| Truly embrace asynchronous work | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/truly-embrace-asynchronous-work.aspx | Truly embrace asynchronous work | <p>In 2020 we experienced the most significant office exodus that forced people to work at home. Many of them found enough strength to resist the temptation of PlayStation and figured out ways to reclaim their time, focus, and get a massive load of work done. Isolation has one great advantage as it provides an opportunity for
<b>uninterrupted productivity</b>. No manager can barge into your home office to schedule an impromptu status meeting. The time you spend working is genuinely yours. </p><p>The forced isolation is now over and we can choose our workplace. Some have remained at home while others return to the office for various reasons, such as having kids at home or their spouse being a manager. Having part of the team work on-site and part working remotely comes with its own challenges, but more on this hybrid scenario later.</p><h2>The return to the office</h2><p>Forcing people back to the office may backfire. They have gotten used to controlling their schedules and are reluctant to go back to the old days. Remote work has become popular and opened borders, so looking for a new job, even abroad, is easier than ever. The same applies the other way around: you can hire talent everywhere, not just in your office's physical location.</p><p>One argument for returning to the office is that people have better working discipline there than at home. It's up to anyone to decide which place has more disruptions and choose accordingly. Looking at a typical modern office with table footballs, drum hero sets, and four dogs chasing each other in a gigantic shared open space where people without noise-canceling headphones are doomed is debatable, at the very least. But it all boils down to trust. Do you trust your employees to work productively without a manager behind their backs? If not, you should be more considerate about hiring decisions rather than where people choose to work.</p><p>Adapting and allowing office and remote worlds to coexist makes a lot of sense: let people work from where they feel the most productive, and they will reward you with doing exactly that. It's OK that it still might be the office for some. You can benefit from the advantages of remote practices with part of the crew on-site and part remote. Some refer to it as a hybrid approach, but that’s not entirely on point.</p><h2>Asynchronous practices</h2><p>Let's rip the band-aid off quickly. There's no hybrid approach! Only an environment where applied asynchronous practices enable cooperation between on-site and remote people. Nothing else in between makes sense, as it only leads to the neglect of one group or the other. The same conditions and rules must apply to everyone, regardless of location. Asynchronous practices not only help connect the two worlds but also significantly improve productivity for office work. Here are a few tips.</p><p><b>Create and maintain a calm environment</b> so people can focus and not be disturbed for as long as they wish, regardless of the physical location. At home, we often set rules for when we don't distract each other. Why can't we do something similar in the office, the place set up for work in the first place?</p><p>Set boundaries and don't tap on people's shoulders if you need something. Imagine the person next to you is working from a different country and you can't contact them physically. Approach them asynchronously. If they don't reply, chances are they are focusing on something and the last thing they'd want to do is pause everything and talk to you in person. Don't rip people away from their thoughts because of your fantasy of urgency. It might not be as pressing as you perceive it to be.</p><p>The same rules apply to online space: don't go around your messaging app and expect people to react instantly. Some managers abuse those tools as an utterly unnecessary control mechanism to check if people are working. The chat app is not where the work gets done. Feel free to turn it off if you need to focus on something more substantial. </p><p><b>Knowledge must be shared</b>. It's far from enough that it's been said in a meeting room. Verbal knowledge sharing is a no-go; remote people will be clueless and office people will forget. You must define and learn to use a well-known single source of truth. If you fail to do so, you only create space for assumptions and friction.</p><p>Plenty of project management software is here to help but choose wisely. If you don't, you will end up with three different messaging apps and another three for documentation, design, and progress tracking. That makes the single source of truth, well, not that much single. It also further invites an opportunity for focus disruptions.</p><p>
<b>Knowledge must be comprehensive</b>. It doesn't suffice that it's written. Not only do others have to understand what you meant, but also your future self. Try to put yourself in your reader's shoes and re-read your writing. Does it answer questions, or does it raise more than it's necessary? </p><p>Some people, often those responsible for technical analysis (or writing horoscopes), think adding an obfuscation layer to the natural language is a great idea, making them sound more professional. What ends up happening later is that some poor soul has to decipher the gibberish leading them to a quest to find the original scroll with the ancient knowledge. This is work, not a role-playing game. If you expect a human to read what you wrote, write like a human.</p><p>
<b>Leave people alone to do their work and share well-written knowledge. </b></p><p>The practice imposes extra discipline on a team, but you won't want to return once you start seeing the benefits. I'd go to great lengths to argue that you should opt for those rules even if your whole team works on-site. Let's now address the two remaining elephants in the room.</p><h2>Meetings and managers</h2><p>Meetings and their human equivalent, managers, are the two most influential relics of the old age and arch-nemesis of uninterrupted productivity. There is still a place for both, but the sooner we forsake the established office routine, the smoother the transition to an asynchronous and productive world will be.</p><p>Programmers work by organizing the thoughts they later output in the source code form. They often do that independently of each other and commit work additions asynchronously, so remote practices feel closer to them and accepting them is more straightforward. Managers, on the other hand, might feel out of their element in this asynchronous world.</p><p>Managers do not directly create value. Their most significant addition is removing barriers for the workers that do. A good manager shields others from the irrelevant to allow them to spend as much time as possible doing what they do best. Let designers design and programmers program. There's no value in keeping people verbally hostage in a meeting, but there is great value in doing the opposite.</p><p>This requires a mind shift, but there's a silver lining once you realize you employ self-organized people who don't need micromanaging and can work without much oversight. This shift frees managers and allows them to focus on the topics where they might contribute to the process meaningfully. There is no room for ego and certainly not for the illusions of authority—forget the management manuals of the 1990s. </p><p>People don't go around wondering who, for instance, van Gogh's project manager was. On the contrary, some jokingly speculate the famous painter cut off his ear when he received a letter with yet another meeting invite. But little did he know that meetings might also make sense in an asynchronous work environment.</p><p>There's just a different approach to organizing them. Instead of summoning a group of 15 people into an hour meeting, it can go like this:</p><ol><li>Write an agenda and briefly summarize the reason for the meeting.</li><li>Then write questions asking for answers that can solve some specifics.</li><li>Send out these questions. </li><li>Wait for answers.</li><li>Don't have the meeting.</li><li>Repeat.</li></ol><p>Organizing your thoughts using the written word helps you understand the issue and alleviates the fear of the unknown. It creates newly found insight that you can easily share as a valuable contribution. Writing down a problem forces you to understand it comprehensively. This process can sometimes be done independently without wasting the time of others.</p><p>In some cases, however, a synchronous meeting can be more productive. A quick pair programming session or a chat with a designer is practical now and then. But limiting the number of participants to those concerned with the topic is as essential as avoiding full-team calls where three-quarters are just muted passive spectators doing their laundry in the next room.</p><p>Could it really have been just an email? It might not be in some cases, and that's fine too. But be honest about your intentions and don't take other people's time off their hands lightly. Think twice if conducting numerous meetings isn't just a way to give the impression of being occupied. Time spent in a meeting is the time not doing the actual work.</p><h2>Writing</h2><p>The backbone of remote work is writing. The ability to express your thoughts is essential regardless of your position. It's a craft that gets better and easier the more you do it, and opportunities to practice are plenty: toots, tweets, daily standups, project READMEs, and even chat messages.</p><p>
<b>You can also write a blog post for your company!</b></p><p>Writing is also a transferable skill. You can change a team role, a company, or even an industry and still benefit from writing well. No one can take that away from you.</p>
<br> | | #productivity;#team-collaboration | | |
