operability-questions - OperabilityQuestions.com

Questions to help teams assess the operability of software systems

There is one main file:

1. operability-questions.md - the main set of questions to assess operability

Overview

This repository holds a set of operability questions that are useful for assessing the operability of software systems. The operability questions can be used alone or in conjunction with tools like the Run Book dialogue sheet to help discover additional operability criteria or gaps.

Each operability question requires answers to these key questions:

• Who? (What?): What kind of user or persona will do this? (Or what kind of system?)
• How?: Which tool (or set of tools) or process will help to do this?
• Evidence: How will you demonstrate this using evidence?

For each operability question, there is a short description of why this question is useful, giving some context.

For teams and people new to assessing operability, it can be very effective to print the operability questions page and record questions using pen & paper around a table; this helps teams to "step back" from the computer systems and consider operability more carefully.

The book Team Guide to Software Operability has a section on Operability Questions, including details of how different teams use these questions to help improve operability.

Copyright © 2018 Conflux Digital Ltd

Licenced under CC BY-SA 4.0

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How to use the operability questions

1. Clone/fork the repo
2. Edit the file operability-questions.md
3. Add your own operability questions - send us a Pull Request if you think your new checks are useful to others!
4. Remove (or comment with N/A) those sections that really do not apply in your case (but double-check first).
5. Use the template as a way to encourage discussion and collaboration between Devs and Ops people for building better systems.
6. If some information is missing for one or more sections, indicate this clearly (e.g. WARNING). Knowing what you do not know is valuable.
7. After you have validated the questions with all teams involved, begin to automate the checks and procedures.

Expect to redesign parts of the software in order to better meet the operational needs outlined in these operability questions.