TDD and its relation to DevOps
The systems thinking diagram below explains the connection between organizational performance and culture and skills. The original diagram was created by Rob Westgeest and has been recreated in Excalidraw.
Green arrows indicate a proportional causal relation between factors that can go both up and down. Red arrows depict reciprocal causal relations. A self reinforcing feedback loop can be observed as soon as one gives in to the urge to introduce controls and/or approvals into the mix. Instead of improving the software delivery process, the opposite is achieved. Even worse, as the negative feedback loop implies, the opposite effect is a continuous process!
In this diagram you can see that culture and skills improve the batch size of changes, i.e. they make them (significantly) smaller. It is exactly these skills that are positively reinforced by practicing the coding katas with TDD. Last but not least, the culture is nudged into the right direction during the coding dojos, where people learn and stimulate one another to build quality in!
Systems thinking DevOps