| How flawed motivations can derail Agile transformations | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/How-flawed-motivations-can-derail-Agile-transformations.aspx | How flawed motivations can derail Agile transformations | <p>Agile transformation has become a buzzword in the business world. Companies are eager to jump on the bandwagon and adopt Agile methodologies. The belief is that Agile transformation will increase productivity, efficiency, and speed, simplifying everything and making it faster. While this can be the case when done right, if the sole motivation for Agile transformation is focused on these outcomes and the company has a delusional idea about how difficult it will be to achieve them, things will go south. It's always a lot bumpier than anticipated.</p><p>This post is part of a series about the most common Agile transformation pains, as I've witnessed them in the organizations around me. This series focuses on the top-down hindrances. </p><h2>Speed, efficiency, transparency</h2><p>What's incorrect about the motivation mentioned above? Don't efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, flexibility, and speed embody the characteristics that the Agile culture promises?</p><p>In my view, the reason it falls short is that it lacks a crucial and integral aspect of Agile methodology, which is the concept of <q>failing fast</q> and promptly identifying and showcasing obstacles and challenges impeding progress. A true willingness to find problems sooner and improve collaboration must also be an integral and true part of the motivation.</p><p>The misconception I mentioned is problematic because it creates unrealistic expectations for what agile can achieve. Agile is not a quick fix for organizational problems. It's rather a fundamental shift in the way a company operates. It is a way of working that requires collaboration and a willingness to adapt. Everyone, including the senior management, must be willing to collaborate with teams to improve the environment for Agile work. The whole motivation stems from the belief that problems are caused by the disorganization of teams and wrong organizational structures.</p><h2>Transformation project - its end is just the beginning</h2><p>Regrettably, Agile transformation is often viewed by management teams as a silver bullet solution to a company's organizational issues. They mistakenly perceive it as a short, one-time investment that will provide immediate and long-lasting benefits. This misconception can lead to an overly simplified approach to Agile transformation, which does not consider the ongoing effort required to sustain it. Agile transformation requires continuous effort and commitment from both management and the teams involved.</p><p>Many managers mistakenly believe that adopting Agile is as simple as calling it a transformation project, allocating a budget, giving the project a fancy name, hiring consultants, and conducting a bunch of trainings. They think that these actions alone will suffice to achieve the transformation and their job is done. People just pat themselves on the back for renaming project managers as scrum masters and officially closing the transformation project. And then they sit back while the teams <q>self-organize</q> and Scrum Masters magically remove all obstacles. But that's not how it works. </p><p>Organizations often face structural and systematic problems that impede their agility. Every company has some - just their depth varies. These issues can manifest in various ways, including overly complicated organizational and decision-making hierarchies, dependence on inflexible technologies, convoluted deployment procedures, and rigid approval processes, just to name a few typical ones. </p><p>For example, a company that releases software updates twice a year with numerous dependencies, code freezes, centralized testing, and lengthy development-testing-acceptance loops will likely encounter significant obstacles when adopting Agile methodologies. The legacy processes and technology stack may be quite incompatible with Agile workflows, making it a challenge to achieve the desired level of flexibility and speed.</p><p>These inherent problems won't magically vanish during an Agile transformation - they'll just become painfully obvious and urgent. The good news is that teams will finally feel comfortable talking about them and trying to tackle them head-on. Problems will be found everywhere.</p><h2>Beware of creating a Potemkin village</h2><p>The flipside is that if this is not expected to happen, the whole transformation won't work. One must be willing to hear the <q>bad news</q> and be ready to make proactive decisions.</p><p>After years of simply accepting the problems, teams will suddenly start shouting from the rooftops about these issues, and senior management needs to step up and work with them to make the workplace more agile-friendly. If they don't, teams will remain stuck in a rigid environment. Everyone will just call himself with a new title, such as product owner or Agile coach. This reorganization is likely to be seen as <q>another waste of money</q> and a failure, with many concluding that <q>Agile doesn't work</q>. A Potemkin village.</p><p>All levels of an organization need to be ready to face these challenges and work together to find solutions. A decision to adopt Agile is just the first step. Even the managers must be ready to roll up their sleeves and get involved in identifying and solving problems that arise during the transformation. It's a team effort, and everyone needs to play an active role. The more complex the business structure is, the longer the whole transformation will likely take. This is an ongoing process that is unlikely to ever come to a complete end. But the deciding factor is if there's actually a will to start and keep undergoing an uncomfortable change.</p><p>One surprising fact about Agile transformation is that it might lead to more bureaucracy if not implemented correctly. For example, suppose a company adopts Agile without addressing underlying issues such as convoluted decision-making processes or rigid approval procedures. In that case, it may inadvertently create more bureaucracy by adding more layers to the process. This is because Agile requires constant communication and collaboration, and if these processes are not streamlined, it can result in even more delays and inefficiencies.</p><h2>True motivation: A sense of security</h2><p>In my experience, failed attempts at agile transformation often stem from a common underlying issue: a lack of trust. This can manifest in various ways, such as a tendency to monitor and control teams closely. After one such transformation I've seen teams being required to share their sprint commitments, burn-down charts, and velocities, and then having to explain themselves when they don't meet those metrics. This happened at the senior management level.</p><p>Such reporting activity created a false sense of security by prioritizing the appearance of stunning charts and numbers on paper rather than the actual value of the work being done. The focus was on keeping commitments rather than questioning the sense of those commitments and the overall plans. Needless to say, what was missing was a critical examination of the actual business value of the effort invested and the value of the things developed. So it was quite obvious what the true initial motivation for Agile adoption had been.</p><h2>Do you really want to go Agile?</h2><p>In conclusion, Agile transformation can be a powerful tool for organizations looking to improve their productivity, efficiency, and speed. However, it is essential to approach it with realistic expectations and a willingness to address underlying structural and cultural issues. Agile transformation is not a quick fix or a one-time investment but requires continuous effort and commitment from all levels of the organization. Managers must be ready to roll up their sleeves and work with their teams to identify and solve problems that arise during the transformation. </p><p>Furthermore, it is crucial to approach the transformation focusing on business value and not just metrics and appearance. So, before embarking on the journey of Agile transformation, think twice and ensure you are willing to fully commit to the process. Going Agile is about being able to react more fluidly to changing business circumstances, isn't it? If there's little willingness to address the underlying issues that hinder progress, what's the point of identifying them in the first place? That by definition hinders the fluidity from happening.</p><p>If fundamentally changing an organization, including its core cultural, technical, and process aspects for the better, isn't the honest motivation, then maybe it will be more comfortable to maintain the status quo and save the embarrassment that an attempt to perform an Agile transition would inevitably bring.</p> | | #agile;#productivity;#project-management;#release-management;#scrum;#team-collaboration | | |
| Challenges of Agile Development with Fixed Contracts | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/Challenges-of-Agile-Development-with-Fixed-Contracts.aspx | Challenges of Agile Development with Fixed Contracts | <p>In today's fast-paced business world, clients are constantly seeking the best of both worlds: the flexibility and speed of agile development, as well as the perceived safety of fixed-time fixed-price contracts. This trend of blending agile delivery with fixed contracts is becoming more and more prevalent as clients aim to find a balance between agile freedom and contractual security.</p><p>One potential reason behind this trend is that clients may be hesitant to enter into a lease agreement with a development team and instead opt for a fixed-time contract. This uncertainty may stem out of the unknown, a belief that a fixed contract offers more security for the scope of work, doubts about the supplier's ability to deliver on the agreed scope, or the client's own internal processes that prevent them from entering into such agreements.</p><p>This post covers such a hybrid model from the supplier's perspective.</p><h2>Uncovering the pitfalls</h2><p>When implementing an agile approach with a fixed-time fixed-price contract, a common structure involves a product owner from the client company. This dynamic can bring its own unique challenges as the supplier company is bound by the scope and price outlined in the contract, with the product owner significantly impacting the return on investment. In this scenario, trust is of the utmost importance as the supplier must rely on the product owner to make well-informed decisions regarding the project's direction and priorities.</p><p>One of the main risks for the supplier associated with this approach is the potential to deviate from the contract scope. Suppliers may want to do so to accommodate the client's requests and be more agile. However, as the contract is legally binding, the client may take advantage of this deviation and exert pressure on the supplier team. This poses a significant threat to the project's financial success as the supplier team may have already allocated budget towards items requested and discovered during the course of the project, leaving the client in a position of power and potentially exploiting the supplier team to the detriment of the project's outcome.</p><p>Furthermore, the typical behavior of a product owner in this situation is to focus on completing one feature area (epic) before moving on to the next rather than maintaining constant prioritization. This can lead to the desire of perfecting everything before progressing, causing further delays to the project and potentially damaging the supplier's budget. On the other hand, suppliers may have to fit the project budget at all costs, resulting in a loss of quality. The combination of both phenomena can be deadly.