The Next Leap in Productivity: What Top Managers Really Need to Know about Information Technology

4.11. "Production Line" Software

Many IT managers will tell you that a stable production process, such as an industrial "production line" model, is not possible in software. Without a repeatable process, TQM does not make much sense.

"How can we have repeatability when one product is always different from the next?" these IT managers say. "How can we have a production line when only one thing at a time is produced?"

The answer to this quandary requires rethinking what is meant by production line. Indeed, a production line in software development does exist, but not one producing multiple copies of the same product. The software production line exists in the transition of raw ideas into usable code.

Producing software does not require a traditional rigid production line of machines making machines, but rather a sophisticated and flexible infrastructure, capable of both adapting to minor changes within each development cycle, and adjusting to the major overhauls that occur from one release of software to another, or to a new product.

But whether traditional IT managers like it or not, change must come and is coming. Later in this chapter, I will explain the process your CIO should use to manage this change successfully.

While it used to be true that there were no good tools for automating these processes, it is no longer the case. I know, because I am the CEO of a company that makes just such tools. So the time is right, and these changes are coming.

In case you still need convincing, ...