distributedlife

I’ve had this argument before and am willing to keep having it until I win. In my opinion the coder is not the most important person in the development team. I’ll explain why.

The most frequent argument I get to why coders are important is because without the coder you don’t have a piece of software. Therefore without software you don’t need testers and business analysts were already redundant because without them the coder will actually talk to the end user. Sure, it won’t be an enthralling conversation but it’ll happen nonetheless.

The way I see it is, without the business analyst and interface designer you are going to get an application that _may_ do what it is suppose to. You _will_ also get a middle click driven interface. Without a tester you will have a piece of software that you can’t prove works, nor can you prove it is the correct piece of software to begin.

Sure you can argue that user acceptance testing will ensure you have the correct piece of software. But you won’t have any assurance you’re on the right path until the very last minute. Still coders love coding, so redoing it I guess would be some kind of nirvana.

The big flaw in all of this is that without an end user you won’t have a purpose for your software. Therefore if you write code anyway all you are doing is burning a hole in your pocket while you keep a coder gainfully employed.

This should be enough for you to realise the end user is the most important person in the development team. Even if they have minimal presence.  Without them you’re wasting time and money.

With the user as the most important part of the development team everybody else should be on level pegging. I have been calling it a development team for a reason. Multiple individuals working towards a shared goal. Better software that meets the users needs.

Some more food for thought, the business analyst isn’t there just to produce specifications for the coders to work from. They are meant to analyse the way the business works to develop a solution to meet their needs. That can mean changing the way they work rather than automating how they currently work with software. In many cases this is a more desirable solution. It can take less time to “develop” and can cost less. It also means zero code is written. How important is the coder now?

note: middle-click driven interfaces were the new black

2nd Note: Commercial off the shelf software is no different. You still need end users. Someone who represents the collective consumer during the development cycle. If you don’t and just build whatever the coder things is best you may end up scratching your head asking why no-one is buying your product.