Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ziggy!usfvax2!tscs!pdn!dinsdale!reggie
From: reggie@dinsdale.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Retrospective Forecasting
Message-ID: <7503@pdn.paradyne.com>
Date: 2 Mar 90 15:38:59 GMT
References: <20406@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Sender: usenet@pdn.paradyne.com
Reply-To: reggie@dinsdale.paradyne.com (George W. Leach)
Organization: AT&T Suncoast Division, Largo FL
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In article <20406@bellcore.bellcore.com> duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan) writes:

>It struck me that this applies equally well to software projects.  In discus-
>sing software quality and productivity efforts with a number of people over the
>past couple of years, this has been one of the major failings noted.  There is
>very little effort put into retrospective analysis of what happened in a pro-
>ject.

[discussion of reasons for not doing this and the fact that the intial 
investment can be recouped down the road - deleted]


    For over ten years now I have been asking myself why don't we invest 
more time up front into software products.  Why must a new software system
be given a ridiculous due date that strains the programming staff to just
get it built without worrying about all the details that would make life
easier in the future?

    There are a couple of non-technical factors involved here that hing
on short term versus long term thinking as well as the ever present
"market window".

    First, and most importantly, a product must appear on the market by
a certain time in order for the company to compete in the marketplace.
In the past, when I have worked for a regulated entity, eg. Bellcore or
pre-divestiture AT&T, this had not been as great a concern as with a
market driven company.  However, getting a product out the door would
impact the BOCs ability to do business.

    Certain companies seem to take the attitude that it is better to
get the product out there sooner, than to wait and produce a higher
quality product.  Being first to market or hot on the heals of your
competition seems to be a motivating factor.  Other companies, who
have built up reputations as a quality producer can aford to release
products after their competition because their customers expect a
better product and are willing to wait.  Witness the attitudes towards
the announcement of DEC's risc workstation last year.  Not to take away
from DEC, but I heard many folks simply say that they would wait to see
what Sun would produce.

    However, on the other hand, it seems whenever we spec out a software
system it must always be the most feature-full wiz bang thing the world
has ever seen.  We set too high of a goal to complete in a relatively
short period of time.  I saw a statement that I think Harlan Mills was
credited as expressing: "We don't build software, we grow it".  This to
me makes a great deal of sense.  Use a phase release system to grow a 
system in a controlled manner.

    Anyway, to get back to the topic at hand......deadlines are out of our
control and often, due to market pressures, only focus on the end product,
not on the internal quality of the product in terms of maintainability,
extensibility, readability, etc.....  When that is the ultimate goal,
nothing else will matter to management.  Consequently the programmers are
somewhat contrained in what they can do in order to meet that goal *and*
at the same time slip in as many quality features as they can along the
way.

    Until product management makes all these long term investments a part
of the product and allocates time and resources for it, it will not happen.


    While there are people who left to their own devices would never write
readable code, I think that most professionals would.  Most do despite the
fact that it is not part of their assignment.  Remember, when schedules
slip the first thing to go is code reviews, etc.... then features are
thrown out.  This sort of says it all, doesn't it?

George

George W. Leach					AT&T Paradyne 
(uunet|att)!pdn!reggie				Mail stop LG-133
Phone: 1-813-530-2376				P.O. Box 2826
FAX: 1-813-530-8224				Largo, FL 34649-2826 USA