Planning Smarter: Creating Blueprint-Quality Software Specifications

2.1. The Pathology of Poor Planning

In the human body, certain materials called allergens stimulate allergic responses. The immune system responds by creating antibodies to combat the allergens. As a side effect, the victim can suffer histamine responses like itchiness and a runny nose, or even more severe life-threatening allergic reactions. In a similar fashion, relatively minor problems identified in a software project often stimulate the production of management countermeasures. Too often, these responses cause even worse, and sometimes fatal, reactions in the project.

The allergens in software projects are almost always buggy code and missed deadlines. In effect, they have lower than acceptable quality and productivity. These symptoms may ...