Waste and Anti-Patterns in Software Performance Projects

This examines what commonly hinders software performance measurement projects using the categories of waste used by lean manufacturing.

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What Are Applicable to Your Porject?

Here are the most common wastes during load testing work.

Applicable To Us (No - Yes)	Waste	Anti-Pattern Symptoms & Conditions or Critical Success Factor (CSF)
	1. Waiting: Provisions for testing (hardware/software/support) are restricted or not available.	A. All potential stakeholders, deliverables, and roles
		B. Dependencies and lead times.
	2. Over-Production: More runs are conducted than necessary.	C. Non-functional requirements for the application (such as average and maximum allowable response time for each level of expected throughput) are defined at the start of the project.
		D. Trade-offs in benefits vs. costs of requirements to all stakeholders are analyzed to provide justification and purpose to work.
		E. Objectives and conditions for each run are planned out.
	3. Excess processing: People make mistakes after working too many overtime hours.	F. Planning and implementing an appropriate level of resources to match anticipated needs.
		G. Accuracy of estimates.
	4. Rework: Load emulation scripts and configurations contain defects, requiring re-runs.	H. Treat load-emulation scripting like other software development (with design, source controls, inspections, defect tracking).
	5. Motion: Much manual effort to conduct runs, collect results, and analyze results lengthens time and engenders mistakes.	I. Standardization and Automation.
	6. Movement: Tests need to be rerun because what is actually used (in production) is different than hardware tested, or actual production usage is different than anticipated.	J. Understanding of current and future technologies (for each application in the Service Catalog, a mapping of infrastructure dependencies). K. Availability of accurate and timely business forecasts L. Possible impacts to performance are identified and measured.
	7. Churn: Runs become invalidated by changes in the system under test not understood by all parties, requiring time for reverse-engineering.	M. Communication and interaction with other service management processes (such as in Source Control systems and wiki pages which can trace each change made at specific points in time). (Pull vs. Push)
	8. Inventory: Run results are missing or mis-categorized. One has to repeatedly sort through obsolete items to get to desired items.	N. Produce reports soon after runs are conducted.
		O. Naming conventions and abbreviations defined and followed?
		P. Backup of all files. Ways to highlight files needed and suppress those which are not needed.

The categories:

Waiting, Over-Production, Excess Processing, Rework, Motion, Movement, Churn, Inventory

are from the "Lean Manufacturing" movement.

"Anti-Patterns" are chronic conditions (patterns of cause-and-effect) that keep work from being efficient and effective. They create waste

Critical Success Factors (CSFs) resolve anti-patterns to keep projects moving forward.

Resources

Video: Lean Manufacturing Secrets