Here’s something that keeps coming up at work that I’m not sure how to deal with. The Agile philosophy has the team entirely together all the time, including the business, developers, testers, etc. As a quality assurance organization, we constantly push to be involved earlier in the process (so much so that I think one day we’ll want to have an opinion on whether the business should invest in a given project or not). We all push to be involved early and often.
However, as far as I can tell, this is somewhat counter to LEAN production, which strives for effort as close to the point of demand (just in time manufacturing) as possible. Now, maybe I’m making a bad overextension, it’s entirely possible, but if we think of quality assurance as manufacturing test strategies, test plans, test cases, etc. then having them involved really early is the creation of inventory.
The earlier they are involved in the project the more likely they are to create their work product which is inadequate due to changes in the requirements, design, etc. later on. It is, in theory, wasteful to create anything earlier than absolutely necessary.
So, for my few readers bold enough to comment… what’s the best answer? Are the benefits of early involvement justified or do dedicated quality assurance activities (like testing) just need to be prepare for a Just In Time approach to manufacturing and executing testing?
