Wishful Thinking in Software Application Development
Software Development is usually punctuated by deadlines. If all goes according to plan, deadlines are
met on time and the application is released on the due date. However, all too often, the very first
deadline is missed. It would be reasonable to expect that the original plan would then warrant a revision
to ensure that the upcoming deadlines are met. Unfortunately, team managers can fall into a huge
mental trap that has the power to jeopardize the entire project: wishful thinking.
Pretending that an unrealistic schedule can be overcome with hard work and luck.
Don't your developers always work hard? And since when was luck something you can count on? If the
schedule requires superhuman effort from the get go, save yourself a world of headaches and revise it.
It's better to turn down a project outright than to mislead a customer.
Eliminating quality control throughout development.
Are you thinking that you can save time by creating the different elements of the project separately,
without coordinating them as you go along? You will actually add far more time to the end of the
project-when all the bugs surface.
Excluding the customer from prototype changes.
If you've changed minor details since the last time you showed the customer the prototype, you owe it
to your team and to the customer to get approval. Customers are notorious for not being able to clearly
visualize what they want, so even if you explained what you were going to do, the customer may not
raise objections until they see a visual.
Wishful thinking is seductive. It's like a dream that you don't want to wake up from. But the
catastrophic results of wishful thinking are predictable: missed deadlines, angry customers, and burned-
out software developers.
The good news is, now that you know what to look for, you can nip wishful thinking in the bud. Stick
to realistic schedules, integrated quality control, and ongoing customer sign off. And any time you
catch yourself saying, "I'm not sure how we can make this happen, but it will probably work out in the
end..." do yourself a favor and snap out of the dream.
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Article Source: Ezine Articles