Product at the end of its life cycle? Try the Scream Test

One of my teams was responsible for maintaining over 3,000 applications, utilities and audience facing services. We didn’t know who owned or cared about the majority of these. This mysterious majority had been commissioned in the mists of time by people who’d moved on. 3,000 was too many and we needed to cut. Our only recourse was the “Scream Test”.
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Two Heads are Better Than One

My problem was how to transport my hot black Americano to work in a bumpy taxi without the coffee slopping out of the cup, making a mess in the taxi and burning me. Generally I believe in sharing. When I’ve got an insoluble problem I’ve found it even more important to share. Somebody (else) has the answer. And in this case a quick brainstorm with a colleague gave me a simple solution.
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Specification by Example helps even with no Automation

I’m keen on Specification by Example particularly with a tool like Cucumber to automate tests. However this style of specification is also useful without the automation. I introduced my current team to Specification by Example and, with some help from me, the customer is now using the same disciplines to define requirements to hand to a 3rd party development shop. The experiment has been very successful.
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