Verification plan debate – Part II

Continued from: Verification debate Part I

Good morning Sheriff.

I am Ananta. I was selected for citizen internship of 6 months.

Welcome Ananta. Come let’s catch up over a coffee.

Sheriff was an old man in his early fifties. He was tall guy with piercing sharp eyes. His gray hair and scars were proof of experiences he has had. His presence was something that you could not ignore.

At breakfast table, sheriff asked how do you earn your living?

I verify hardware designs for my bread and cheese, replied Ananta.

Well, I am curious what brings you here? I don’t think we do any of those things here.

Ananta said, I have been following your work for quite some time. My interest is to understand how are you able to bring down the crime rate so fast? I want to study your methods.

How is it going to help you young man? Asked perplexed sheriff.

Ananta said there is some similarity in what we both do. You catch criminals we, catch bugs.

What bugs? exclaimed sheriff with surprise

Ananta said oh no! not that bugs. When we say bugs in our professional world, we mean the parts of design violating the requirement specification. It causes malfunction in the operation of the systems using these designs.

Umm! I get it, requirement specifications are like laws then, said sheriff. Since bugs violate laws, you guys treat them as criminals. So you want to bring down the bug rate in your designs by learning my methods.

So that makes you sheriff of the verification land he said jokingly. We enforce laws and you folks enforce requirement specifications.

Exactly! said Ananta. He could not hide the expression of appreciation for the old sheriff who caught up with the concepts so quickly. He was now convinced that his in right place and slight doubts that he had seeing old man in person had vanished.

Sheriff introduced Ananta to all his staff. Asked him to start looking at some of the solved cases as to how his team has solved them.

Alright…. said Ananta half-heartedly. He was excited and eager to see something live and be part of it. He knew experience is the best teacher.

Sheriff went back to his table and immersed himself in the files in front of him. He spoke over the phone to his staff on the status of various cases. Planned out the tasks for all the officers, quickly scanned the newspaper to see any other news of interest. He then went for rounds of his jurisdiction himself.

The Sheriff was busy with some important cases and couldn’t give much time for Ananta.

Ananta was not guy who would sit in corner and wait for things to happen. He had a mission. He started observing and making notes.

Ananta figured out that patrolling is backbone of police operations. It consumed most of the resources. So he first spoke to patrolling head.

Ananta asked what are some of the patrolling strategies used? Officer answered we have few officers doing regular circuits or passes through key areas called a beat.

Hmm Ananta’s verification mind started correlating. This sounds like directed test cases.

Officer said we also have some police cars cruising randomly through city streets supposedly create the feeling that police are everywhere. This method is the most controversial and questionable in terms of its effectiveness.

Ananta chuckled. Officer asked what happened? We also do something similar in our profession. We also have same challenge. Goes without saying constrained random tests passed through his mind.

Suddenly phone started ringing. It was an emergency call. Officer excused himself with his team to attend to their duties. Ananta was reminded of tanked weekly regressions, where all of his team would rush to debug and fix it.

There was curious constable looking at Ananta from a far corner.

Ananta waved his hand and walked to him. He introduced himself. He asked politely what are your responsibilities, sir?

Constable said myself and some of my colleagues are stationed at some key locations. These include airports, railway stations, bus stands and some sensitive spots around the city. We just patrol small area around those key locations on foot. We keep vigil in those sensitive areas everyday. We also keep an eye on arrival and departures of new folks to our county.

Thank you said Ananta. Okay, these folks looks like are doing job of checkers and scoreboards of verification environment.

Days were rolling. Ananta was studying some of the cases. He was also studying various operational plans and tasks lists made in the office by sheriff. He was amazed at the level details and wanted to talk to sheriff about it.

Ananta finally caught up with sheriff on that evening. Ananta shared about his learning’s so far.

Sheriff said yes we do carefully plan our patrols and pick locations where we station our people. Both are very important activities for us and glad you have learnt about it. He showed details on how these plans are laid out with the map of his county. It was very detailed and well thought out.

Ananta appreciated the details.

Sherif said please note detailed does not mean they are lines in stone. We have designed our plans such that they can easily adapt to changes. Which is also equally important as details.  It certainly created great impressions in Ananta’s mind.

It was clear to Ananta these plans looked at like test plan and checks plan part of verification plan. But Ananta was more curious about the worth of time invested in planning.

He asked sheriff what is your general view on planning? Do things go according to plan?

No, said sheriff in his deep voice. Old man quoted Dwight D. Eisenhower saying, in preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

We have learnt from our experiences, no plan survives contact with the reality.

So our plans are really plans for adapting and improvising. It’s only this type of meta-planning that allows us respond quickly and achieve our objectives under dangerous circumstances.

Grave danger? Ananta asked

Sheriff questioned back is there another kind?

Wow, that’s great insight. Yes, importance of planning was now clear to Ananta.

Now it was clear to him why executable, traceable and trackable verification plans were emphasized so much by Achyuta. We must also build our verification plans as meta-plans that have adaptability built into them noted down Ananta.

It was already late and sheriff drove Ananta back to hostel where he was lodged.

Something exciting which Anant was waiting for long is about to happen in next few days.

To be continued in : Part III