The final passenger

Work In progress poem around my frustrations with northern rail:

The final passenger

I arrive at the station,
platform 4 says on time,
It cant be,
theres no train on the line!
Waiting patiently the screen flashes 6,
in the distance I hear the screech of four clattering bricks,
4 pacers no less,
this just wont do,
Taking their time to dismount,
theres no urgency with this crew,
5 more minutes pass as they stroll,
taking their time!
"2 carriages today mate",
"theres been leaves on the line!",
Are they taking the piss,
I scream out inside,
As reside myself to the journey ahead,
and prepare for the ride,
Meols cop, burscough;
filling up fast!
Parbold, Appley, Gathurst;
we're now filled to burst,
Wigan the next stop,
they have got to be joking,
Another stream of commuters,
and some have been smoking;
"Move down the train please",
comes the guards loud demand,
"We havent any room to move mate; cant you see, Are you blind?";
Our cries go unanswered,
as they pile on this bus,
Whos to blame for this?
Is it them or is it us?
Scores left abandoned,
the next train they must get,
The delayed to Victoria,
a miserable prospect;
Arriving at Bolton,
its where the fun starts,
As virtually nobody on this train departs
A scrum to get on ensues,
"I've got to get to work!",
"Stand back from the train",
yells the Platform jerk;
Finally we depart rather full,
overladen!
Approaching my final travel destination,
Tickets at the ready,
they have to be seen,
Rinse and repeat on the 16:17

Adoption of Agile – A Continuous Delivery Story

Waterfall

Coming from a background of software development using waterfall, I was always fully aware of its shortfalls.  Speed of delivery, number of defects found in test and its rigidity and inability to cope with changing business requirements in an agile way.  With a split site development team of 3^rd party developers in the US and Testing and Management in the UK the turnaround of defects was painfully slow and changing requirements had the impact of future delays and increased cost to already delayed projects.  After moving on to my current testing job I moved into another role using this software development methodology.

The old approach was very labour intensive with manual testing, producing and reading of BRD’s/functional & technical specifications and then taking time to write test cases, all of which added unnecessary layers of process to software development.  Gladly those days are behind us after moving to agile, but it does remind you and helps you understand how software development has matured and benefited from adopting an agile approach.  

Agile

Moving to agile had a profound effect for us as BRD’s/functional & technical specification documentation were replaced with story cards.   Our deployment process of getting new releases into our QA environment was simplified to just one click of a button!  This was a stark change compared to writing a release note and creating a request ticket in another application, which was then sent to our Application release engineers to deploy.  The removal of these process heavy steps was like removing barriers in the software development lifecycle.  By cutting down on manual tasks it freed up the team to concentrate on what we were best at ‘software development’.

The business benefited from the move to Agile as previously last minute changes were very difficult to accommodate into a release.  With story cards it was easier to estimate the time needed to carry out the requested change and therefore easier to manage changes like this from a release management view point. 

The move to Agile was not without its learning curve however.  It took some time to mature as a team and get processes in place to better manage releases and become more efficient in the way we used agile as a business.  Releases in 2011 were still happening too infrequently with large areas of functionality being worked on behind beta features which would then be turned on in one release.  The down side to this was that there would be 2-4 releases a month which would mean we were not able to fix live issues a quickly as we would have liked.  The risk of failure to each release was greater as there were more changes building up for each release and last minute changes would add additional complications which could have impacts across multiple areas of the site.  Due to the size of the release and the risk regression of the releases was lengthy so that we would have confidence in the release.  As a result of the low release rate and increased risks our release success rate in 2011 was 73% which gradually improved the following year to 76%.

A change was still needed…

Daily Releases

Around May 2012 it was decided we would look at releasing more frequently, as opposed to our traditional 1 release a week we had the ambition to release everyday where possible.  Releasing smaller number of stories on a regular cycle was thought would reduce the risk seen with larger releases and therefore improve the confidence in the releases we were doing, as there were fewer changes to test and therefore fewer defects.   This approach also helped change the way last minute business changes were handled.  Rather than add these into the release last minute when they would add risk to a release they could now wait till the following day’s release, as our release frequency was now daily as opposed to weekly.   Large releases are less frequent but are managed better though our multivariate testing which allows us control over monitoring the performance of new features for the site with a live test group of users.  This process was not in place when we first adopted agile but allows us to fine tune a feature and find any other issues with it before it is released to the main alpha site for all users to experience.

Daily releases I think have been one of the key changes we have made which have led to the improvements seen in our software development process.   Compared to the previous year our release success rate has increased dramatically from 76% to 93%!  While at the same time the number of release’s done has increase from 66 to 123.  This is a clear indication that the daily releases along with our agile approach are pivotal to successful software delivery.  This has only been possible due to our adoption of agile and the establishment of associated technologies, which over time have allowed us greater flexibility to cope with change.

