Meaningful RCAs: Involving the right people

I love collaboration and making exercises something that people can engage with. It is usually the discussion that matters more than what gets written on paper. For this to be successful, you need to have the right people in the (virtual) room.

As we’ve touched upon already, the RCA should touch upon all areas of the lifecycle of the source of the defect. Consequently I’d invite:

• At least one person involved in refinement
• The developer for the original story/defect
• The code reviewer for the original story/defect
• The tester for the original story/defect
• The developer who fixed the defect that we’re doing the RCA for
• An architect, even if they’ve no involvement before (arguably better). Failing that, a team lead.
• Optionally any other team members.

I would have liked to invite a PO to some but I never got quite that bold.

There’s two things to highlight here.

First is that we’re focusing on who was involved when the defect was introduced. We have insight from the person who understands the fix but it is the processes, decisions and challenges in that original issue that we want to understand.

Secondly, with the architect and myself we have a cracking blend of insight. There’s someone who can analyse the code, design and technical side & ask meaningful questions and I can look at testing, process and examine ways of working.

For this to be successful you need all participants bought into the idea of being a safe place & no blame to be placed. I’ve written about this previously.