Zero Defect Strategy

Popularised by Microsoft, the idea is simple: At any given time, the highest priority is to eliminate bugs before writing any new code.

Philosophy & history (according to me 👀)

“Stop the line” taken from Toyota’s production line system is related the zero defect strategy in my opinion

Autonomation, or its Japanese name Jidoka, means that work is organized so that the slightest abnormality is immediately detected, work stops, and the cause of the problem is remedied before work resumes.

The only way to handle issues in a continuous improvement environment is to see each issue as an opportunity for improvement, and a stepping stone for sustainable growth.

More practial tips

  • Automated pipelines are your friend.
    • Make sure you can build, static analysis, type checking, tests etc at each merge or pull request for your trunk branch
  • My friends have also suggested pre-commit hooks. But I’m not a fan, I commit early & often, pre-commit hooks can feel like death by thousand cuts in a big codebase😬