Section 12.1. RentAPartySoftware

12.1. RentAPartySoftware

RPS produces RentEz, an application for managing the rental of party equipment, such as party tents. The application has been developed as a standalone, traditional desktop application. But that is no longer sufficient: Several RPS clients have multiple branches and want to run them as an integrated system. So RPS figured that a move to the Web would make sense and would also allow its clients' customers to make rental bookings over the Web. As one of the staff told us:

"Some of our best clients have been slow to upgrade to newer versions of RentEz because of problems with quality. Lately, there have been more complaints about little problems in the software.

"We've lost a few sales because we've been unable to add needed features in time. We used to make changes to RentEz quickly and well. But lately, everything seems to have slowed down."

The company has a good spirit. "People feel comfortable here." The company owner is enthusiastic and has close ties with his brother's party rental company, which was the prime mover for the software. People seem to get on well and be generally open to change. But the testers, who are blamed when things are delayed, are depressed and frustrated. "We feel second class and would like to have more influence on quality."

It's fascinating how much you get a sense for the people in a company after a few days: who makes things happen, the negative voice, the person who brings things together, the ones for and against change. They believe that they use a software development process, but it sure doesn't show.

Surprisingly, there wasn't too much resistance to change. RPS had been growing well, but its software was getting to the point where "we've lost control and are frightened of making big changes to it."

Questions & Answers

Q1:

Is this information relevant to programmers too?

A1:

Yes, most certainly. Programmers and testers need to get experience with Fit before starting to help and then work with businesspeople on writing tests for their business rules. Programmers will also need to write the fixtures to tie the tests to the system under test and so need to have a share in their meaning. Programmers also need to be involved in this process, using their abstraction skills at the right time.