Continuous improvement of software

Being able to share easy to understand process models really helps to engage everyone in continuous incremental improvements. To do this you need to have easy to understand process models and also be able to capture stakeholder feedback and engagement directly on those process maps.

Getting this wider engagement is vital to truly understanding the way current processes are delivered. Often there is only a very small subset of people who are able to actually attend the workshops. Ideally, we need to engage everybody who contributes to delivering the end-to-end process and the customer value. The best companies use the best technology to deliver the best processes for their customers.

The way they understand that is by allowing the people that deliver the work to continuously improve the processes they help to deliver. Your software should make it easy to communicate and understand processes with all stakeholders. Needs to make it easy for business analysts or improvers to do their job but also for normal business users to be able to easily interpret and understand process maps and their data Process Analysis The next logical step when you have captured and understood your existing processes is to be able to analyse them.

In order to do this effectively you need to be able to view your processes from different perspectives such as an ICT swim lane or a roles swim lane. You need to be able to view all of your process data as well as the improvement ideas captured during the workshops.

You want to be able to view the process and its value either to the customer, to the business or the waste contained within that process. Depending on the approach of taking you might also want to be able to see the inputs and outputs. You want to be able to see the feedback received on the process from the wider stakeholder group. All of this data with traditional solutions is held in a multitude of places which makes it difficult to truly analyse your process.

One of the most important things you need to be able to understand is the times and costs related to the delivery of your current process.

If you want to demonstrate savings you need to be able to benchmark your current performance. To do this you need to understand those costs and times. Traditional mapping tools offer vary little functionality in terms of calculation of costs and times. This process can be very manual and very time-consuming and subject to many changes and risks of errors. The analysis function is critical to helping you understand the problems contained within your current process.

In true continuous improvement software this function and feature set is provided within the software. I would argue it is always best practice no matter what projects or programmes or strategy we are looking to deliver that we should be basing our decisions on the benefits that can be delivered by those changes. Process Improvement Within the continuous improvement life-cycle we have now had an idea or project, this is kicked off process capture and understanding stage and through that process we now have a process model that we are able to analyse and identify potential ideas for improvement.

Is best practice to have a governance process here following the capture and analysis of the As Is process. This is the point the decision-makers can review what has been learnt and agree to proceed or not with the next phase of process improvement.

If the process is already optimised which is unlikely or the potential solutions cost more than the benefits justify, then the right answer here is to not proceed. At the very least if resources are at all limited , the potential opportunities identified should be assessed against other potential improvements to look at which should be prioritised to best meet your organisations strategic objectives.

We can now take all of this combined knowledge and use it to create new models of service delivery and look at our options for improvement. We are using a lot of the same techniques as we used during the previous capture and analysis phases. This time we are using them to create a new process model to help us improve delivery. Your continuous improvement software should help you to facilitate the improvement process.

As before in the capture phase , it helps if your software allows you to capture live in the workshops with the stakeholders present and them being able to see the visualisation process. This helps with engagement and ownership but it also helps obviously in terms of saving your business analysts or improvers significant amounts of time which mean they can spend more time delivering improvements and benefits. As with the capture stage is vital to be able to collaborate on the outputs of this improvement workshops.

As with the earlier capture phase is essential to seek engagement and feedback from all stakeholders who are involved in the process. If you want to optimise your performance the best way to do it ensure your understanding of the as is and your definition of the to be are informed by the collective knowledge of all stakeholders. The more you truly understand, the better decisions you can make and the waste you can avoid. Engagement is critical to improving the quality of our continuous improvement interventions.

The key output of this part the process is at the very least model with the current process and at least one potential model for a fully redesigned service. The outputs need to have the right detail to allow the senior stakeholders to understand the proposed changes and to decide whether and when to commission them. To do that they going to need to understand the data relating to the current process as well as the data relating to your proposed changes or options.

When the understand this, they understand both the costs and benefits of change. Improvement is critical to this whole process the clue is in the name and as such this is an extremely critical component of the end to end process life-cycle. Your continuous improvement software really needs to excel in this area. Governance The next stage of the continuous improvement cycle is a government stage. Governance comes in many stages of the process but this is the first in terms of the way we have laid out continuous improvement cycle.

At this point we have had an idea or an improvement project and we have understood our current process, how long it takes us, how much it costs us, what problems we have, what impact they have, how much it costs us, how long it takes us and what improvement ideas we have. By understanding all of this, we should be able to decide what the best things are that we can implement.

We need to be able to do more of the right things better than the wrong things better. Understanding the costs and benefits make this decision-making process easier. The first decision-making process we have in the continuous improvement cycle is to decide whether we proceed with improving this process.

The only way we can really assess this is a cost benefit analysis. What are the benefits of delivering these improvements and what are the costs and may be times to implement the process changes? We possibly also need to consider how big a change this is and how difficult it is to implement. Stakeholder engagement is vital to the process at many stages.

