While I was recently working on some test automation task, I had the feeling that the automating of the tests seemed to be more important, than the actual automated tests (or checks) I created. It seemed to me that this is very similar to the saying that the planning in agile projects (and likely in other projects as well) is more important (or valuable) than the plan you get out of the planning. So I tweeted about it and within seconds Lisa Crispin agreed to this.
It seems to me there is a pattern—actually a question—at work: Is doing something more important than the result you get out of that activity? There’s a book by Mary and Tom Poppendieck ‘Leading Lean Software Development’, subtitled ‘Results Are Not the Point’, that hints in the same direction.
Is actually doing something really more valuable or important than the result of this activity? I’m not sure about this.
The result of having done something seems obvious: We have the result, something that didn’t exist before and has some value to someone (hopefully). But what about the value of the activity itself? Two things come to my mind immediately:
- While actively working on a task, no matter whether it’s performing or rehearsing, we exercise and get more used to doing it. We’re very likely getting better at doing this in the future.
- It’s also likely that we learn something about the task itself, some technology we’re using or social aspects of work life.
- A secondary result are scripts that help me to create a certain state in the system, a base camp, from where I can start explorations into new areas of the system.
What do you think about this? What makes the doing itself valuable to you, apart from the outcome?
Let’s go back to the creating of automated tests: While I was looking at newly implemented parts of a software system, as soon as an automated test executes and yields a reproducible result… it’s a regression test (or check as some would say). Now, regression tests are not particularly likely to disclose new defects, so what’s the value of automating anyway. While I can’t offer a generally valid answer, the automation effort itself helped me to uncover a number of bugs.
PS: An additional example if Ben Simo (@qualityfrog) tweeted this:
Read in 100+ yo teach book: teacher should script lesson, then throw away script at class start. Scripting useful for prep, not instruction.
Another great example of the pattern.
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