</p><h2>Balancing Flexibility and Control</h2><p>Balancing the complexities of agile development within the constraints of a fixed-time, fixed-price contract can be a challenging task. From a supplier's perspective, effectively balancing the benefits of agile delivery with the security of a fixed contract requires a strategic mindset from the very beginning. One common trap is for the supplier to overestimate the control of the product owner over the project scope without involving the development team in the process. To avoid this, it is essential to engage in ongoing negotiations about how newly prioritized items will affect the original scope and what to deprioritize. </p><p>The main motivation of the business relationship described is to deal more effectively with unplanned and unexpected work. Maintaining transparency about unplanned scope items that have been delivered and what needs to be exchanged is crucial. By implementing these practices from the beginning, the mindset of "trading" one item for another can become ingrained in the team's nature and working style.</p><p>It's also vital that the client understands from the outset that while an agile approach brings added flexibility in making the product more relevant and potentially better, it does not equate to a wildcard for obtaining more for less. The responsibility for decision-making goes hand in hand with this approach and must be made clear by the supplier's team. Furthermore, involving the development team in the process is crucial to ensure that the project stays on track. The team should be responsible for providing rough estimates of newly discovered items, allowing the product owner to make more informed decisions about prioritization.</p><p>Ultimately, managing scope in fixed-time fixed-price contracts relies heavily on a mutual understanding between the client and supplier. Therefore, honesty and transparency are crucial for the success of this approach. The supplier must provide realistic and accurate estimates for newly discovered items and be transparent about any obstacles or issues that arise during the project. Tracking development velocity may also be beneficial. In return, the client must be honest about their expectations and priorities and be willing to make trade-offs to keep the project on track.</p><p>Building trust through honesty and transparency is key to the success of this approach. Furthermore, having a solid understanding of the client's business and goals can help the supplier team to better align the project's scope and priorities with the client's needs and anticipate any potential roadblocks or challenges that may arise during the project.</p><h2>Make the contract work in favor</h2><p>Navigating the choppy waters of agile development with fixed contracts may seem like a breeze at first, but in reality, it takes a steady hand and discipline to steer the ship toward success. Creating a successful contract for agile development with fixed-time fixed-price contracts requires a balance of flexibility and control. As a supplier, it's important to approach the contract with a defensive mindset, taking into account that clients may not always be upfront about their expectations or try to expand the scope. Here are some key points to keep in mind:</p><ul><li>Be cautious when crafting the scope and contract, being aware of scope items that are prone to inflation, and carefully formulating them in the contract. Clearly state that anything outside of the scope is considered a change request, and anything not explicitly mentioned is out of scope.</li><li>Use the difficulty of defining a comprehensive scope in an initial contract to your advantage by stating that nothing not explicitly mentioned in the contract is included, which can level the playing field and motivate the client to be fair when trading new items for the original scope.</li><li>Create flexible payment milestones that can accommodate changes in the scope and maintain cash flow. For instance, the milestones can be triggered once a scope worth X gets finished.</li><li>Describe the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders from the client, such as the product owner, key users, and testers, to ensure smooth and efficient communication and decision-making throughout the project. This includes specifying that decisions and feedback must be provided quickly to avoid delays and blockages on the supplier's end.</li><li>Such definition should include the process for acceptance and sign-off of scope items throughout the duration of the contract, rather than waiting until the end of the project to ensure efficient progress and increase transparency.</li><li>Clearly define general acceptance criteria for scope items and require a continuous client testing and acceptance process throughout the project.</li><li>Keep in mind that the client company may try to enforce delivery of the entire defined scope while diminishing the value of the items developed extra, and make sure the contract reflects that.</li></ul><p>In conclusion, while combining agile development with fixed-time fixed-price contracts can be tricky, it can also offer benefits for both parties. The contract should be viewed as a framework, keeping the development team working within a certain timeframe. The supplier should be mindful in formulating the scope items, making it specific enough for the client to have an idea of the product but not so strict that it limits the supplier's flexibility. Furthermore, trust and open communication between the client and supplier are vital in ensuring the project's success. It's important to be prepared for the fact that the client may try to enforce the original scope and to write the contract with that in mind. It's important to remember that the contract should serve as a backup plan in case things don't go as planned. But from experience when a contract gets pulled out and evaluated along the project, it is a telltale sign that the project is already in severe trouble. Thus the primary focus should be on building mutual trust through transparency and honesty. This approach is the most effective for successful long-term project outcome for both parties.</p><p>Still, there is no doubt that using a traditional agile delivery contract by hiring a team of experts is usually more beneficial for all stakeholders than adopting a hybrid approach when the situation allows.</p>
<br> | | #agile;#project-management;#release-management;#scrum;#team-collaboration | | |
| Architectural missteps in view, presentation, and navigation | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/architectural-missteps-in-view-presentation-and-navigation.aspx | Architectural missteps in view, presentation, and navigation | <p>Every system and architecture tackles the test of time. It's an unfair battle, almost impossible to win. That doesn't mean we should surrender and hack unsustainable components without the ambition of longevity. We must develop them to deal with this challenge gracefully and try to defer the inevitable as long as possible.</p><p>Nothing lasts forever, though, especially in a fast-moving industry like mobile app development, and some missteps are bound to bubble up along the way. Let's define the most common and explain possible ways to avoid them.</p><h2>Overly logical view</h2><p>Let's start with an obvious one, an arch-enemy to any solid architecture<span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:roboto, sans-serif;color:#0e101a;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">—</span></span>a view that does way too much.</p><p>The view is an excellent, self-describing name for a software component. Its purpose is <i>to view</i> what's happening inside the system in a user-comprehensive, preferably friendly way. It renders to the screen, listens for content updates, and delegates events to someone else to handle.<br></p><p>When there's a need for an extensive user-interface redesign, it's the view's role to step up, take all the heat, and keep all the vital bits of the application unchanged. It's a straightforward process, as no important presentation or business logic gets in the way.</p><p>That's an example from an optimal world where the view is a thin layer that does just the minimal job it should. Yet some programmers complicate the layer with additional logic, like persistence, state management, or navigation. Those should have their foundation elsewhere, and it's no surprise that dealing with all this extra complexity might prolong redesign estimates from a few days to a couple of months.</p><p>As system and platform designers, Google or Apple aren't leading by example either. On the contrary, they encourage programmers to place too much weight on their views' shoulders by providing them with components that require such an approach. One example for all: the FetchRequest property wrapper, defined in SwiftUI, fetches entities straight from the Core Data store. To quote usage from docs: "<i>Use a FetchRequest property wrapper to declare a FetchedResults property that provides a collection of Core Data managed objects to a SwiftUI view.</i>" Ironic slow clap for encouraging programmers to couple views with data storage.</p><p>There are plenty of wolves in sheep's clothing, so keep your guard up and remember<span style="color:#000000;"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:roboto, sans-serif;color:#0e101a;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;">—</span></span>just because you can doesn't mean you should. Your view should preferably not do much. The thinner the view layer is, the better. UI tends to change quite often, and keeping the view layer lean is a good practice for making swift and safe changes.</p><h2>Almighty view models</h2><p>As part of the presentation layer, view models are responsible for formatting content for the view and handling its events. It should be a comprehensive component, a little helper for the view, listening for changes, and handling presentation logic that lightens the load for the view.</p><p>Usage varies per project, but typically, it observes an application's state, transforms it into user-presentable data, and notifies the view. Unlike views, they are independent of UI frameworks, which makes them easily testable. That's not just icing on the cake but a massive step towards robustness.</p><p>However, they are often misunderstood and create a cesspool for what didn't fit elsewhere. So it happens that they handle business logic, navigation, and all other bits that don't have an official place elsewhere. Some scoundrels even compose requests and deal with networking! That's wrong on many levels; it defies the separation of concerns and tries to fit multiple components into one. This misplaced logic is not reusable and complicates further development on top of that. Such view models span hundreds of lines and compel us to recall massive view controllers from the Objective-C era.