Managing Software for Growth: Without Fear, Control, and the Manufacturing Mindset

Making Software

Now, think about software development plans. Almost every one I've ever seen (including my own) looks like this at some level of summarization:

There's usually a large amount of detail underneath, but the rollup looks remarkably consistent. The fact that Microsoft Project^® requires “phased” plans like this, and even has trouble with overlapping phases, is telling.

Notice three important things about this plan. First, there are distinct phases. It doesn't matter what you call them (phases, high-level tasks, etc.), they're distinct. Second, there's one job per phase. You might start designing things before analysis is finished, but ...