Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!lupine!pepper!sfm
From: sfm@pepper.NCD.COM (Susan Maxwell)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Today's Software Standards (was RE:some advice to a sw eng
Message-ID: <1687@lupine.NCD.COM>
Date: 21 Sep 90 20:50:29 GMT
References: <3242@mindlink.UUCP>
Sender: news@NCD.COM
Reply-To: sfm@pepper.NCD.COM (Susan Maxwell)
Lines: 27



|>  With most anything in this world, and
|> unfortuately with estimation in software development, is the influence of
|> politics.  Political problems can hamper the extimating process...  The
|> politcal problems I speak of are those associated with an "expected right
|> answer".  
|> 

I've seen this sort of politics at work in my industry experience.  An
upper manager
in close contact with the marketplace said "This software will be complete at
this point in time", regardless of the estimates put forth by the
engineers.  Quality
per se was not sacrificed, but functionality was cut.  This debilitated
the software
to the point that it gained few customers, and the cost of development was not
recovered.  I can't hold the manager completely at fault, however.  When
customers
want software that does something, they want it *now*.  If you aren't
fortunate enough
to be building that software already, the time crunch is always going to
be there.

/sfm

Susan Maxwell        Network Computing Devices, Inc.      Mountain View, CA