Become more one

Reading a SearchSoftwareQuality.Com article, Software development trends in 2008: Outsourcing, agile development (26 Dec 2007), you may venture to reading an article noted within that is from way back in Feb 2007, The state of software quality, part 2: The challenge of building quality into the development life cycle. Within it you may discover this quote, “If you give someone four hours to do an eight-hour job, there’s a limit on what they can do no matter how motivated they are”—Kaner. You may next feel there is some value in the quote and decide you agree to a degree. For example, perhaps commenting along these lines… if you give a person half the time required to do it right, and then distract them during with emergencies, further reducing their time and decreasing their focus, you can expect, short of a miracle or superpowers, that outcomes overall will be less than ideal; even if they have the right attitude, rest and skills. Sure, they might complete deliverables within an allotted window, but they may not have had the luxury of time to consider the impacts of what they quickly produced. Ideally they managed to avoid performance issues, security threats or other matters including serious harm in someway to the world. In any event, their meeting a target date may be far worse than if they just said no to begin with. Anyone who has been around the industry long enough knows that additional resources, methodologies, tools, proper attitude and more are among important or essential items, however when it gets down to well defined requirements and estimates, many start cutting chances of great outcomes very early. Many issues therefore can often be avoided most likely with a simple bit of realism injected into getting the right resources (e.g., people and machines), and allowing the right amount of time, while inherently practicing proactive risk management and sharing positive energy to keep morale high. Of course such things are sometimes easier said than done, and sometimes what it really comes down to is simply, education. For example, those setting the target dates and constraints (e.g., financial), are not always the ones with it [the education, or the essential knowledge]. They are therefore not always the IT Pro, and what more often may be needed is for the Business and IT to become more one, and for both to better educate each other and work more as one. By doing so, and by increasingly also involving the consumers or general public within overall success formulas, they may even discover many more ways to enable increasing levels of inherent quality, value, excellence and simplicity.