Member-only story
Why Software Development Slows Down When You Try to Speed It Up
Slow software is smooth and smooth software development is fast
The shortcut in creating software is to create quality and create it once
The faster software development tries to go, the more mistakes and the lower the quality. Shortcuts lower quality and technical debt builds up and slows everything down.
Fast is slow because Software development is a loser’s game, you build momentum by reducing mistakes, bugs and errors. Software Development Is Misunderstood, Quality is fastest way to get code into production.
You don’t make up time creating software, it’s a marathon that is best suited to steady progress towards the finish line. Sprinting gets you ahead for 5 minutes but behind at the finish line.
Developers predicting decisions
Developers predicting projects decisions are less accurate than knife throwing badger but slightly more accurate than a dart throwing horse. Software projects are late over 50 percent of the time but it’s still a shock to everyone.
Developers have a dream that one day software creation will rise above unrealistic project time deadlines, shortcuts are rejected and the answer to all those problems are not working the weekend. Replaced with steady development and a mantra to create quality software.
How project plans are created
The biggest shocks are project decisions and failed projects. Failing projects heading towards a brick wall accelerate because of desperate attempts to meet the deadlines.
Software projects are the perfect breeding ground for poor decisions. Haunted by initial estimates, created using high-level requirements, which soon change and grow.
You win a software project with the lowest bid, over promising the benefits and under promising the cost (time and money). This is the opposite approach you would take if you wanted to create an accurate estimate of delivery timelines.
The initial project plan drags down the project like an impossibly heavy anchor on a ship. The…
