The Economics of Iterative Software Development: Steering Toward Better Business Results

2…Achieving Results: The Case For Software Economics

Uncertainty is inherent in the nature of software projects. That is far less likely to be the case in building a bridge over a river, at least in terms of what the structure is designed to accomplish. Philippe Kruchten points to the “soft” in “software,”¹ noting that software requirements (what a system is required to do) usually change over the course of completion. This is why we’ve said it’s counterproductive to require high precision in the design when the development team has low precision in their understanding of the problem.

We need a modern way of thinking about software-quality management that accommodates our industry’s 30 years of lessons learned and patterns of successful projects. ...