Of course, I know. The main complaint about my own generation is that we ‘want it all’ and, for some reason, we ‘want it now’. This is, not very lean thinking, but (Wait for it. I will get to the Software Development part in a bit) our generation is also to believed one of the most pragmatic in approaches. And this is, for a fact, one of the main criteria in Lean and Agile thinking.
When facing difficult choices in Software Development projects, the main criteria, and I like to believe always, should be the progress of the project. Once we’re confronted with the choice between a fast project or sustainable architecture, the lot thinks this is a choice at least, we need to be focused on getting the working software to the end user as fast as possible. This doesn’t mean that we won’t deliver something good.
That inclined, these choices also mean that we won’t need to ‘have it all’ ‘now’. It just means that the choices need to be focused on getting it right, but we won’t need to have it perfect. There’s a big difference.
For example: Our development team needed to make a choice between different architectures for a connection. It could be done using old fashioned database links, which would take us a few day’s, or by using some sort of integration layer using web services and service-busses. The latter inclined that we needed to wait until the architecture team was finished implementing and configuring the busses. The latter was no choice, we choose the first option.
This, obviously, wasn’t the perfect approach, but it does the trick and no end user will notice the difference. The latter was, the better and more sustainable choice, but would mean that the project was delayed, so: no option. This doesn’t mean that in the future we won’t change it. ‘Cause remember: change is a good thing.
