IT Success!: Towards a New Model for Information Technology

8.5. The changing role of the developer

Under the traditional model, upon receiving the SoR tossed over the wall to her by the business analyst, the lead developer has the unenviable task of programming useful deliverables out of a document based on interviews in which she did not participate. And as we already saw in Chapter 3, even if she does manage to produce something 'to spec', it stands little chance of corresponding to actual requirements.

Under the new model, however, the software developer is no longer a sequential player at a handover point somewhere down the line. On the contrary, he is in the loop right from the project kick-off, and is an active participant during the workshops, as explained in Chapter 5. There are many advantages to this approach. First and foremost is the fact that since the developer participates in the process and data modelling, he has all the information needed first hand to start working on a design as soon as the workshops are over, thereby slashing literally months off the traditional approach in which his only reference was an SoR. Another advantage is that he is directly exposed to real business people with real business problems, which should result in a more practical, real-world design based on real-world feedback, instead of one conceived in splendid isolation based on interpreting documented requirements. Finally, the developer would probably argue that as far as he is concerned, the greatest advantage of this approach is that from ...