Michael Pavling wrote: > * quickly produced > * well written > * cheap price > ... then give them an option to pick which two (and they can *only* > have two) of the three they want.
This is close, but the most useful variable was left out of this list. The choices are actually: 1. Time 2. Quality 3. Cost 4. Scope Stakeholders are given their choice of three and development controls the forth. I only mention this because scope is actually the most "sensitive" of the four variables. Quality is relatively ineffective at controlling the other three, yet at the same time can profoundly affect the other three. In other words you can't really "buy" time by lowering quality. Lowering quality in an effort to reduce time will likely have the opposite effect. Code of poor quality, in the long run, takes longer to write than quality code. Time in many situations is fairly fixed. The product needs to ship within some reasonable "budgeted" time scale. Hence time can also be an ineffective control variable. Cost is a somewhat tricky control variable. In some situations it can effectively control the other three, but in other cases it is essentially fixed, and as such can't be used reliably for controlling the other three variables. Throwing more resources (programmers) at project in trouble does not guarantee success. Scope can often be the real key control variable for a large percentage of projects. Scope can "buy" you time. Often building less (at first) can deliver a working product, meeting or exceeding quality requirements, within the budget of time and cost. This is the core principal of agile software design methodologies. The feedback gained from early, small, releases will also have a profound impact on all four of these variables. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-t...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
