Being Agile: Eleven Breakthrough Techniques to Keep You from “Waterfalling Backward”

Build Quality In

To get ahead of the waste accrual predicament, establish a mindset that encourages problem prevention. When I learned about lean and agile in a class led by Tom and Mary Poppendieck, Mary said that teams have to learn how to avoid problems. Instead of just getting into the habit of testing thoroughly and fixing problems quickly, start developing in a way that avoids problems altogether. Preventing defects is far less costly than the process of finding and fixing defects.

One of the significant benefits to following an agile methodology is the focus on “building quality in.” Many options are available to teams to build quality in, including test-driven development, automated unit testing, static code analysis, automatic deployment ...