Considering my experience and what I have been observing in the industry, there seems to be an increasing interest in the idea of Whole Team Quality. The idea itself is not new as far as I know but certainly, there seems to be more awareness and eagerness towards its implementation, lately. 

Why is it needed and how does it help? 

Well, if you are delivering a product as a team, it is natural that everyone who helps build the product is responsible for its quality, or is supposed to be. And for more on this I would urge you to read  another article from me on this topic. 

Where is the problem?

When I tried to figure out how different organisations and teams are going about Whole Team Quality, I realised that asking everyone in the team to test (or asking programmers to test) and automating as much as possible is what they consider Whole Team Quality to be.  

I see several problems with that approach:

1. The key problem in my opinion is confusing Testing with Quality
2. Putting most of the efforts to achieve/improve/assess quality focusing only on the product
3. Caring about quality way later in the process. 
4. Reactive strategy i.e. to address quality concerns and risks after they are found in a product (which is too late and costly to fix usually)
5. Over emphasise and reliance mostly on automated checks that do not discover hidden risks or find new information. These checks only assert the known information. 

Sure I do support the idea of Whole Team Testing to help achieve Whole Team Quality but  how do you go about it makes the big difference.

Over the last four years, I tried different ideas, did experiments in teams for succeeding with Whole Team Quality. I failed but I learned. I continued to try and eventually I would say I succeeded it in. Succeeded in achieving Whole Team Quality in a meaningful way. The way in which risks are found earlier (even before they manifest as a bug in the product) and the Quality is assessed/analysed/addressed/achieved on every level and by every individual in the team.

The solution that is working for us

Based on my experiments and learning, I would like to present the model and framework I have developed and am still experimenting with. It has given me and my team useful results so far and I would encourage you to try it too. 

 The model: QualiTri for three notions of Quality 

Having deep philosophical discussions with Michael Bolton when he peer-reviewed my paper on Whole Team Quality, helped me formulate/conceptualise QualiTri. And this model further guided me to create the framework for its implementation.  

Like I said before, focusing on the Product notion of the quality alone is not enough. To succeed with Whole Team Quality, it is equally important to understand Project and the People notion of quality. They are related and they do affect each other. That said, to deliver a quality product we got to be equally conscious about the project and the people notion of the quality. 

How to implement the 4E structure of QCSD can vary from context to context but below is how we implemented it in our team which has worked great for us so far. 

Going further in detail of the implementation of 4E structure for QCSD framework would require a series of blog posts. It starts with creating awareness, convincing your team for the need of it, considering their inputs, evaluating the project context and creating the workflows/action items together with your team, and then committing for the efforts needed. It's a process that takes time. Plus it is highly subjective from project teams to project teams and their contexts. And hence I would rather stop here for now.  

How do we know it worked?

The Lead Time graph for our team before and during an experimentation phase of QCSD in our team (based on the improvements we did in the processes, consciousness with which all people worked with and keeping quality of the product in mind) reflected the positive impact.

I believe it was the first sprint in a long time, where we as a team finished all the tickets and pulled more, the so-called testing bottle-neck was minimal and the bugs reported that would make into the backlog or warrant some critical rework post-production were negligible. 

Sure, this graph did not remain ideal all the time. Teams change, business contexts change too which affects the overall delivery and quality of the product we end up shipping. But if you know how to go about delivering a quality product by quality-conscious people using quality-empowering processes, I am almost certain you will do way more good than bad. And it's a win in my opinion. 

See if you find it worth the shot. If you would like to borrow my help for consulting/implementing this idea for your team or organisation, it would be my pleasure. Just let me know. ​

The more I think about events and people around me, the more I have started to believe in higher calling and celestial hints. I have been wanting to write about Jerry and as I started to pen my heart down finally, I learned that it’s Jerry’s birthday today. Could that be a coincidence?
 
Happy birthday Jerry! This time, accept it with tears in my eyes and lots of gratitude.
 
2018 has been a year of losses and realisations for me. I lost people that I once held close to my heart and spirit, I lost opportunities that could have helped me contribute better to the community. But the realisation that has come after these losses has been an eye opening experience.    
 
One of such persons that was very close to my heart from years, that I lost this year has been Jerry Weinberg. Yes, The Jerry Weinberg.
 
It’s been almost four months now and I am still finding it hard to believe that Jerry is no longer there with us in this world, in his physical form.  After Jerry’s demise, a lot of my friends and colleagues have written about his  impact on their lives and how he helped them transform their lives. Reading that all has made me feel even more emotional. The realisation of being close to someone for years, who has transformed many lives in many ways, makes me feel so very special and sad at the same time.
 
I really don’t know if anyone else has received so much from Jerry, as much as I feel I have received from him. But I consider myself truly fortunate for him coming in my life and transforming me bit by bit, month by month and year by year into a better person and software professional.
 
