FINAL WORD
Raja Gudepu , CEO and Founder , Oteemo
At face value , the TPS model sounds great . Every team member has the opportunity to halt the production line when they spot an issue . But anyone who has run a software team knows that delivering quality software on a regular cadence requires more than agility and automation . There are deadlines to be met . And , tools and processes without the right culture often stops work for the wrong reasons ( i . e . arguing with the product team about features they think should be included and not directly related to quality , etc ).
What Pixar can teach the Software Factory about quality
When we think about what the software factory of the future ought to look like and how we assure quality throughout the software lifecycle , we could learn a thing or two from the world ’ s most innovative animation studio : Pixar .
Each Pixar film could itself be thought of as a very long and highly complex software project . And since Pixar only produces one or two films every couple of years , the investment and risk is enormous . Despite the protracted timelines of these films , the pressure of deadlines is a constant reality . Yet despite these pressures , quality doesn ’ t come at the expense of velocity . Though Pixar doesn ’ t create its films on a traditional assembly line , the creation of an animated film follows a similar arc , with each team passing their work product off to the next , who then pushes it further down the line . Borrowing from the TPS model , Pixar recognized early on that in order for its final product to be of the highest quality , any member of the team must feel empowered to pull the cord to stop the line if a problem is identified .
Of course , Pixar releasing a new film every couple of years is a very different animal than a software team deploying new releases on a near continuous basis . However , there are lessons from each of these examples that can help build the right culture to support a modern software factory .
Consider some of the following insights from Pixar and how they might inform your own software development practice :
• Embed quality into every phase of the software lifecycle . Be careful not to confuse the process with the goal . As Pixar ’ s executive team came to appreciate : ‘ making the process better , easier and cheaper is an important aspiration and something to continually work on – but it isn ’ t the goal . Making something great is the goal .’ Quality oriented metrics and benchmarks should be established at the outset of every release and evaluated in post-mortems as workflows and processes are refined .
• Be intentional about the culture you create . Pixar believes that every member of their team should feel empowered to ‘ pull the cord ’ in the name of quality . However , building a culture where every team member feels fully invested in the final product requires a culture in which feedback is actively solicited from all stakeholders and is operationalized in a manner that encourages constructive collaboration rather than leaping in and shouting ‘ stop the line ’.
• Make the extra effort to build cross functional teams . Traditional assembly lines were a model of efficiency because of the hyper-specialization of workers . Modern software teams , however , will benefit from exposing individuals from different disciplines and mental models to one another . Pixar recognized there was great value in having its artists learn about software development and vice versa – it helped them build better software tools for the artists and helped forge trust between the various teams .
• Embrace the fact that plans aren ’ t fool proof . Complex software projects require a great deal of planning . But as the Pixar team discovered , ‘ over-planners just take longer to be wrong ’. Unlike software , movies don ’ t have strict user or security requirements that need to be met at the end of the day . Yet they are similar in that there will always be retakes and that the road to completion will require a great deal of experimentation and failure .
It ’ s hard to say what the future Software Factory will look like . Undoubtedly automation and standardization , Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning operations ( MLOps ) will be foundational as software becomes more complex and entangled . Wherever you might happen to be in your Software Factory journey , you would do well to remember the first line of the Agile Manifesto , which urges us to value ‘ individuals and interactions over processes and tools ’.
Creating and protecting the right culture , one that inspires everyone to care about quality , will help ensure your organization has a solid chassis in place that can support and extend your most ambitious software-driven initiatives . p
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