No Design Up Front

NoDesignUpFront is what one of my clients in particular seems to like doing -- that is, charging forward and slapping code together with no design, no planning, no nothing. The fact that his projects don't seem to be successful (ie, they're late, over budget, and don't meet client expectations) seems not to deter him from continuing this practice. And worse, he's stubborn and becomes hostile and confrontational when one suggests to him that "make numbers up from thin air, and then do some hand-waving and produce a made-up estimate that supports those numbers" is not a viable project planning practice.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how one might start to move a client like that to ExtremeProgramming and how to overcome his attitude that "spending time designing software before you code it is wasted effort"?

-- TamaraCravit

Uh, if you iterate, the previous version is the DUF. According to the XP world view, that code:

• Passed all tests
• Sustained review, possibly by end users
• Possibly made us money

All those metrics indicated the most relevant quality of the design - its lucrativeness.

XP does BigDesignUpFront all the time. --PhlIp

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CategoryPlanning

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