The impact of inner/outer loop imbalance
Changes to business requirements or inner loop code have a disproportionate impact on outer loop artifacts and labour. What might be a “quick” and apparently “simple” change in the inner loop generates vast workloads and potential debt in the outer loop. A myriad of requirements must be updated, test data and environments re-provisioned, and test phases rushed through.
Understanding how your delivery ecosystem has separated into inner and outer loops is not only a useful tool for diagnosing perennial challenges in your software delivery; it also offers a framework for rebalancing your ecosystem, maximising the innovation and competitiveness of your enterprise.
Discover priorities for rebalancing your inner and outer loops
Curiosity have worked closely with software delivery leaders and large enterprises to improve their lifecycle productivity. We’ve found a range of priorities that best help rebalance enterprise software delivery’s inner and outer loops:
Living documentation
Identifying a “ubiquitous” or “bridge” language from which different teams and stakeholders can collaborate, fosters close collaboration and traceability, avoiding uncertainty.
Continuous artifact creation
Maintaining information in structured formats – not more words and in heads – allows the automated creation and maintenance of many outer loop artifacts.
On demand data
Outer loop inefficiencies in test data management are often one of the greatest blockers to software delivery quality and productivity, as every inner and outer loop process requires up-to-date data.
Continuous quality
Automated artifact creation from agreed specifications additionally builds traceability across the outer loop, and into the inner loop. This enables measurability and optimisation.
Your next step to better software
Read a resource, or speak with an expert, to discover how you can transform your enterprise test data management.
Turbocharge your software delivery
Our outer loop experts will help you identify symptoms of inner/outer loop misalignment at your enterprise, crafting a roadmap to software delivery productivity and quality
