Date Driven Development is a prime reason most software quality sucks. In the consumer software world, this is especially true.
Most modern software ships continuously with a loose intent and at the mercy of a deadline. This scenario is soul-crushing. Why do people believe a date provides value?
The Deadline
Death marches instill dread in software development professionals. The infamous death march is a grim reaper living within the memories of the damned. If you’re unfamiliar, a death march forces software development teams to substitute life with work.
Woe to the software development professional caught in the death march.
Software development goals should be human-centered.
- Create reliable products
- Build rock-solid architectures
- Value user experiences
That’s not the modern software development world; the date is king.
Alternatives
Blizzard Entertainment defied the due date. They produced top-quality products with dates out of sight and out of mind. Their products were a limited set of top-quality releases. Once upon a time asking about a Blizzard product release date would produce crickets. 🦗
Blizzard resisted Date Driven Development, and quality shined through as a result.
Today is a different story, but many companies fall prey to this anti-pattern.
The entire software development industry should read Blizzard’s history as an inspirational yet cautionary tale.
Solutions
- Focus on human needs
- Test everything and be ready to ship now
- Deliver software value; dates don’t deliver value.
- Under-promise and over-deliver