Rapid Development: Taming Wild Software Schedules

Why This Book Was Written

Clients' and managers' first response to the problem of slow development is usually to increase the amount of schedule pressure and overtime they heap on developers. Excessive schedule pressure occurs in about 75 percent of all large projects and in close to 100 percent of all very large projects (Jones 1994). Nearly 60 percent of developers report that the level of stress they feel is increasing (Glass 1994c). The average developer in the U.S. works from 48 to 50 hours per week (Krantz 1995). Many work considerably more. In this environment, it isn't surprising that general job satisfaction of software developers has dropped significantly in the last 15 years (Zawacki 1993), and at a time when the industry desperately ...