolf.
Was this because she wasn't looking where she was going?
Was this on foot or in a vehicle?
Were either or both parties under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol at the time of the collision?
Are both parties insured, with no bans; did either have any eyesight problems?
Do they have collision damage waivers?
The big bad wolf was due to meet Red Riding Hood ….
Has the colour been specified too early in the lifecycle?
….but due to conflicting appointments in her organiser….
Had Red Riding Hood prioritised the correct appointment?
Was it fair to expect Goldilocks to cover for her at the expense of Goldilocks' own project milestones?
…. Red Riding Hood had transferred to Dwarf-Owned Domicile Housekeeping to cover for Snow White who was off sick having eaten an apple given to her by an elderly woman.
Was the woman's age relevant?
Was the elderly woman an approved supplier to Snow White?
Why did Snow White consume the apple before it had undergone acceptance testing at Goods In?
If Snow White was acceptance testing the apple, did she follow all safety procedures and were safety procedures adequate?
Had Snow White bypassed procurement procedures in ordering the apple direct, rather than through approved channels?
Did the apple have a Certificate of Conformity, a Concession or was it substandard?
Who was liable for the poison injury: Snow White, her employer or the person(s) contracted to supply the apple?
The wolf convinced Goldilocks to accept work for a competing female grandparent, at a higher salary with better benefits. Due to contractual obligations, the basket to the original female grandparent was delivered, however it was over-budget and behind schedule. Luckily, a source of continuing funding exists, so errors are still being fixed in Granny’s Basket release version 1.03a (for Microsoft Windows 95/98/2000/ME/NT)
And they all lived happily ever after.
Is "ever after" defined and measurable?
Is "ever after" bounded i.e. a finite upper limit?
How is happiness quantified?
Is post development support part of the original contract or a separate contract?
What conditions invalidate the "happily ever after" clause?
Is provision of happiness ever after legally enforceable by either party?