ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS I’VE HAD A THOUSAND TIMES (funny) (software d

ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS I’VE HAD A THOUSAND TIMES

(funny) (software development)

Employee: Can we have coffee?

Curt: Sure. I love coffee. 🙂

… … …

Employee: So, how come you keep adding features? We’ll never get done!

Curt: You’re confused. It’s not that I add features. The feature list has been on the wall for a six months. It’s constant except for very minor changes.

Employee: (curious expression)

Curt: It’s just that I parcel them out one or two at a time. Lots of states of ‘done’ that way. And I can kill something early or try something else. It also stops ‘grand plans’ that take forever to implement.

Employee: (awareness)

Curt: The only feature I know that I added is the one you told me to. (teams) The only feature I postponed is the one you told me to (team estimating). In fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve added more features than I have. (various amazingly brilliant UI ideas.)

(discussion)

Curt: I have my own bias: Get to feature complete, then harden the app by refactoring it. But until you’re feature complete it’s all R&D, and the return isn’t there if you’re doing much more than getting to feature complete. Once you’re feature complete, it isn’t a matter of whether you’ll succeed or not. It’s just the cost of error reduction and user experience improvement until you decide to release.

COMMENT

Everyone has their own little bias. Mine is money. I want to know money is well spent at all times.

If I produced this software in the states it would probably take a little longer. But it would cost me something under ten times as much. And that’s money that I don’t have to borrow, get from investors. But it’s also my money. And I’m very careful with my money. 🙂

Get to feature complete. Prove the theory. If it works at feature complete, then the theory is pretty close. If it goes to market and sells, then the theory is confirmed. It can still be falsified. But at present, the theory tested true.

But there isn’t a lot of POINT in investing in a theory, and that’s what an application *IS*, until you’ve tested that theory.

Its just scientific after all..