In an effort to enhance the reliability and availability of its software systems, Swiss Post, a key player in global postal services, has embarked on a journey to sustainably improve software quality. The initiative, outlined by Marc Sallin and Meinrad Jean-Richard in an InfoQ article, showcases a simple yet effective approach adopted by the company to help its agile teams meet their quality targets.
The project, which began in 2018, aimed to develop a new software system for parcel sorting, ensuring high performance and constant availability while employing a continuous deployment model. With a team consisting of a product owner, a scrum master, solution architects, developers, and business analysts, Swiss Post’s focus on quality was integral from the outset, informing their recruitment strategy.
The software system, crucial for determining the timely delivery of packages, runs on Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (Amazon EKS) and is built with C# on Linux containers. It relies on a combination of Postgres, MongoDB for persistence, and Kafka, MQTT, and REST for integration. However, achieving the desired quality standards posed several challenges, including a lack of internal incentives for quality, the accumulation of small issues, the broken window effect, and the high effort required for monitoring metrics.
To address these challenges, Swiss Post’s solution architects introduced lightweight practices. The first step was to mitigate the high effort required for monitoring. Instead of using multiple tools, they created a centralized wiki page to collect all metrics, reducing the workload for developers. This was complemented by a weekly meeting where team members would review the metrics, discuss anomalies, and devise remedial actions.
To ensure continued attention to quality, Swiss Post introduced the role of the Quality Champion. Reporting to the product owner, this individual assumes responsibility for upholding quality standards and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. By tying quality to the overall success of the project and making it a visible priority, Swiss Post tapped into the power of purpose and recognition as motivators, rather than relying solely on financial incentives.
The company’s approach is rooted in the understanding that high-quality software is not a trade-off for speed but a catalyst for it, reducing defects and enabling faster delivery of new features. By addressing the lack of regular attention through structured meetings and empowering a dedicated Quality Champion, Swiss Post is demonstrating a commitment to sustainable software quality improvement.
In a world where software reliability is increasingly critical, Swiss Post’s experience serves as a case study for other organizations seeking to enhance their own software development processes. By combining simplicity, collaboration, and a focus on the human element, the company is paving the way for more effective and sustainable quality management in the tech industry.
In conclusion, Swiss Post’s initiative underscores the importance of strategic planning, continuous monitoring, and fostering a culture of quality within agile teams. As the company continues to refine its approach, the lessons learned from their journey offer valuable insights for software development teams worldwide, emphasizing the need for a holistic and sustainable approach to software quality improvement.
【source】https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/CqStq4v58Jojs6gAb5hbsg
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