Re: Work to the risk was Re: Inspections Was: RE: [AM] ANN: Mashing Deadly Myt

| From: Scott Ambler<[email protected]>
| Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 09:30:24 -0500
| 
| At 08:49 AM 2/25/2004, you wrote:
| 
| >| From: Scott Ambler<[email protected]>
| >|
| >| It's the same thing with software.  If I was working on truly critical
| >| software where a mistake is costly, perhaps the control software for the
| >| Mars Lander or control software for a medical device, then I'd very likely
| >| insist on reviews and inspections.  In these situations the risk far
| >| outweighs the cost.  In the vast majority of situations this isn't the
| >| case, and frankly it makes very little sense to do inspections and reviews
| >| when other practices such as pair programming, modeling with others,
| >| collective ownership, ... seem to result in very high quality work anyway.
| >---
| >
| >If you're willing to limit your scope to projects where it doesn't
| >matter if you deliver defects, then I can agree with you.  I've never
| >actually worked in such a domain, but when I write code for my own use
| >I wouldn't bother with arranging inspections, I would just fix problems
| >when they became too irritating to live with.  My perceptions are
| >colored by working with software delivered to customers, with both real
| >costs and credibility costs to escaped defects.
| 
| I have no doubt that it may be different for delivering software to cell 
| phone handsets because you clearly have some update challenges if you get 
| it wrong.
| 
| However, this often isn't the case with the vast majority of business 
| software, you can in fact redeploy it relatively easy if you choose (many 
| orgs choose to make this overly complex, but they don't actually need to).
---

I think you implied an exactly appropriate rule - if you're satisfied
that the risk from not doing inspections is lower than the cost of doing
them, then don't do them.  I think we may disagree about what percentage
of software falls on which side of that line, but it's really a
project-specific issue, so are opinions are irrelvant.  My concern is
just that bringing in outlier examples (like the Mars Lander) leads
readers to assume their projects, being more mundane, are safe and that
they don't need to do that risk analysis.  Many mundane software projects
deal with other people's money, time, or risk than might be obvious.

---
| BTW, I have been known to deliver working software to customers.  ;-)
---

I certainly didn't mean to imply anything else!  I like Agile Modeling a
lot and agree with most of what you recommend, and wouldn't want to lose
sight of that in pushing back on a few specific points and statements.

scott
-- 
scott preece
motorola urbana design center (il67), 1800 s. oak st., champaign, il  61820  
e-mail:	[email protected]	fax:	217-384-8550
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For more information about AM, visit the Agile Modeling Home Page at www.agilemodeling.com
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