Stop It! No… Really Stop It

there are 5 worst practices in software development that if stopped immediately will  improve your productivity by a minimum of 12% and improve quality by a minimum of 15%.

these practices are so common that people assume that they are normal -- they are not, they are silent killers wherever they are present.

we often hear the term best practices enough to know that we all have different definitions for it. even when we agree on best practices we then disagree on how to implement and measure them. a best practice is one that increases the chance your project will succeed.

how often do we talk about worst practices? more importantly, what about those worst practices in your organization that you don't do anything about?

when it comes to a worst practice, just stop it

if your company is practicing even one worst practice in the list below it will kill all your productivity and quality. it will leave you with suboptimal and defective software solutions and canceled projects. to make matters worse, some of the worst practices will cause other worst practices to come into play. capers jones had statistics on over 18,000 projects and has hard evidence on the worst practices ¹ .

the 5 worst practices

the worst practices and their effect on productivity and quality are as follows:

worst practice	productivity	quality
friction/antagonism among team members	-12.0%	-15.0%
friction/antagonism among management	-13.5%	-18.5%
inadequate communications with stakeholders	-13.5%	-18.5%
layoffs/loss of key personnel	-15.7%	-21.7%
excessive schedule pressure	-16.0%	-22.5%

excessive schedule pressure

excessive schedule pressure is present whenever any of the following are practiced:

• senior management declares the project deadline
  • see why senior management declared deadlines lead to disaster
• formal estimation methods are used but senior management ignores them
• informal estimation methods (i.e. swag) are used

excessive schedule pressure causes the following to happen:

• poor and incomplete requirements are captured causing extreme scope creep
  • see shift happens
• sub-optimal architecture is built
• highly defective code is written
• little quality control is done during testing
• few, if any, artifact inspections are done
  • see inspections are not optional
  • see professionals do software inspections

this alone can create a death march project and virtually guarantee project failure.

effect of excessive schedule pressure is that productivity will be down 16% and quality will be down 22%

not only is excessive schedule pressure one of the worst practices it tends to drive the other worst practices:

• friction amongst managers
• friction amongst team members
• increases the chance that key people leave the organization

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friction between people

software development is a team activity in which we transform our intangible thoughts into tangible working code. team spirit and collaboration is not an option if you want to succeed. the only sports teams that win championships are those that are cohesive and play well together.

you don't have to like everyone on your team and you don't have to agree with all their decisions. however, you must understand that the team is more important than any single individual and learn to work through your differences.

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friction among managers because of different perspectives on resource allocation , objectives , and requirements . it is much more important for managers to come to a consensus than to fight for the sake of fighting. not being able to come to a consensus will cave in projects and make all the managers look bad. managers win together and lose together.

effect of management friction is that productivity will be down 13.5% and quality will be down 18.5%

friction among team members because of different perspectives on requirements , design , and priority . it is also much more important for the team to come to a consensus than to fight for the sake of fighting. again, everyone wins together and loses together -- you can not win and have anyone else lose.

effect of team friction is that productivity will be down 12% and quality will be down 15%

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inadequate stakeholder communication

inadequate stakeholder communication comes in several forms:

• not getting enough information on business objectives
• not developing software in a transparent manner

if you have insufficient information on the business objectives of a project then you are unlikely to capture the correct requirements. if you are not transparent in how you are developing the project then you can expect excessive schedule pressure from senior management.

effect of inadequate stakeholder communication is that productivity will be down 13.5% and quality will be down 18.5%

loss of key personnel

to add insult to injury, any of the other four worst practices above will lead to either:

• key personnel leaving your organization
• key personnel being layed off

the loss of key personnel through turnover is not really a worst practice, but creating the conditions under which people leave is a worst practice. badly managed organizations and projects will cause the most competent people to leave the organization, simply because they can more easily get a job in another organization.

when organizations experience financial distress from late projects they will often cut key personnel because they are expensive. the reality is that laying off key personnel will sandbag your ability to get back on track; the correct thing to do is to find your least effective personnel and let them go.

effect of layoffs/loss of key personnel is that productivity will be down 15.7% and quality will be down 21.7%

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conclusion

any of the worst practices mentioned above will cause a project to be late and deliver defective code. even worse, the worst practices tend to feed each other and cause a negative spiral. if you are in an organization that habitually practices any of these worst practices then your only real option is to quit. the most deadly situation is when there is the following cascading of worst practices:

• excessive schedule pressure (leads to)
• management and team friction (leads to)
• loss of key personnel

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¹ jones, capers. scoring and evaluating software methods, practices, and results . 2008.