What the Future Hold’s

Going forward we’ll be looking to streamline our deployment process to live similar to the current process we have implemented for deployments to our QA environments.  A one click deploy process to live with the ability to rollback just as easily if needs be.  This will remove another process sticking point in getting software to live where it makes a difference and delivers value to the business and consumers.  Once this is in place we will have less limitations of when changes can be deployed to live.  We will no longer be limited to one deployment a day but could potentially release to live multiple times in one day if needed.  I can foresee in the future that we will seek closer interaction with our users and use their feedback to update the site and bring features that the users want to see.  This could also be useful in crowd sourcing feedback from users on new features which are currently in test that could dynamically feed into the design/functionality process for that feature before it is delivered to live.  Closer collaboration between the business, development team and end users can only help improve our software development process.  The technical abilities of one click deploy along with our agile approach add benefits of faster speed to market which make us more responsive to change.

The Mobile Migration - A New Dawn

My first mobile

It doesn't seem like yesterday that I was heading into town on the day I was leaving home for a 4 year university course in Scotland to pickup my very first mobile phone a BT Cellnet phone (Left) from Phillips. This was back in the day when marketing of these devices boasted how many characters you could fit on the screen!

Texting was the main thing I used the phone for as it was cheap to contact the same type of phone on the network, so obviously my mum bought one too. Back in these early days of mobile for me a mobile was primarily used for calls and texting back and forth from home. Only with the arrival of the new Nokia devices and seeing games like snake on these devices did I see how quickly technology was advancing. But this was 1999 and mobile was still in its infancy.

Moving with the times

Since my graduation in 2003 and throughout the rest of the 2000's mobile technology has snowballed with each new device bringing something new to the table for consumers. When I upgraded to the Nokia 6300 (right) it came with a 2 megapixel camera, bluetooth which enabled transfer of pictures and other content wirelessly to another blue tooth enabled device; and micro SD memory slot to store my new camera photos, wallpapers and screensavers which I could transfer across from my PC. This was a much improved user experience, which was a far cry from my previous Nokia device which had Internet but no camera. To get a picture on your phone you have to first get it onto a web page on the internet then navigate to that URL with your phone to retrieve the image. It wasn't very user friendly and probably explains the popularity of text based companies which would send you wallpapers and ringtones at the time.

The Present

Last week I finally renewed my contract with O2 and was able to upgrade my Nokia 6700, much to my dad's delight (he gets all my hand me downs). I felt like I'd finally caught up with the smart phone 'revolution' when I got my hands on the new Galaxy Nexus (left).

Now looking back at that old BT Cellnet phone really puts things into perspective as to how far mobile technology has come, and how its changed the way each and everyone of us interacts with one another and consumes media.

Since getting the phone the iPad's not had a look in as everything the tablet can do the new smart phones can do too. Its clear that there is a gradual trend a 'migration' if you will, towards mobile devices. The way we as consumers are choosing to access information is changing, we want to access the full desktop version of the sites not mobile only versions which were 'lite' versions of the main sites for older model phones. Yes there are apps available which cater for the various android devices, iPad, iPhone and Nokia but they all have a different feel and level of functionality and most fall short of delivering a experience similar to that of a main site. There is also another problem with having all these stand alone applications in that each requires their own set of resources to keep them supported, updated and developed for; all which have a cost associated with that.

We can see that visitors favour using the main website as we see two thirds more traffic to our main site than is seen on standalone applications.

We can see this 'migration' to mobile reflected in our site stats where as recently as 2010 our mobile traffic was only just over 1 million page views a month. This year (Jan 2011) its close to 45 million page views a month which is a phenomenal growth.

A New Dawn

Much like the demise of print against online we are seeing similar tends in what devices visitors are using to access the web . Desktop PCs made way for laptops which in turn have made way for tablet devices and smartphones. We still want to access the same information but don't have to walk upstairs and sit for 5 mins for the PC to boot up before you get to a desktop screen. Tablet devices and smart phones have freed us from those constraint's and we can now access pretty much anything, anywhere.

The BBC had a story today detailing that 'Android's share of the tablet market has risen sharply'

"Android accounted for 39% of the market in the final three months of last year, up from 29% a year earlier, Strategy Analytics said. Apple's share fell to 58% from 68%"

Its definitely interesting times ahead with cheaper android tablets hitting the market all the time and the launch of Apple's Ipad 3 & IPhone 5 expected later this year. Having that affordability pricing point for people with the android will definitely boost their sales. The customizability of android devices and freedom it gives you is definitely an attractive option. On the other side though you have Apple who's devices have a feel of quality about them but are more restrictive. But they do have a loyal following with a good brand identity. Just like clothes if a brand is popular, it doesn't matter even if it was my old BTcellnet phone with an apple sticker on it, someone would still buy it....?

The arrival of ice cream sandwich OS for the android which caters for both mobiles and tablets alike is a big step towards seeing a consistent user experience on both you mobile android device and android tablet. Similar on apples side the iOS5 upgrade too is a step in the right direction though has been fraught with its own issues, namely the battery issue with the iPhone 4s.

Looking forward to the future hopefully HTML5 will play a large role in delivering a consistent and engaging experience for users across all platforms and devices.