Things to Remember

April 19, 2009 · by Eric Sorenson

This image popped into my Google Reader page a while ago and really struck a chord with me (if you haven’t tried Google Reader you should check it out!)

While I doubt this list was written by a software developer, all four points are relevant to software developers. These four points have helped me keep a clear perspective when dealing with changing requirements in a fast paced, dynamic development environment.

While it sometimes seems like it would be wonderful to have a static set of expectations, this simply isn’t realistic. We can’t — and shouldn’t — expect users to know what they want right out of the gate. Everything is always changing, and this is a good thing! Even my own expectations as a developer have been steadily evolving over the years. If you are a developer yourself, how often have you changed your development workstation? Did you know exactly what you needed in an IDE the moment you sat down to write your first application? Probably not. We’re really not any different from anyone else when it comes to knowing what we want in advance.

If the users of an application are not regularly changing their minds and/or coming up with new ideas, they either have paranormal abilities, or your application isn’t going to be a good fit for their needs. It’s in everyone’s best interest to use tools, languages, frameworks and methodologies that encourage the team to continually refocus priorities and requirements.

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