Consistency and pudding

Consistency is an often overlooked attribute.

Consistency is what keeps many franchises open - if the food is good at one location, and the franchise is consistent in terms of quality, then every location should have good food.  Consistency is important in some food - have you ever tried pudding that was not the same consistency?  Have you ever wondered what was in there?  We rely upon consistency for driving - ever seen a set of lights go from Green to Red to Yellow?  (Colour blind people need not answer this question.)

Consistency is valuable in many aspects of an organization.  A consistent approach to resolving issues normally results in the average time of an issue decreasing.  Consistency in how projects are planned allows both upper management and staff a better understanding of what is currently on the go and what is outstanding.

Consistency in projects can also increase the quality of a project.  For instance, if people consistently run unit tests when they've made changes to an application the odds of an unexpected bug slipping in are greatly reduced.  Consistency in processes between projects allows for developers to go from one project to another with greater ease and allows for upper management to aggregate data amongst the projects as the data is gathered and reported in a consistent manner.

The new version of TFS (Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2008) is a tool which is going to help us gain some consistency in our projects.  With a common build platform, a common defect tracking system, common processes, common work flows, and common reporting, the ability to aggregate data in a meaningful manner is greatly simplified.  The ability for someone to switch projects is greatly increased as they already know the infrastructure and the processes that are in place.  With consistency we will spend less time trying to customize something into a form that no one else uses and we will spend more time resolving the fundamental business issues that we are presented with.