</p><p>Overly bloated view models are often present in architectures designed by proponents of MVVM who, in naive pursuit of simplicity, argue that three-layered architectures should easily cover all needs. Simplicity is, without a doubt, one of the goals, but the multi-hundred-line view model is anything but simple.</p><p><b>MVVM is not an architecture.</b> It's a pattern describing how to structure the application’s presentation layer. It would be unwise to build a complete application around any pattern. Why should MVVM be an exception?</p><p>Should you find yourself struggling with where to put something in codebases where the MVVM pattern serves as an architecture of the whole system, you might be on the right track. Navigation, networking, business logic, and many others don't have a well-defined place in incomplete architectures. You can lift the burden from view models with proper <a href="/Blog/Pages/application-domain-modeling.aspx">domain modeling</a>, define a spot for all those other concepts, name them, and be one step closer to a clear and comprehensive design.</p><h2>Lost in navigation</h2><p>In the early days of mobile application development, we didn't emphasize navigation much. Widely adopted architectural patterns such as MVC or MVP didn't have a letter in their name designated just for navigation, so we solely used system components such as UINavigationController, Activity, and Fragment, respectively, Storyboard segues. But these are massive system frameworks mainly “designed” for UI presentation. Their basic use complicates the view and further couples with the interface builder (used for scene designing) in the worst case.</p><p>Fortunately, things have gotten a lot better in the last few years, and with architectural enlightenment have come plenty of new designs. Some have even had their opinion or designated components on how to handle navigation. That's how coordinators, wireframes, flow controllers, and so on came to be. However, extracting the navigation into its place has revealed issues hidden in plain sight, such as sharing data between the screens. Some architectures do address this, but it is often neglected or misunderstood, so state propagation becomes another navigation responsibility.</p><p>The state dramatically complicates the situation for everyone involved in navigation. It must be obtained from the call site and passed to the next scene, which decides where to store such an incoming state. And it doesn't just end there. Once you wish to return to the previous scene, you need to take the state back with you and decide whether or not to replace the last one. That doesn't sound very easy, even for small-scale apps; imagine making sense of this in an app with hundreds of screens.</p><p>When you take a step back, however, you will notice that it is not so much a question of navigation. The problem is in state propagation and its coupling with navigation. <a href="/Blog/Pages/swift-ui-and-architecture-state.aspx">Decoupling state to its place</a> significantly improves usability, testability, and simplifies navigation. It also makes it clear as to who owns the state and where the source of truth is.</p><h2>Architecture-agnostic</h2><p>The post might seem to focus more on a separation of concerns than architecture, but those two go hand in hand. Once you realize the bloated multipurpose components are too hard to tolerate, you start to look for something more cultivated than three-word patterns dressed as architectures. More layers do not equal more complexity. They bring order, and clarity, and leave no place for presumptions (which lead to unwelcome pull-request surprises and heated discussions).</p><p>The resulting product is not the only and most important value we produce. By making the software genuinely soft, we can deliver continuously, with the same effort, and in the long run. That's an essential feature valued in any field by any business.</p>
<br> | | #architecture;#view;#presentation;#navigation | | |
| Application domain modeling | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/application-domain-modeling.aspx | Application domain modeling | <p>Software projects are about telling computers what people want to do. Programmers are the ones who speak the computer language, but
ordinary people aren't predestined to think and communicate the way a computer does. They are usually good at telling what they want to
achieve and what is the purpose. Then it's the programmer's task to translate the purpose into computer language.</p><p>This arrangement leads to an unintended limitation. When a person needs to tell something to a computer, they need a programmer. When
people need information about computer behavior, they need to ask a programmer. Programmers are a bottleneck in this process.</p><p>But what if we can design the project so the code is understandable even for ordinary people?</p><h2>Enter the domain</h2><p>A domain is a part of every project that does the important things. The business logic resides there together with industry rules and
policies. The domain must be articulated unambiguously for everyone.</p><p>The domain shouldn't be too technical. There should not be transactions, exceptions, wrappers, or gateways. Ordinary people do not
understand these terms but need to understand the domain. Although programmers understand these technicalities, they are ambiguous, and
two programmers may imagine a different mechanism under these terms.</p><p>The domain should be full of real-world objects. We should see purchase orders, money amounts, other people, or actual goods. These
objects can be virtual, like card transactions, but need to be recognizable to everyone.</p><p>Kotlin exhorts for readable code. This is one of its main characteristics. And we can use it to model our domain.</p><p>The real-world objects are usually modeled as <span class="pre-inline">data class</span> with read-only properties. Any modification
needs to be done by a generated <span class="pre-inline">copy()</span> function that prevents unintended state updates or
inconsistencies.</p><p>Some objects or data items like Social Security Numbers are so simple that one may tend to represent them as a primitive type like <span class="pre-inline">String</span> or <span class="pre-inline">Int</span>. This is good for program efficiency, but a person may
unintentionally swap it with some other information of the same primitive type and introduce a severe error. To overcome this, we may
introduce a <span class="pre-inline">data class</span> to wrap the information and give it a unique type. This will work, but its
overhead may consume an unacceptable amount of resources when used at a larger scale. Kotlin <span class="pre-inline">value class</span>
is a great fit for such use cases. It assigns a unique type to a simple data item while still keeping its memory footprint small.</p><h2>Domain actions</h2><p>Domain objects are important, but they are useless unless we can take action with them. A purchase order is to be placed or canceled. A
parcel with a new pair of shoes is to be shipped or claimed. And we need to model these actions as well.</p><p>The first thing is the name. <span class="pre-inline">Action</span> in programming is quite an overused, and generic term and it does not
work well for us. Some teams name them <span class="pre-inline">Interactor</span> others use the term <span class="pre-inline">UseCase</span>, or <span class="pre-inline">Actor</span>. We will use the term <span class="pre-inline">UseCase</span>
for the rest of this post.</p><p>A use case is defined as a single function with explicit input and output. Use cases have no state and can be called multiple times.
Let's try to define them in Kotlin. </p><p>It would be nice if a <span class="pre-inline">UseCase</span> may have a single input and single output so we can define a base type for
all use cases with inputs and outputs defined as generics. But in the real world there are actions that may have more inputs, so this is
not feasible, is it?</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">class FindDriverUseCase {
fun execute(position: Coordinates, destination: Coordinates)
}
</code></pre><p>This approach will work technically, but it does not tell the whole story for people unfamiliar to the context.</p><p>Introducing a specific type for use case input will actually help to understand the context and works as an extension point for further
feature evolution.</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">class FindDriverUseCase {
fun execute(input: PotentialRide)
}
</code></pre><p>Great, after using this approach for a while, you'll realize that some use cases have their input and output optional. That's fine,
Kotlin has built-in nullability in the type system, doesn't it?</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">class FindStoresUseCase {
fun execute(input: Country?): List<Store>?
}
</code></pre><p>The use case finds all our company stores. We may want to get a list of all of them or to filter them by a given <span class="pre-inline">Country</span>.</p><p>The definition of input as <span class="pre-inline">null</span> on the use-site is not very understandable in this case. Also, it is hard
to guess what <span class="pre-inline">null</span> as returned result actually means. A little bit more modeling will fix this:</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">sealed interface For {
object AllCountries: For
data class SingleCountry(val country: Country): For
}
sealed interface StoresResult {
object NotAvailable: StoresResult
object OutOfSync: StoresResult
data class Available(val stores: List<Store>): StoresResult
}
class FindStoresUseCase {
fun execute(input: For): StoresResult
}
</code></pre><p>It seems to be a good idea to deny the value <span class="pre-inline">null</span> as use case input or output at all. Let's introduce a
base type and force the generics to be based on <span class="pre-inline">Any</span> that effectively forbids <span class="pre-inline">null</span>:
</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">interface UseCase<in Input: Any, out Output: Any> {
fun execute(input: Input): Output
}
</code></pre><h2>Actions namespace</h2><p>Quite often, we have a few use cases working with similar objects:</p><p><span class="pre-inline">SubmitPurchaseOrderUseCase</span>, <span class="pre-inline">CancelPurchaseOrderUseCase</span>, …</p><p>These class types may quickly pollute the project's namespace and make it hard to navigate.</p><p>We should try to group them somehow under a shared namespace. Kotlin doesn't have support for namespaces (<a href="https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-11968/Research-and-prototype-namespace-based-solution-for-statics-and-static-extensions">yet</a>).
