- Bringing common sense back to software development -
Much has been made of prevention, and while it is not the center of our technology, a word of caution should be said. As in any other business endeavor, two elements need to be considered. The first is the effectiveness of prevention. Are all the committees, methods and process milestones, aimed at improving quality by prevention achieving the goals they are aimed at achieving?
The second element is the cost of these “preventive” methods.
In a top US company, a team of software developers had signed an agreement with their fund provider about cost and delivery date for a software product. A few weeks into the project, the team leader contacted the funding manager to negotiate anew the funding which “would have to double”. “We have been told by the company executives to implement a new software development process. Unfortunately, this new process will roughly double the work,” said the team leader. “Will I get a different product, more feature, better quality?” asked the funding manager. The team leader’s uncensored response was “Same delivery!”.