Embellishment Is The Pitfall Of The Methodologist

Even when I give hard-core programmers a section of a methodology to write, they end up adding in stuff I know they never did on the project. When I ask about it, they say, "but that would be a really good idea..." Even I have never managed to get all the way through writing a methodology without adding a little of this or that, "that surely would be worth the effort."

Only problem is, most project teams are so low on energy they never do all these good things. CrystalClearMethodology is not a compendium of best practices, because the average project team could never follow all those practices. So it contains mostly just the things without which the project would really be in trouble, plus a few things that I have found is the saving grace in successful projects (namely, close communications), plus, and I just couldn't resist it, one practice I don't often see, but would surely be a great idea if only people would do it - regression tests. Arrgh, I did it again. --AlistairCockburn

Right. People aren't doing these things because their management isn't forcing them to do it. This is another of those discipline thingies, eh? -- MartySchrader

CategoryMethodology