We can supersede it by grouping the use cases under a single <span class="pre-inline">sealed interface</span> for this purpose. You can
use <span class="pre-inline">sealed class</span> or <span class="pre-inline">object</span> as an alternative, but the memory footprint
would be slightly bigger.</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">sealed interface PurchaseOrderUseCase {
class Submit { … }
class Cancel { … }
}
</code></pre><h2>Kotlin call site</h2><p>Now let's look at the call site:</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">val purchaseOrder = PurchaseOrder(...)
val submitPurchaseOrderUseCase = PurchaseOrderUseCase.Submit()
val result = submitPurchaseOrderUseCase.execute(purchaseOrder)
</code></pre><p>We can polish it with a little trick called Invoke operator. When a Kotlin function named <span class="pre-inline">invoke()</span> is
marked as <span class="pre-inline">operator</span>, its invocation may be replaced by the use of <span class="pre-inline">()</span>
operator.</p><p>When applied to our base type</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">interface UseCase<in Input: Any, out Output: Any> {
operator fun invoke(input: Input): Output
}
</code></pre><p>the call site can be simplified to</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">val purchaseOrder = PurchaseOrder(...)
val submitPurchaseOrder = PurchaseOrderUseCase.Submit()
val result = submitPurchaseOrder(purchaseOrder)
</code></pre><p>Notice the use case instance name change, where the <span class="pre-inline">UseCase</span> suffix has been omitted, and its invocation
now looks like a standard function call. If it is used in an obvious context, we may shorten the use case instance variable name even
more and call it simply <span class="pre-inline">submit(purchaseOrder)</span>.</p><h2>Swift call site</h2><p>Until now, we were only calling our use cases from Kotlin code. On Kotlin Multiplatform projects, it is common to share the domain logic
between all targeted platforms. Let's check how a use case may be used in another language. We will take the example of a mobile
application implemented both for Android in Kotlin and iOS in Swift.</p><p>First, let's try to call it the same way we do in Kotlin.</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">val submitPurchaseOrder = PurchaseOrderUseCase.Submit()
val result: SubmitResult = submitPurchaseOrder(purchaseOrder)
</code></pre><p>This code has two major problems. The invocation operator is unavailable, and the result is not of type <span class="pre-inline">SubmitResult</span>.
Let's start with the latter one.</p><h3>Swift generics</h3><p>Generics in swift are available only for <span class="pre-inline">class</span>, <span class="pre-inline">struct</span> and <span class="pre-inline">enum</span>. A very similar thing for <span class="pre-inline">interface</span> is called associated types, but
its characteristic is incompatible with Kotlin generics.</p><p>This is why Kotlin Multiplatform has Swift generics support only for classes. To fix this in our project we need to define our base type
as an <span class="pre-inline">abstract class</span> instead of an <span class="pre-inline">interface</span>. This is actually not an
issue as its implementations are classes anyway:</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">abstract class UseCase<in Input: Any, out Output: Any> {
abstract operator fun invoke(input: Input): Output
}
</code></pre><h3>Swift function invocation</h3><p>Now let's fix the former problem with use case invocation. Swift language doesn't have an invoke operator like Kotlin. Instead, it has
methods with special names, and one of them is <span class="pre-inline">callAsFunction()</span> that can be called with the use of <span class="pre-inline">()</span> symbol.</p><p>We may introduce this function to our use case base type but that may be confusing for use from Kotlin common code or Android code.</p><p>To make it available for iOS code only, we will provide different implementations of use case base type for Android and iOS using
Kotlin's <span class="pre-inline">expect</span>/<span class="pre-inline">actual</span> feature. Its implementation just delegates the
call to our standard
<span class="pre-inline">invoke()</span> function.</p><pre><code class="kotlin hljs">// Kotlin Common
expect abstract class UseCase<in Input : Any, out Output : Any> constructor() {
abstract operator fun invoke(input: Input): Output
}
// Kotlin Android
actual abstract class UseCase<in Input : Any, out Output : Any> {
actual abstract operator fun invoke(input: Input): Output
}
// Kotlin iOS
actual abstract class UseCase<in Input : Any, out Output : Any> {
actual abstract operator fun invoke(input: Input): Output
fun callAsFunction(input: Input): Output = invoke(input)
}
</code></pre><h2>Living documentation</h2><p>The domain is a part of every project that actually does the important things. When modeled properly, it suits so-called living
documentation. It is understandable for any reader; anytime a logic is changed, the documentation also changes. </p><p>Anytime you find a piece of domain code that is not understandable, let's take a moment and polish it. Your future will be grateful to
you.</p><p><br></p><p>Pavel Švéda<br></p><p>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/xsveda">@xsveda</a><br><br></p><br> | | #domain;#architecture;#kotlin;#swift;#multiplatform | | |
| Unexpected bad practices | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/unexpected-bad-practices.aspx | Unexpected bad practices | <p>Some programming practices are so familiar to us that we use them automatically without much thought. Sometimes these techniques become obsolete; sometimes they are applied in the wrong context. Addressing such poorly experienced habits is often met with revolt. Especially by those who use them and perceive the topic as useful, so let's do exactly that!</p><h2>Marks</h2><p>Programming IDEs often recognize specific types of comments to help navigate across the codebase. Xcode’s
<i>FIXME</i> lets other developers know that a piece of code deserves more attention.
<i>TODO</i> is helpful when something is, well, to be done.
<i>MARK</i> differs from the previous cases; it serves a documentation purpose. The same feature in IntelliJ IDEA/Android Studio is called region.</p><p>Marks divide the source code into multiple parts using headings. That can make the code appear broken into logical units. If you are a reader familiar with the former Objective-C era of iOS development, know that this is just an updated
<i>#pragma mark</i> directive.</p><p>Typical usage is in files with a large number of lines.
<i>Marks</i> create the illusion of clarity by breaking them into pieces that supposedly belong together.</p><p>
<b>The usage of marks in such cases is a bad practice.</b> Developers often abuse them to justify a file being too big. One should not depend on Xcode to make the code comprehensive and readable. Small and well-decomposed classes are more straightforward to reason about and navigate without IDE features. Especially for pull request reviewers using the web interface where those features are absent.</p><h2>Extensions</h2><p>Modern programming languages such as Kotlin or Swift allow you to extend classes, interfaces/protocols, structs, or enums to provide an additional implementation. You can divide your code into multiple pieces using extensions to outline what belongs closer together. Another usage is to make a convenience extension around another type you might not even own to make its use more intuitive. The possibilities are almost limitless. This isn't always a good thing, but first, a peek into history. </p><p>Extensions existed way back in Objective-C as well. If you're not blessed with experience with programming in such a language and had to guess the name for extensions, you'd likely be surprised. It's Categories! Another surprise is that Extensions are a thing in Objective-C too, but serve different purposes. What's interesting is the difference between both languages. Categories in Objective-C forced the developer to come up with the name. That's why files named in style
<i>Class+CategoryName.swift</i> are often used even for Swift extensions. And more importantly, to use Categories, you had to import them explicitly.</p><p>
<b>Extensions in Swift are an unnamed piece of code.</b> Such code may be more complicated for the reader to grasp. If multiple extensions of the same type exist, adding a name to the code and wrapping it in a type might help readability immensely.</p><p>
<b>Improper extension of widely used types causes namespace pollution.</b> It's critical, before creating extensions, to ask whether all instances of the type should have such an ability. Should all UIViews have access to a blinking method? Does one specific subclass of UIView make more sense?</p><p>Some developers use extensions to break down the implementation of multiple protocols: which might also be a warning sign. If a class implements many protocols, it may be time to consider splitting it into smaller classes.</p><p>For trolls out there: you can make your co-workers mad by extending
<i>UIView</i> with
<i>translatesAutoresizingMasksIntoConstraints</i> and watch them compare it with
<i>translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints.</i></p><p>But don't.</p><h2>Comments</h2><p>The ability to write comments might lead undisciplined programmers to create code of poor quality. Unfortunately, it's easier to neglect to name a variable and describe what's going on in my head with a complicated but not-so-clear comment. Easy should not be our goal. Brevity and clarity should.</p><p>
<b>Great comment for poorly written code is still a code smell.</b> Don't just take my word for it. Robert Martin states: "A comment is a failure to express yourself in code. If you fail, then write a comment; but try not to fail."</p><p>Another reason is as the code lives in the repository and is modified and refactored, its behavior might change, and its name can express it everywhere it is called. But its comment is rarely updated and may become more confusing than helpful.</p><p>Documentation comments serve their purpose very well when you're designing an API for others to use. Remember that the API needs to stand by itself, and clarity is the priority. Don't use the documentation comments as an excuse for a lousy design.</p><h2>Structure</h2><p>The structure of a project is one of the first things you see when you check out a codebase, and it should outline the app's purpose at first sight. However, it is not an exception that some projects have folder structures inspired by the layers of architecture, e.g., View, ViewModel, Model.</p><p>
<b>Project structure based on architecture layers is a bad practice.</b> It makes reusability effectively impossible. Navigating through such a structure is unnecessarily complicated and becomes harder to maintain as the scope increases. It doesn't scale. Folders inspired by the architecture might have their place, not just at the top level. It should not be the first thing you see.</p><p><img src="/Blog/PublishingImages/Articles/unexpected-bad-practices-01-01.png" data-themekey="#" alt="" /> </p><p>See for yourself, what structure tells you more about the application?</p><h2>Dependencies</h2><p>Open source offers many libraries to simplify life, from UI components through networking to dependency injection solutions. It can often save a great deal of time and effort. On the other hand, this carries various dangers and limitations; using third-party libraries requires discipline, order, and balance.</p><p>
