XML and SQL: Developing Web Applications

Project Management

Essentially, I've been describing a stripped-down version of a traditional project management approach. It's an approach that I've used with some success, but there's always a “gotcha.” As we learned in the story of the Vasa, one very big gotcha is scope creep. You start with a list of requirements, develop your product, feel good about it; and, when you finally present it to your users, it's not what they need. So then you have to go back (sometimes to the drawing board) and redo a whole bunch of work. You think your user community is made up of a bunch of morons who don't appreciate all your hard work. Likewise, your user community thinks you're an idiot because you delivered something that wasn't useful to the users. Now ...