Slot Police

When specfications are turned into an overly formal process, the spec process becomes a time-sucking industry in itself. I have seen cases where some "Spec Police" count how many slots are filled in on the design forms, while most of the time it is stuff that is obvious and redundant for the module. Plus, a one-size-fits-all spec form does not work well. Different kinds of projects need different approaches. For example, a report-centric project does not need a "database change results" section because reports usually don't change the database contents. Ideally it is a give-and-take process, not Slot Policing that works best.

Slot police mostly only care about slots being filled in, not the usefulness of the slots or the quality of what is in the slots.

CategoryDesignIssues