<b>Randomly scattered third-party dependencies significantly reduce robustness.</b> Shielding the core of the application and using the libraries from the outer parts of the architecture helps mitigate the risk. Abstraction eases the process of replacing one library with another.</p><p>It's OK to utilize 3rd party dependencies, but with caution. Ask yourselves: How much time will it save me? How much effort will it take to replace? Can I install enough defense mechanisms to protect the application? </p><p>The silver bullet to protect your app, though sometimes tricky or impractical, is to have the import of the dependency in only one place.</p><p>We've had the pleasure of taking over multiple apps that were impossible to maintain anymore due to this problem. Without abstraction, no longer supported (or closed sourced) libraries disintegrated the codebase. External dependencies should never hold your product hostage.</p><h2>Tests</h2><p>Test-driven development is a programmer's good manners, a discipline overflowing with benefits. Technical impacts are a blog post by itself, if not a series. Non-technical impacts such as easy onboarding of new team members and executable documentation that cannot become obsolete speak for themselves.</p><p>Yet they are often neglected. A complete absence of tests is the apparent first and most common violation, followed by writing tests after the production code, which mitigates all the benefits and introduces other obstacles.</p><p>
<b>You must write unit tests first - before production code.</b> Testing first will prevent you from creating code that's too complex. It will guide you through building components of the right size. The big classes are challenging to test, and the tests will direct you to decompose them into smaller ones.</p><p>Tests written after production code are inherently lower quality and can even be misleading. Unless you write the production code as proof of the first failing test, it is impossible to say whether the tests assert what they declare. It is then questionable how well such tests protect the system under test.</p><p>If you write tests after implementation, you may find a component challenging to test, which is impossible with a test-first approach. You can't create untestable code!</p><h2>The devil's in the detail</h2><p>Even the mundane can be harmful if we do something too automatically and with less attention. Challenge the ordinary and seek bad practices that you wouldn't expect.</p>
<br> | | #xcode;#swift;#kotlin;#productivity;#team-collaboration | | |
| Development rules for better productivity | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/development_rules_for_better_productivity.aspx | Development rules for better productivity | <p>Each project has its own rules for development. Most often, these rules describe development practices and work with a version control
system (VCS) that outlines how to test and deploy the product, the structure, the architecture of the project, and the code style, but
the rules can also include the basics of secure development and more.</p><p>These rules can be unwritten but are usually defined and recorded in a shared space where everyone has access to them. Yet more important
is how these rules are applied and enforced in practice.</p><h2>Wise men know it best</h2><p>Some people believe that pair programming or code review is an appropriate platform for rules revision. Participants can agree on the
application of the rules or change them based on context. When developers approach this conscientiously, the result can be a project
that may not be consistent, but its individual parts will be in the best possible shape.</p><p>This approach may lead to better results for a short period of time at the start of a project, but its shortcomings will start to become
apparent over time. Even experienced developers and technical leads are just people. They can occasionally get tired or simply overlook
something. Thus, minor deviations from the agreed-upon rules pile up and begin to form so-called technical debt.</p><h2>Time trial</h2><p>The next aspect that reflects in time is the expansion of the project, and this is on two levels.</p><p>The first is the expansion of the product itself. As the product becomes successful, it receives new and more sophisticated features that
begin to connect previously simpler and independent features. This is where the small deviations and inconsistencies that at first
seemed good for the functionality start to show up. The problem is that now more of these functions need to be compatible with each
other, but they are not ready for it.</p><p>This is not just a problem of incompatibility of features. Often, well-intentioned developers try to reuse existing components as much as
possible to avoid code duplication. They forget the rule that we can reuse a component when we expect the same behavior but also have
the same reasons to change. If this condition is not met, the Single Responsibility Principle is violated and the project has low
flexibility for future development.</p><p>The second level of project expansion is the development team itself. Once the product becomes successful, sooner or later it leads to
the expansion of the development team. The new team members do not know the whole genesis of the project and thus do not have the same
understanding of the rules as the older members who set the rules themselves. This leads to misunderstandings and yet another minor
deviation from the agreed rules, which again increases the technical debt. A side effect is an increased need for communication during
pair programming and code review, which reduces the overall productivity of the team.</p><p>These problems in project expansion are not limited to large development teams, but also happen to smaller ones. For example, when a
two-person team introduces two new developers, the productivity of the team may hardly change. And all this is due to the circumstances
described above. Without knowing the cause of the problem, it can lead to further blind "strengthening" of the team and make it even
worse.</p><h2>Tripping comes before a fall</h2><p>When a development team repeatedly fails to finish agreed features or is unable to release a new version of a product for technical
reasons, one of the critical scenarios occurs. At this point, people outside the standard development team get involved in discovering
the cause and solving the problem. Together, they all work under stress and with a lot of human effort to get the development back under
control. It is only at this point that a retrospective analysis takes place to uncover the true causes of the problems.</p><p>Yet the accompanying symptoms and spring of these problems have been manifesting themselves for a long time in advance. A few subtle
situations as examples:
</p><ul><li>A developer repeatedly receives feedback on misnaming during code review.</li><li>A ticket in the project issue tracker does not contain a reference to the implementation due to a typo in the project source code.
</li><li>A feature that is still under development is enabled in the test version of the application.</li></ul><p></p><p>Often they just look like minor ambiguities, individual mistakes, or accidents that sometimes happen during development. When these
situations recur, their negative impact on team productivity and the project's error rate quickly increases. But if we look closely at
them, we can see blank spaces in the way we work that are actually easy to fill and solve the problem once and for all.</p><h2>Live rules</h2><p>To avoid the problems mentioned above, we need to have clearly specified development rules. Their content should reflect the individual
needs of each project. For some projects, it will be critical to clearly define collaboration with the QA team and describe the release
management of the product, while other teams will focus more on collaboration between developers within the development itself.</p><p>The more detailed and specific the rules are, the better their effect on the team's work will be. Therefore, it is not possible to start
from a general template, but each team must define these rules themselves.</p><p>Sometimes we see cases where a team defines a few basic rules of a more general nature at the start of a project but does not develop
them over time. Thus, the rules never accurately represent how the team works, and even the little they contain becomes meaningless over
time.</p><p>Nothing is set in stone, and even an established team changes the tools it uses or discovers new ways of working over time. All these
natural changes have an impact on the team rules. They remain alive and valid.</p><h2>Automate everything</h2><p>In the introduction, we briefly discussed the form the rules can take and the possible ways of applying them. To be most effective, rules
must be applied automatically without the need for manual control. Likewise, we must think about the productivity of the team, which can
be reduced by the influence of a large number of repressive rules. Therefore, tools that help team members automate certain steps are an
integral part of this process. These tools save time and their output is naturally in line with the defined rules.</p><p>In practice, it is so common that Code Style or Project Architecture is enforced by automated rules, but at the same time, there are code
templates and formatting tools that do most of the work for the developers without them being aware of it.</p><p>Most issue tracking tools provide a programmatic interface so that it is easy to automate the creation of a new development branch in VCS
so that the new code is linked to a specific issue. Similarly, it is possible to create a VCS hook that checks that a corresponding
issue exists for a given branch or commit for cases when the developer has created the new development branch manually.</p><p>Release management is a completely separate chapter. When releasing a new version of a product, there are generally routine and clearly
defined steps that need to be performed. Here, automation not only gives us the assurance that the release of a new version will be done
in an orderly and error-free manner but it also speeds up the process and allows for easy knowledge sharing between team members. A
bonus is an easy automation of generating release notes, even if only for internal testers.</p><p>Testers will also appreciate the ability to configure the product for internal testing. They can toggle a feature flag, configure the
environment the application runs against, or have the ability to simulate scenarios that are difficult to do manually. Besides the
undeniable benefit of these test tools for testers, it has benefits for the developers themselves. They don't have to maintain more
versions of the product than strictly necessary, which saves them time by fundamentally simplifying the build logic.</p><p>This is just a small sample of the rules we commonly encounter on projects. However, it is far from exhaustive of the options, whether
they are related to quantity, depth, or sophistication.</p><h2>How far to go?</h2><p>Some rules may seem strict enough to restrict your freedom to work. Others may seem so vague that they will not have the desired effect.