I still remember the day when I wrote Jerry asking for his permission to publish one of his article in Tea-time with Testers’ earlier edition. It was February of 2011 when I wrote him for the first time. I shared our first issue with Jerry so that he could make a decision about his contribution.
 
To my surprise, Jerry admired the work we had done with our first edition and happily agreed to contribute his work. ‘Testing without Testing’ was his first article that we published.
 
Jerry liked our project for multiple reasons. He admired our will to make meaningful contribution to software testing community, the efforts we were taking by collaborating with many testing experts in the world and the value that he saw we were creating with this project. Moreover, Jerry liked that we mentioned  our ‘team’ as our ‘family’ and when he said he would love to be part of it, my joy had no bounds.
 
And since then, Jerry Weinberg became part of Tea-time with Testers family. We felt like we got an angel to guide us in times to come. And Jerry proved every bit of that feeling to be true.
 
I have lost the count of how many times we communicated with other, over these seven years. But each time, I communicated with Jerry, my respect, admiration and love for him grew more and more. With each issue we published, Jerry gave us feedback and helped us become better and better. His feedback around my editorial that sited Kipling’s ‘If you can….’,  is still fresh in my mind. He told me that had that poem hung on his wall for quite some years of his life. Don’t know why but I felt more connected with Jerry after that.
 
Our collaboration brought me very close to Jerry and I never had to think twice asking for his opinion and support in different initiatives we took over years. State of Testing survey has been one of such project where we closely worked with Jerry. The webinar we did with him and Fiona Charles after that is still fresh in my memories. To check if everything is fine before the webinar, I made Jerry a phone call and that was for the first time, I got to hear his voice. Firm, but it had warmth of its own kind. Darn, just felt like I heard him again. And I have goosebumps on my hand as I am writing this further.
 
Interesting part of my exchanges with Jerry has been that, once in a while, along with professional work that we were doing together, he shared about himself, his choices, his likes, anecdotes, his take on things happening around and of course his advice on variety of topics we discussed. It never felt like I had not met Jerry in person. There was different pleasure in getting to know him on personal level, bit by bit… as if I was reading story he was writing about himself and there were so many interesting chapters waiting to be shared. I kept wanting for more and Jerry never disappointed me there.
 
We used to talk about dogs sometimes, German Shepherds especially. The dog breed I suppose Jerry liked the most and me too. He once gave me pleasant surprise by adding picture of me and Victor in his Pinterest collection around GSDs. It’s wonderful collection. Don’t forget to checkout if you are GSD fan like both of us.
 
I think I can keep writing about Jerry that I got know for days to come. Through our personal collaboration and amazing books Jerry has written, he stays with me every now and then. Sometimes when I get stuck on some concept from his book, I feel like writing him an email and there he will be, explaining me things in a way I will never forget. I wish I could do that forever. This realisation is hard. Feels like I am waking up from some dream, for it never happened that I emailed Jerry and he did not reply.
 
Meeting Jerry in person was on my list of ‘things to do at-least once in a life’.  We were planning to meet in person this year. Every time in past when Jerry wrote me that he was keeping unwell or he had doctor’s visit planned, my heart used to beat faster. And then he used to make me very happy again telling he was doing good and there was nothing to worry so much.
 
It was bit different this year. I had my flights booked to meet him June and Jerry suggested that I don’t make any reservations for he was unsure if he would be around by then. I did not know what say and even how to respond to that. I cancelled my flight tickets for I never disobeyed Jerry. Not sure why but with that particular exchange, Jerry left an everlasting impression on me. In Hinduism, we have this belief that great people can know of their time to leave the earth, well in advance. I think Jerry was one of such great persons.
 
His outlook and acceptance towards all phases of life made me feel awaken and enlightened. My that exchange with Jerry made a very positive spiritual impact on me.

I admit, I am yet to meet someone like Jerry who has been so brave and open about all possibilities of life, including the time to say good bye. I’m yet to meet someone so legendary yet so down to earth, someone who can explain mysteries of galaxy as simply and effortlessly as if it is nursery rhyme meant for kids, someone so generous and kind and someone who has transformed lives without even meeting people in person.
 
I wish I could meet you at least once in my life, Jerry. But not getting to meet you physically makes me firmly believe that you were an angel sent for many of us from heavens. You have touched me and transformed me in many ways and have made me realise my true potential. Moreover, your belief in my abilities and guidance you offered me over years, has made me feel so proud and special about myself. You taught me the power of compassion, you taught me how to stay unaffected by situations beyond our control, you taught me the importance of paying it forward. All through your life you have led us all by your example. I wish I could ask you what did you see in me that made you invest in me. But for whatever reasons you chose me, I will be grateful to you for that forever. And I will try my best to ‘pay it forward’.
 
Good bye and happy birthday once again, legend!