Thanks, I really enjoyed talking with you, too. You gave me a lot of things to think about.

Regarding looking for concrete steps, I totally agree. I actually had a chance to speak with my manager this morning about some of these things. Just as I thought, a lot of my fear was in my head; My manager is totally receptive to my ideas, and he thinks the team will be, too! Sweet!

Also, my manager asked if anyone I met was available for consulting (in regards to helping us identify the issues and concrete steps to address them). So, there may be an opportunity to bring you in for a couple of days to help coach us. Email me (see the about tab, above, for my contact info) if you’re interested.

I really enjoyed talking to you; we definitely had some great conversations.

It is important to remember that continuous improvement is about looking ahead, not backward. I think you are on the right track when you say that you are going to look for concrete steps to improve your team. Some people look at their past and feel sad about not having tests. However, the past is gone, all we can do is try to do better tomorrow.

One of the wonderful benefits of testing, in general, and TDD, in specific, is that you can generally guarantee that bugs won’t appear twice. The same goes for improving your process: try to enact steps that keep you from making the same mistakes in the past. Take time periodically to reflect on mistakes that may have been made in your process, then take concrete action to keep them from happening again.

Keep in touch, and I’ll look forward to seeing how you move ahead.