This is the first stage comes into the continuous improvement cycle. It comes in many other stages and it helps us avoid huge amounts of wastage later in the process in terms of delivery. If you can engage all stakeholders and give them ownership and buying to the changes you can avoid massive amounts of wastage in terms of project resource and rework. Project and programme management Any software product at least needs to support your project and programme management processes.

Obviously as they are governance processes, they also have similar requirements to the above. For top quadrant performance CI software ideally, you are looking for some features that can help to add value in terms of project and programme management not just to provide support.

Things like Kanban boards or other project management tools would be really helpful features within the software. Benefits Management Capturing of benefits is one of the weaknesses of traditional process mapping tools. Often the capture and understanding of the benefits is done outside of your process mapping software. It is normally manual calculation which is quite complex and time consuming to do. Recalculation of benefits when processes change again is complex and time-consuming.

Have a look here at the importance of capturing benefits. As you will be aware processes and process definitions change frequently throughout the improvement cycle from the identification through to the delivery of change.

Having manual or even worse no calculation of benefits is very detrimental to your projects. A real top end continuous improvement tool will provide calculation and analysis of the benefits of change. Having this helps to support all of the governance processes as well as your project and programme management and your strategic outcomes. By understanding the benefits of change you can ensure that you are doing the right things at the right times and delivering the most benefits for your organisation.

Change delivery Delivery of the change is a very important stage to consider. Up until now the exercise has been a theoretical one, problems have been identified and solutions defined but as of yet no solutions have been deployed. Often this stage will involve some development work involving ICT but not always to actually build solutions. It is hugely likely during this process that there will be further changes that are necessary either by design or by features and functionality of potential solutions.

Your continuous improvement software should help you to create a specification for the work that is required to deliver the solutions.

Because you have all the information captured this process should be really easy. With traditional tools where the information is all in different places this normally means creating a separate document as a specification for the work. Being able to use exactly the same diagrams and models does save significant amounts of time not collating the data and transferring it into another different medium.

It is really important to ensure that the maps and models are updated as changes are considered and made. All the time the business case and the benefits should be revised as changes are being considered.

From experience even potentially small change to process can have major implications to benefits and to the overall outcomes for customers. As the changes are going through the delivery part of the project these frequent changes are often not reflected back into the original maps and models. To be able to do the same, there needs to be continuous effort and commitment on the part of the development organization, along with consistent communication with the quality assurance team.

One of the top approaches in software testing best practices is PDCA — plan, do, check, and act — an effective control mechanism used to control, govern, supervise, regulate, and restrain a system.

Here is how the PDCA approach works in the context of continuous process improvement in software testing —. In this step of the software testing improvement process, test objectives are defined clearly, including what is to be accomplished as a result of testing.

While the testing criteria ensure that the software performs as per the specifications, objectives help to ensure that all stakeholders contribute to the definition of the test criteria in order to maximize quality.

This stage in continuous process improvement in software testing describes how to design and execute the tests that are included in the test plan. The test design typically includes test procedures and scripts, test cases, expected results, test logs, and more. The more comprehensive a test plan is, the simpler the test design will be. The Check step of the continuous improvement process primarily includes a thorough evaluation of how the testing process is progressing.

At this stage, it is important to base decisions on accurate and timely data such as the workload effort, number and types of defects, and the schedule status. The Act step of the continuous improvement process includes outlining clear measures for appropriate actions related to work that was not performed as per the plan.

Once done, this analysis is used back into the plan by updating the test cases, test scripts, and reevaluating the overall process and tech details of testing. Similar to any other business investment, quality assurance, or QA improvement ideas must bring value to the enterprise.

When translated into measurable objectives such as flawless design and coding, elimination of defects early on, and ensuring efficient discovery, it can lead to better software processes and a value-driven final product.

To achieve this objective, businesses need to improve their processes to install quality assurance activities at every stage of the software life cycle. Here are some of the software testing best practices that can help you achieve your goal of smarter and effective testing-. Effective planning entails the creation of quality management and test plans for a project. Quality management plan — defines a clear and acceptable level of product quality and describes how the project will achieve the said level.

The main components of a quality management plan are —. Test strategy — The outline of a good strategy includes a detailed introduction, the overall plan, and testing requirements. Irrespective of how comprehensive a test plan is, problems are inevitable, which would escape from one test phase to the next. While there can be instances where the testing team is required to directly start test execution, it is always better to create a high-level scenario during the early stages of requirement study and ensure that it is reviewed on a consistent basis.

There are multiple benefits that this kind of reviews can bring including —. When we design test scenarios or test cases, we create various types of tests, including negative and positive cases. To be able to execute the planned tests, we require different types of data that need testing using simple parameters. The Lean Way uses end-to-end encryption. It requires no training and is easy to onboard your employees.

Work doesn't have to slow down when you're on the move with The Lean Way app. The Lean Way can be easily accessible anytime, anywhere from a browser or mobile device. The Lean Way is revolutionizing how companies capture, implement, measure and share continuous improvements. Sign Up Free. Learn More. Promote Best Practices Keep everyone up to speed on new improvements and allow everyone to stay on top of relevant conversation throughout your organization.

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