Where are the places where all stakeholders can meet? Not a physical place, but artifacts, tools, etc.

Assuming that our stakeholders are comprised of customers, developers, testers, database, support, and deployment working in their own silos, what is the common ground between any two?

Worst case:

We can see that in a worst-case, siloed organization, the conduit for communication can differ. Even between two stake holders, the conduit can differ depending on the flow of information (e.g., the conduit between Customer and Support is not the same as Support and Customer). Each conduit is a chance for miscommunication.

So, the common ground between any two can vary. What if we have an idea or issue that spans several silos? More and possibly very different artifacts will have to be taken into account. Because these artifacts were created by different groups, there’s a good chance there is going to be miscommunication and wasted effort.

Now, let’s tweak the terms like “Requirements”, “Application”, “Bug Report”, and “DB Schema” for a best-case description of said artifacts/conduits:

Requirements: Description of what the Application should do with runnable examples and text
Application: The system that will be deployed for users, as well as all the tests, set up scripts, etc
Bug Report: Automated, report-as-soon-as-you-find-it test failure
DB Schema: The DDL and DML used in the database in support of the Application

What we really need is something that takes the best-case description of the artifacts and holds them in a common area for all of the stake holders. This common area would be the spot where we all can talk the same talk, manipulate the necessary artifacts, and if need be, see the appropriate “view” (as a Customer, as Tester, etc…) of the software as a whole.

Where/what is this commons? Well, it doesn’t fully exist yet. Things like Fit, FitNesse, and BDD almost get us there. The next generation of tools such as Twist get us even closer.