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Paul knew his teams software quality was getting worse. The weekend's release led to a major production issue. It's Wednesday now afternoon. The CTO Sarah is furious. She is giving the same rant the team have heard multiple times.
"You must do thorough testing prior to release. You must do code reviews, pair programming and test-driven development."
They team knew this already. So why were they not doing it?
In my experience when behaviour is not happening, it's usually because it's not the easy and natural thing to do, in a given situation.
In the case of Pauls team, they already knew testing was important. This wasn't a desire issue. The problem: testing was hard and unnatural. They didn't have the right tools, they were under pressure to hit deadlines and if anyone raised issues they were ignored.
Sarah pulled me into her office after the meeting. She said I needed to "make the team do their testing better".
I asked this question:
Whats can you do, to make this behaviour, the easy and natural thing to do, every time?
Sarah shared some ideas. I also asked her to canvas ideas from the team over the next 24hrs.
When we next met Sarah was surprised. She had discovered over 15 specific items that would help the team. From simple things such as bigger monitors to more challenging discussions on deadlines with stakeholders.
After a few releases, the team noticed that quality had improved. Instead of the usual rant, Sarah would ask this question after each release. The team also started asking this question and bringing ideas forward.
Suddenly the team found it easier to test. Releases improved, the team had more energy and focus.
This question works because it focuses on the system. The environment in which the team is working. Most leverage lies in the system not the goals.
Don't just state the desired behaviour. Explore how to make it the easy and natural thing to do.
Inspired by The One Thing by Gary Keller
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