Comments on: Improving Software Development with Automated Tests

By: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Annual Management Blog Review: Software, Manufacturing and Leandership

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:18:09 +0000

In my contribution to the 3rd annual management blog roundup I will take a look at 3 blogs: Dennis Stevens, How to implement ‘Lean Thinking’ in a Business and the Three Star Leadership Blog. This year 14 management bloggers contributed to highlight over 40 blogs, be sure to check out all the posts…

By: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Mistake Proofing Deployment of Software Code

Wed, 19 May 2010 16:20:10 +0000

[...] is a continuation of my previous post: Improving Software Development with Automated Tests. Lets look at a typical poka-yoke example. A USB connector must be put in the right way up – [...]

By: How small batches improve product development | Manufacturology

How small batches improve product development | Manufacturology — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:00:15 +0000

“A couple of recent blog posts are representative: Hunter talks about how automated testing improves quality since it acts as a mistake proofing or poka yoke… automated testing of a product that is composed of ready–tested and reliable modules facilitates that developers make very frequent deliveries of small batches of working code.”

By: Jeff Hajek

Jeff Hajek — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 15:31:03 +0000

John,

Thanks for this example. I am constantly looking for good poka yoke examples for office environments. I hadn’t thought of that one before.

Your point on the quality of the poka yoke is equally valid in any environment. The same is true of fixtures or other devices. The key is to combine it with continuous improvement and keep making the poka yoke better.

Jeff

By: Deming vs. Automated Software Testing – Machiel's Blog

Deming vs. Automated Software Testing – Machiel's Blog — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:38:19 +0000

[...] Hunter says tests are a form of prevention. They are a form of Poke Yoke, Poke Yoke means [...]

By: John Hunter

John Hunter — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:09:43 +0000

The automated testing I refer to above is unit and integration testing. Application code is not deployed to the production server if those tests show the code includes a bug that causes the test suite to fail.

Any process that prevents code with a bug (defined as a failing test) from being deployed when any type of tests fail I would see as poka-yoke.

Selenium is another good automated testing tool. Which could be seen as integration testing but also more (testing browser compatibility).

By: Nicholas Hebb

Nicholas Hebb — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:16:08 +0000

[I'm not trying to quibble over semantics, but ...]

I think your example is really a poka-yoke for the user input process, not the software development process. Unit testing would be more analogous to poka-yoke.