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Category Archives: Software Engineering

Don’t document your process!

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Yesterday, a Slashdot article asked an age-old question:
One of the worst problems [in my company] is a lack of process documentation. All knowledge is passed down via an oral tradition. Someone gets hit by a bus and that knowledge is lost forevermore. Now I know what I’ve seen in the past. There’s the big-binder-of-crap-no-one-reads method, [...]

Filed in Software Engineering, Software Process | Comments (0)

How spending a little extra time and money on design might have saved Microsoft over a billion bucks

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

I really wanted an Xbox 360.
My old PS2 is showing its age, and I wanted to upgrade to a new system as soon as I finished the last few missions of GTA: Vice City Stories — especially now that it looks like Manhunt 2 won’t be coming out for PS2 any time soon. I’m a [...]

Filed in Quality, Software Engineering | Comments (0)

Why “gold plating” is a lousy name

Saturday, June 9, 2007

A few days ago I posted an answer to a question about gold plating and scope creep to the Head First PMP forum. I’m not surprised the question came up — people really seem to have trouble with the concept of gold plating. And I don’t think it’s because it’s a tough concept to get. [...]

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“That estimate seems a little long.”

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Ever spend time working up an accurate estimate with your team, and find that it gets rejected because it doesn’t match a magic number in somebody’s head? You did your homework; talked to the people who’ve done this kind of work before, compared your estimate to past projects, and made sure that your estimates are [...]

Filed in Project Management, Software Development, Software Engineering | Comments (0)

Late projects, man-months and the software crisis

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

I recently got a question recently asking about Fred Brooks’ famous quote: “Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.” The person asking the question took it literally, and was asking about whether this meant that there’s no way any schedule estimation technique could indicate that adding manpower could shorten delivery time.
Fred Brooks [...]

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