Finding the Right Balance: Speed vs. Quality in Software Development

Finding the Right Balance: Speed vs. Quality in Software Development

In software development, it’s important to be both fast and maintain high quality, but these two goals can sometimes clash. How do you juggle the urgency of meeting deadlines with the importance of doing a good job and avoiding errors? In this article, we’ll look at some ways to handle this balance in your software projects.

Speed in Software Development

Speed in software development isn’t just about coding quickly; it’s about delivering new features rapidly. This means that the design, implementation, and testing processes must adhere to tight deadlines.

In a company, you won’t often hear the word “speed” mentioned. Instead, you’ll come across terms like automation and staying competitive in the market.

The reason speed matters is because it directly impacts profits. To make more money, a company needs to deliver more features, attract more clients, and capture a larger share of the market.

As a skilled engineer, you likely participate in all-hands meetings. In these meetings, you gain insight into the significant challenges your company faces, how it stands against competitors, and its plans for achieving a more successful future.

Invest on automation

Automation is the ideal starting point for enhancing the speed of delivery. I firmly believe that although many companies face challenges in finding skilled engineers to implement it, it remains a critical aspect to consider.

In software engineering, you have the power to automate several processes, including testing, deployment, and code reviews. All you need to do is identify the bottlenecks that cause pain to your delivery in order to start automating them.

Platforms such as Github and Gitlab offer powerful automation tools, such as Actions in Github and CI/CD in Gitlab. Additionally, there are excellent technologies like Jenkins that are widely used by Java developers. It is important to note that the key to success lies not only in the choice of technology, but also in the strategic approach taken.

If these platforms are limited for your task, you can confidently think outside the box and create some scripts using programming languages like Go or Rust to automate complex tasks.

Adapt your workflows

In my current working experience, we faced a challenge with client requirements. a key client requested complex features with a critical deadline. The issue lies not in the requirements themselves, but in the approach we will adopt to analyze these needs. As a scrum team, collaboration with other scrum teams is essential. To address this, we devised a complete plan that strictly adheres to all Agile Scrum guidelines. However, we expressed concerns to the product owner that following this process would make it impossible to deliver within the given timeframe. In response, she instructed us to adapt our approach.

How? She confidently proposes that we create two workflows that adhere to agile rules: one for urgent needs and another for non-urgent needs. This will allow engineers to work without any stress, ensuring optimal productivity and efficiency.

In our case, the Product Owner was intelligent and agile. She discovers innovative solutions that not only enable us (engineers) to deliver quickly, but also ensure a stress-free work environment.

Relying on past experiences, we confidently learn from them and develop adaptive strategies for future experiences.

Defining DoD and DoR

This part addresses both speed and quality, which are important factors in delivering quickly. One of the key aspects of achieving this is to have a clear specification page. By this, I don’t just mean the language or the description of the new feature, but also sharing the client’s needs and the future vision. In an agile environment, we refer to this as the “Definition of Ready” (DoR). The DoR should be enhanced by a well-designed canvas created by the Product Owner.

The quality of the delivery is primarily determined by developers, and its main objective is to avoid bugs in production. Here, developers should define their DoD (Definition of Done): When can they consider the development of this feature complete? What checklist should they follow?

Conceptual Integrity

One of the keys to delivering high-quality software is to establish a common culture and set of rules that every developer should actively contribute to creating and then respect. Another important concept that ensures this is conceptual integrity.

Conceptual integrity is an important concept when it comes to creating software that is consistent and cohesive. It involves making decisions about the design and implementation of a software system in a way that ensures it feels like the work of a single mind, even if multiple people are involved. This can be achieved by agreeing to use specific design principles and conventions throughout the development process.

There are several ways to achieve conceptual integrity. These include:

• Communication: Ensuring that team members effectively discuss and share ideas.
• Code reviews: Having team members review each other’s code to ensure quality and consistency.
• Utilizing design principles and programming constructs: Applying established principles and practices in software design and programming.
• Having a well-defined design or architecture underlying the software: Creating a clear and organized structure for the software.
• Unifying concepts: Ensuring that all components of the software align with a common set of ideas or principles.
• Having a small core group that accepts each commit to the code base: Establishing a dedicated team that carefully evaluates and approves all code changes.

Trust and listen to your engineers

Dear product owners,

This section is specifically for you. While we understand that certain technical choices and aspects may need to be compromised, it is crucial to ensure the quality of the software. Therefore, it is important to listen to and trust the expertise of the software engineers. We understand that it may not always be easy to comprehend the technical explanations provided by engineers, but by asking questions, you can gain a clearer understanding of the information.

Thank you.

In my experiences, I have noticed that certain simple features can cause significant issues in production. This is often because certain technical aspects, such as performance and scalability, were not taken into consideration. These aspects are more apparent to engineers rather than marketing specialists or product owners.

Conclusion

In the fast-paced world of software development, striking the perfect balance between speed and quality is like finding a hidden treasure. As we’ve explored in this article, it’s crucial to recognize that both speed and quality have their rightful places in the development process. While speed keeps us competitive and adaptive, quality ensures the longevity and reliability of our creations.

So, in this exciting journey of coding, testing, and innovating, remember that it’s not about choosing one over the other but rather harmonizing them together. Like a symphony of well-crafted code, let’s continue to collaborate, learn, and adapt, finding that sweet spot where speed and quality converge to create software that not only meets deadlines but exceeds expectations. Here’s to the ongoing quest for the perfect balance in software development, where our teams thrive, and our users rejoice. Happy coding! 🚀👩‍💻👨‍💻