I have discussed the topic of metaphors for software development before (in transportation, rugby, and house construction) but there seems to be no end of authors using the outside world to help communicate points about software development. Today I turn to a metaphor in Becoming Agile in an imperfect world by Greg Smith and Ahmed Sidky. Early in the book they say,
“Like a Sunday paper delivered on Monday, all the quality work and effort invested in the project are worthless if you don’t meet your most critical priority.”
Is the Sunday paper delivered on Monday indeed a completely worthless outcome? Certainly the news portions of the paper will be slightly out of date, and perhaps its value as a leisurely Sunday activity is missed. But much of a Sunday paper is less timely entertainment, reusable information and opinion, and feature articles with deeper information and analysis than are provided in other media. So, clearly as well, there is still significant value in receiving that paper. More generally, one might ask which is more valuable – incomplete and/or inaccurate information delivered “on time” or complete and accurate information delivered later?
Applying this argument to software development, what if the most critical priority cannot be solved or is very expensive to solve? Is it genuinely true that doing quality work and investing in solving less critical priorities is worthless? In my years of experience, stakeholders consistently want information about the cost of solving problems so they can weigh the cost against the value before they declare what their priorities are. They are often ready and even anxious to move on to less critical priorities if the barriers to addressing their most critical priority are too difficult to surmount in their current situation. As well, in more plan-based projects, it is a common practice to have stakeholders explicitly stack rank scope, schedule and budget as part of the charter to enable the project team to make decisions aligned with that prioritization. From these behaviors we can conclude, not only does the metaphor miss the mark, but the point it attempts to make is not universally true.
