Over my career I’ve been drawn into numerous discussions regarding which software development lifecycle model is right for us? Which is right for testing?
One of the questions missed is what is the right model for the business? An in-house software development shop providing for an organisation then may not have a choice about what is right. Some organisations don’t care what model is used or if any process is used at all. They control the money, which projects are initiated, stopped, started and when, they control the deadlines and the requirements. Through all of this they also control the quality.
In such cases picking any model is pointless because it’s going to fail. These models are not about software development; they are about business engagement and software development. Trying to control how the business engages with you via a model when they have their own model, and adhoc is a model, is pointless. They always win. It’s their money.
This leaves you with two options: get the business to change or come up with your own model that uses the current business engagement model.
The first option is the hardest; you may not be empowered to make such changes and the business may not want to change. This is where strong IT leadership from the CIO is needed. The second option is the short term solution. The goal is to achieve as much as you can knowing what you don’t control. With this in mind you can at least solve the pain points between your team and the other stakeholders involved in creating the software.
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Ryan Boucher is a Software Inquisitor and is passionate about it. You can find a whole raft of articles and anecdotes about software testing and other topics he gets excited about. |
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