That's all right. Every team and every member has different needs and different perceptions of risk. All of this has a bearing on the
form of the rules.</p><p>In our projects, we try to define the rules strictly by default. Over time, when we find that they limit us too much, it's easy to make
the rule more generalized or turn it into a recommendation or warning. The opposite approach is considerably more complicated, because
the team and its operation have already become accustomed to the more general rule, so it may not be possible to make a change
overnight.</p><h2>Project sustainability</h2><p>When developing a product, in addition to the short-term goals of making the necessary features, we always consider the idea of long-term
sustainability and viability of the project. Especially in mobile development, it is not an exception to the opinion that a project
should be discarded once every 2-3 years and developed completely from scratch. This is a real disaster in terms of productivity.</p><p>In our portfolio, we have apps that are more than 7 years old and have gone through several major changes during their lifetime. On a
business level, there has been a change in targeting a different sector of users and aligned with changes in branding and design. On a
technical level I would mention the switch from Java programming language to Kotlin, or the transition of asynchronous work from a
custom imperative solution to a reactive approach via RxJava and later Kotlin Coroutines. Even so, the development team is still only
two people (while they are altering throughout) and at the same pace, it delivers new functionalities according to the business
needs.</p><p>Clearly defined development rules and the consistency enforced by them have a major impact on the quality of the final product in every
way.</p><p>Next time we will take a closer look at how some rules can be implemented and what tools we have for this.</p><p><br></p><p>Pavel Švéda<br></p><p>Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/xsveda">@xsveda</a><br><br></p><br> | | #productivity;#team-collaboration;#architecture;#automation | | |
| Our Minimalistic Approach to 1st and 2nd Level Support | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/Our-Minimalistic-Approach-to-1st-and-2nd-Level-Support.aspx | Our Minimalistic Approach to 1st and 2nd Level Support | <p>At one of our projects, we're working in a scrum team counting around 10 people. The product has gradually been rolled out to more users and is getting traction. This is good because it provides us with a tangible metric of our product's reach and it gives us more opportunities to validate our ideas in the real world as we see how users react to them.</p><p>Some of the users are also proactively providing feedback about things that are cumbersome, hard to use, or outright buggy. So far we (with a major contribution from our product owner) have managed to gather and process the feedback in an organic way. </p><p>Over time this activity has grown to a considerable effort and has started to consume precious time and we've started to feel like things are slipping through. We need to find a more robust way to handle the user requests.</p><p>The goals we want to achieve by having a link to the users are far from unique. To name a few:</p><ol><li>Collect defect/incident reports</li><li>Collect feature requests</li><li>Help users with troubleshooting</li><li>Have a feeling for the general user's sentiment</li><li>Respond to and inform users</li></ol><p>We don't want to have just a
<q>passive</q> way of collaboration with users (meaning only to collect input) but we'd like to be able to respond in a relevant way to their reports or questions. We want them to know what they can expect from us and likewise let them know they're heard and that their contribution is welcome.</p><p>Unsurprisingly, we discovered the majority of users' requests were repeats of the same thing. Users either did not understand a certain feature or a general expectation was misaligned with the product itself.</p><p>Many of the user issues could be resolved quite easily by answering directly and potentially providing further explanation if needed. It became obvious that we need to focus on improving UX here and there. Or bring a new feature because users are repeatedly struggling with certain actions.</p><p>But in order to draw useful conclusions from the numerous inputs and to convert them into prioritized backlog items, we needed more
<q>human processing power</q> and a way to somehow standardize the inputs.</p><p>This led us to introduce a combination of a few new concepts.</p><h2>Introduction of bug reports</h2><p>We implemented a bug report function. We wanted to keep it as simple for the user as possible. So after clicking the
<em>report bug</em> icon the only thing the user needs to write is an answer to the question
<q>What did you expect to happen?</q> and to click a confirmation button.</p><p>We attach a lot of metadata to this and the bug report is then visible in our product's back-office web. This alleviates the need to read through emails and keeps the form uniform to some degree. It also automatically collects crash logs.</p><p>So far we have decided not to integrate this to JIRA for a reason I will explain in a minute.</p><h2>Introduction of support levels</h2><p>The customer for whom we are building the product is a large corporation and one of their business activities is software services. That means they have a department full of people experienced in 1<sup>st</sup> level support activities. So it appeared as a logical option to collaborate with them on this as it was preferred to use in-house personnel.</p><p>This idea posed a few challenges nonetheless:</p><ol><li>How to define competencies?</li><li>How to bring them to a level of knowledge necessary for stand-alone work?</li><li>How to help them with unexpected things?</li><li>Find a way to report problems they can't resolve on their own.</li><li>How to keep them up-to-date with the latest fixes and features?</li></ol><p>We decided to follow the 3-level support model. In our development process it meant the following:</p><h2>1<sup>st</sup> level: </h2><p>Roughly 4 people from the help desk department were selected to join us part-time. Their competence within our development process is:</p><ul><li>Answering general users' questions.</li><li>Resolving user issues that don't require a change of system data or the system itself.</li><li>Passing unresolvable issues to 2<sup>nd</sup> level support.</li><li>Collecting data about frequent bugs.</li><li>Bringing ideas to mitigate the most frequent user complaints/questions.</li></ul><h2>2<sup>nd</sup> level: </h2><p>For the time being, we have decided to bring one extra person who will tackle this alongside our product owner. </p><ul><li>Resolving incidents stemming from bad system data via our system's back-office web.</li><li>Resolving issues that 1<sup>st</sup> level support lacks knowledge of.</li><li>Adding new articles to the knowledge base for the 1<sup>st</sup> level support</li><li>Passing issues to 3<sup>rd</sup> level support</li></ul><h2>3<sup>rd</sup> level: </h2><p>This is the actual scrum team. So the job is to prioritize and implement what comes through the support pipeline.</p><h2>Setting up new flows</h2><p>In order to keep the new 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> level support colleagues in the loop we invited them to our asynchronous communication channels. This way we could quite flexibly answer their questions without the need for yet another regular meeting and it seems it helped their learning process. As of now, they are already quite knowledgeable and their questions are getting more and more
<q>advanced</q>. We feared the number of questions could overwhelm us, but it seems we managed it and the ad-hoc communication is effective.</p><p>We also invited all of them to the sprint review meetings, so that they are aware of the current situation and know when the bugs reported by them are done. This is also a perfect place for them to express any general observations and opinions about how they perceive priorities of items reported by them compared to other backlog items.</p><p>For the most frequently occurring questions or problems, we created a simple knowledge base that the 1<sup>st</sup> level colleagues can use while troubleshooting user issues. 2<sup>nd</sup> or 3<sup>rd</sup> level support people occasionally add new articles if a question gets repeated.</p><p>We've been using JIRA as a tool for keeping our backlog since the beginning of the project. Our fear was that introduction of formalized support levels could bring large overhead, so we decided to keep the tools as simple as possible. We don't need any sophisticated helpdesk system. </p><p>Therefore we decided to create two new issue types in JIRA and right in our project space. We called them (no surprise here) a
<em>1<sup>st</sup> level ticket</em> and a
<em>2<sup>nd</sup> level ticket.</em> Those tickets got a very basic state flow:
<em>Open → In progress → Closed + 2 more: Waiting for a reply and Reply obtained</em>.</p><p>We decided to use the original JIRA project space for the 3 support levels. The main reason was to let everyone inspect the backlog if necessary and to check how things are progressing. The second reason was to avoid complexity in our flows.</p><p>By doing this, 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> level support people can also comment on any existing issue in the backlog in case they have relevant additional information. In order to keep things organized we simply created a few new quick filters to view
<em>only the 1<sup>st</sup> level tickets</em>, the
<em>2<sup>nd</sup> level tickets</em>, or to
<em>hide them</em> and view the backlog just as it was before the 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> level people joined in.</p><p>Both of the new issue types also received a button to conveniently convert the issue to a
<q>higher</q> one. Meaning that from
<em>1<sup>st</sup> level ticket</em> we create a
<em>2<sup>nd</sup> level ticket</em> with a click of a button. And from the
<em>2<sup>nd</sup> level ticket</em>, we create a
<em>bug</em> or a
