Over the last few weeks we have been building a service for one of our client's. The services manages their clients subscriptions to their various products and services.
It is complex logic which in short means there is plenty of room for mis-understandings, mis-communication, mis-interpretation and mis-takes! An endless source of folly! lol!
In my initial attempts at implementation I had got part way there, but in a review with K, I realised that I had missed some fundamental points. It was clear from initial feedback and implementations by H and T that they were also not getting it.
Last week after taking a step back we all agreed that the first step was getting on the same page with our regards to our understanding. We were all willing and so set a time and had a Skype meeting with screen sharing.
Using Excel we mapped out real world data and then walked through each scenario step by step to test our understanding. No code, just Excel with a lot of teasing as each person got a chance to test their understanding and celebration when they grasped it.
Before we had taken a step back and come to an agreement, the conflict was increasing. The implementation was not meeting the requirements which caused tension. The conflict helped to surface awareness of the need to get on the same page.
Once we were in agreement about getting on the same page, conflict surfaced from mis-interpretation of the requirements. The tension generated helped to pinpoint gaps to explore that needed to be grasped. Teasing helped to not take ourselves too seriously.
The end result was that we all had a firm grasp of the requirements as well as documentation to serve as a reference point to check back on as we implement.