* Given an environment exhibiting the above 8 points of behavior (or even most of those points), no methodology would produce a quality product. Sadly, these types of behavior are _rampant_ in corporate (and non-corporate) America.

* The most comprehensive way to find out what is flawed in the operations of any business is to attempt to model that business’ processes in software form.

* In business software development, successful planning and requirements gathering often requires buy-in from the vertical and buy-in from the horizontal. Vertical buy-in means that the buy-in reaches to the top (or practical top) of the company/department, and horizontal buy-in means the buy-in comprises a sufficient breadth of employees in the problem space. The currency of vertical buy-in is more often just that, currency, and the currency of horizontal buy-in is more often domain knowledge. Both buy-ins require the currency of time as well, granted, the horizontal pays more.

* No matter what the problem is, it’s always a people problem. -Gerald M. Weinberg

Great post! Unless you have an objection, I’m going to link it from the Part 1 kickoff page.

Something struck me as wrong about your function, though. I think it may be the fact that Quality = Value and so SHOULDN’T require special mention. But as we all know, and as you pointed out, sadly it DOES require special mention because no one believes that Quality = Value.

Just as ‘Shipping’ is a feature, so is ‘Quality’.

Value = f (Cost, Time, Scope, Quality)

http://blog.softwareishardwork.com/2008/01/software-quality-is-must.html

Quality is always taking a backseat to everything else.