Change Happens—So Make it Cheaper
Change on software projects is expensive; it leads to wasteful rework. Change is risk. We can deal with risk one of two ways. We can reduce the likelihood of the negative event occurring. Or we can reduce the impact of the negative event when it does occur. (Of course, the two can often be combined.) The traditional approach says, "Let's put more effort and thought in up-front and avoid that expensive change." (That is, let's prevent the negative event from occurring.) The problem, as decades of experience have shown, is we still can't seem to avoid change. Here's why: the kinds of change that plague software development can't be eliminated by thinking harder up front. Read More