Refuting Standish
There is a need to provide some objective criteria for any study, but in particular the Standish Group uses a highly inaccurate definition of success: “completed on time, on budget, and with all the features and functions as originally specified.”
But “originally specified” in terms of budget, time, and features is never going to be anything but a best guess. And there is no data on the fitness of those software projects once they’re in the marketplace.
Initial specifications depend on our knowing precisely what we want this software to do, precisely how we will go about making it work, precisely how long that will take, precisely what challenges may crop up along the way…and leaves precisely no room for better ideas.
The ...
Get Beyond Legacy Code now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