<em>user story</em> in the same way. In addition, we created two new boards to display just the respective issues type and their current states.</p><h2>Time will tell</h2><p>So far this model has worked well for us. We get a feeling of safety knowing there is no negative sentiment accumulating among the users we wouldn't know about and could explode later. The test of time will tell if we need to modify the process. Many more users are expected to start using the product. As with anything in such an environment, we will certainly need to adapt eventually. We just don't yet know when. I will come back with an update after we're wiser again.</p><br> | | #agile;#project-management;#scrum | | |
| Scope and Time Fixation | | https://mobileit.cz/Blog/Pages/scope-and-time-fixation.aspx | Scope and Time Fixation | <p>When planning for a milestone such as a release or a development finish, there are several approaches we can choose from. A traditional (and often intuitively chosen) approach is to try to predict and fix all the project imperatives. What does this mean?</p><p>As a countermeasure to reduce the number of unexpected events at the beginning of the project, it is common to make a detailed plan months in advance and expect the development teams to keep it. </p><p>Let's say we want to do a major release of our software. The product owner and the stakeholders make their expectations about a release date, the content (scope) it’s going to include, and the cost. In the best case scenario, their expectation is based upon a discussion with the development team.</p><p>The development proceeds and the release milestone approaches. More often than not, the team encounters unpredicted problems and some of the features are delayed. As the release date approaches, it becomes clear that the release plan is endangered. The team starts to get anxious. Then, shortly before the release date, it is evident that not all of the planned scope is going to be finished. As a result, the date gets postponed by managers with the hope that the remaining scope will be finished on time.</p><p>Moreover, additional requirements from the stakeholders arrive and the product owner wants to include them in the release to gain positive perception. The release has already been postponed once, so it would be great to overperform this time. As it usually happens in development, fresh bug reports arrive. Let's include corresponding fixes in the release too. A vicious cycle begins.</p><p>The point is that the more a release keeps getting postponed, the higher is the temptation to include additional content to make up for previous disappointment. Usually, a release is postponed multiple times and gets delivered weeks or months later with a great deal of nervousness.</p><p>What helped our teams in such situations?</p><h2>Back to the basics</h2><p>The first thing we hear when you learn about project management approaches, is how the combination of time, cost, and scope work together. The traditional approach is that in the planning phase of a project, it is decided what functions we will create, how much it will cost, and how long it will take. As I covered in my <a href="/Blog/Pages/scrum-smells-7.aspx">previous posts</a>, I believe it is a futile effort to attempt to make an exact determination of <em>all of the three project imperatives at once</em> as reality rarely follows them in the long run.</p><p>When we define a fixed scope, fixed timeline, and fixed cost, there is virtually no room for flexibility if something goes wrong. From my observations, the effect is usually that in the (probable) case of unexpected problems, it is the quality of the delivered scope that gets sacrificed. In other words, it is an attempt to make the scope somehow flexible by re-interpreting its definition.</p><p>This usually leads to the project manager trying to negotiate a later time for a handover (or release). There is a tendency to check off as many items of the scope list as possible, so that it looks good in reports and on paper the project can proceed to the next phase (and possibly allowing for a payment milestone). But under the hood, shortcuts were taken and oftentimes the pressure to <em>deliver something</em> comes at the cost of the software being defective and half-functional. </p><p>In scrum terminology the scope items are not done. There is a technical and/or business debt. Contrary to the definition of done, there is still known work to be done on these items.</p><p>The costs for paying off the debt are considerably higher than the effort necessary in getting it right at the first go. In many cases, it also means that <em>nothing</em> can be released due to numerous defects. The whole package remains unacceptable. </p><p>Agile approaches try to keep one of the three imperatives (scope, time and costs) flexible. We have a given team with a certain development capacity. That team consumes a predictable budget over a given period of time. What options do we have?</p><ul><li>Team capacity (staffing): affects the throughput over time. Changing it influences the rate at which budget gets consumed and scope gets developed. In this article I assume that the team is naturally using its resources effectively and attempts to improve its performance over time as it matures.</li><li>Development duration (time): affects how much scope can be delivered with a given capacity and lets us cap the invested budget.</li><li>Scope: changing scope will affect how long a given team consumes the budget.</li></ul><p>So if we have a specific budget we need to invest, we can set a suitable team, calculate how long the budget will last, and keep the scope flexible. Or the other way around, if we want a precise scope to be developed, the timeline becomes the bumper. Also, the team size needs to be chosen adequately. We need to be able to supply it with high value business requirements meeting the definition of ready.</p><h2>How to combine time and scope</h2><p>Unless we are in a very rare case when the product aspects are well predictable (process-like activities), we must accept the fact that we need to prioritize the project imperatives. In my experience trying to juggle both scope and time at once usually leads to a lot of confusion and it often sabotages any rhythm the team may have. I believe prioritizing one over the other is the way to go.</p><p>On our projects we usually keep the team capacity at a reasonable level and then prioritize time over scope. That means we set a particular milestone in the calendar and concentrate the activities into making it happen. The scope is the flexible element. </p><p>Let's use an example. The product owner wants to make a release of an update on the market. He deems that it’s worth doing it a month from now because that will bring a considerable improvement to the user and will create a positive perception.</p><p>The product owner and the team make their preliminary prediction about what backlog items they expect to deliver. The team spends that month working on them. As usual, they discover considerable complications with some backlog items along the way and major defects are also reported from the users. Then it becomes clear that not all of the originally expected backlog items will get done by the release date.</p><p>The development team, together with the product owner re-prioritize the backlog to incorporate these new findings. It is decided that the resolution of certain bugs would bring considerable value. Problematic backlog items are put off, so that the team does not spend effort on something that will probably not be finished. The team focuses on the sole goal of making the product releasable at the given time. They are not obsessed with the necessity of delivering absolutely <em>everything</em> that they originally thought. Functionality that will not be included in this release will be contained in the successive one.</p><p>Figuratively speaking we need to draw a horizontal line in the backlog. There are two options for where to draw it. It's position is either fixed and the exact development duration will be adjusted, or time is set and the position of the line in the backlog can be adjusted along the way - it floats.</p><p>By keeping the backlog constantly refined, well prioritized, and the backlog items as atomic as possible, we are maximizing the chance that what falls over the line isn't vital.</p><p>In the example above we used a release as a milestone. But a milestone can be any other critical event - such as consumption of the project's allocated budget.</p><h2>It sounds easy, but...</h2><p>This idea is nothing revolutionary. But putting it into practice usually includes avoiding a few frequent mistakes:</p><ul><li>Avoid stakeholders from expecting strict time and scope fixation. It takes effort to explain that there always needs to be an approach to minimize risk of critical stuff falling over</li><li>Avoid stakeholders from putting you into a situation where <em>everything is equally important</em>. It is the job of the product owner (with the help of the scrum master) to educate them about this.</li><li>Don't be tempted to postpone the release milestone just a little so that you can fit in that one extra valuable item. It's better to set a regular schedule for releases and be safe in the knowledge that it won't take long before the next release.</li><li>Don't juggle with both scope and timeline at once. Prioritize one over the other.</li><li>Don't cling onto past predictions. The situation always evolves and rather constantly evaluates if the prediction is still valid or not.</li><li>Don't get caught up in details. Use the dailies to take a step back and see how the team is progressing towards a goal and if there are any new obstacles in the path.</li></ul><p>Psychology plays a major role when things don't follow the budget - scope - time triangle. But it would be naive not to proactively take steps for when it happens. Deciding on a general strategy - whether to fix time or scope - takes a lot of weight off the team's shoulders and makes development much more predictable and manageable. So always think about what can be sacrificed from the original predictions if things go wrong.</p><br> | | #agile;#project-management;#release-management;#scrum | | |
