McConnell - Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules

Copyright 2010 Steve McConnell (All)

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Software developers are caught on the horns of a dilemma. One horn of the dilemma is that developers are working too hard to have time to learn about effective practices that can solve most development-time problems; the other horn is that they won't get the time until they do learn more about rapid development.

Other problems in our industry can wait. It's hard to justify taking time to learn more about quality when you're under intense schedule pressure to "just ship it." It's hard to learn more about usability when you've worked 20 days in a row and haven't had time to see a movie, go shopping, work out, read the paper, mow your lawn, or play with your kids. Until we as an industry learn to control our schedules and free up time for developers and managers to learn more about their professions, we will never have enough time to put the rest of our house in order.

The development-time problem is pervasive. Several surveys have found that about two-thirds of all projects substantially overrun their estimates (Lederer and Prasad 1992, Gibbs 1994, Standish Group 1994). The average large project misses its planned delivery date by 25 to 50 percent, and the size of the average schedule slip increases with the size of the project (Jones 1994). Year after year, development-speed issues have appeared at the tops of lists of the most critical issues facing the software-development community (Symons 1991).

Although the slow-development problem is pervasive, some organizations are developing rapidly. Researchers have found 10-to-1 differences in productivity between companies within the same industries, and some researchers have found even greater variations (Jones 1994).

The purpose of this book is to provide the groups that are currently on the "1" side of that 10-to-1 ratio with the information they need to move toward the "10" side of the ratio. This book will help you bring your projects under control. It will help you deliver more functionality to your users in less time. You don't have to read the whole book to learn something useful; no matter what state your project is in, you will find practices that will enable you to improve its condition.