All Software Engineers Are Created Equal
A software project requires much more than just writing code. There are all sorts of work products that are produced along the way: documents, schedules, plans, source code, bug reports, and builds are all created by many different team members. No single work product is more important than any other; if any one of them has a serious error, that error will have an impact on the end product. That means each team member responsible for any of these work products plays an important role in the project, and all of those people can make or break the final build that is delivered to the users.
There are many project managers who, when faced with a disagreement between a programmer and a tester, will always trust the programmer. This same project manager might always trust a requirements analyst or a business analyst over a programmer, if and when they disagree. Many people have some sort of a hierarchy in their heads in which certain engineering team members are more valuable or more skilled than others. This is a dangerous idea, and it is one that has no place on an effective project team.
One key to building better software is treating each idea objectively, no matter who suggests it or whether or not it's immediately intuitive to you. That's another reason the practices, techniques, and tools in this book cover all areas of the software project. Every one of these practices is based on an objective evaluation of all of the important activities ...