Sip from the Firehose: May 20, 2003 - It all starts with Define!
Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Scotts Valley, CA
What primarily drives your development processes and decisions?
What drives your development processes and decisions? Is it an idea, a
contract, business needs, ideas from your staff, something else? One of
the questions in the recent Borland Developer Network (BDN) Survey 2003 asked
BDN members for their input. I'm sure most Sip from the Firehose readers
have heard about requirements driven development, design driven development,
build driven development and most of the other driving forces in software
development. Software development is a team sport. There are many
players with roles and responsibilities. Team member views (of what drives
the process and what is the most important area of focus) can vary depending on what
the team uses for a process, their individual interests and skills, and other factors.
Without a great idea and a clear definition of a project, many software efforts will fail. I often wondered what the BDN membership thought about what drives process and decision making. So I put a question about development drivers in the recent BDN 2003 survey. I received 84,319 responses
to the survey from the BDN membership. The complete results will be
summarized in a Sip from the Firehose article in a few weeks. While I am
putting together the final report, I'd like to share the results of one of the
questions - question number three - "What primarily drives your development
processes and decisions?" The results are shown in the table below.
Survey takers were given several choices. Do the requirements drive the
process? Does the in place or planned architecture drive development
decisions? Does a complicated build or deployment environment drive the
decisions? Could it be that testing and testability might be the driving
factor in software development? All these are good questions. Is it
possible that different projects might cause development to be driven by a
different set factors? All these are good questions, but for the survey I
only had one question. Let's take a look at the results.
Requirements drive the majority of development processes and decisions
| Decision Driver |
Results |
| Requirements |
36757 |
| Code |
12562 |
| Design |
10306 |
| Architecture |
7923 |
| Model |
3170 |
| Deployment |
2547 |
| Test |
2138 |
| Build |
2030 |
| other |
4428 |
| no choice |
2448 |
|
|
Build Better Software Faster - it all starts with Define
As part of the StarBase acquisition, Borland. CaliberRM, an enterprise
requirements management solution serving many Global 2000 organizations, enables
seamless collaboration for distributed teams. Designed for the Internet,
CaliberRM provides unparalleled support for effective, streamlined communication
and management of requirements for projects large and small. The effective
management of project requirements is a vital element in the timely and
cost-effective delivery of successful business applications. CaliberRM automates
the management of requirements to facilitate the prioritization of tasks and
project updates, the streamlining of communication, and the management of
project scope. Known for its ease of use, CaliberRM powers requirements
management for a range of projects, delivering a true competitive advantage to
organizations in many vertical markets.
Thomas Murphy, METAgroup analyst, in his report, Mastering the Requirements
of Requirements Management, Application Delivery Strategies, Integration &
Development Strategies (Practice 2020, 17 April 2003), said "We expect that
Borland's overall market share will rise during the next two years because of
its product integration and the strength of its sales channel. Due to Borland
having a clear and growing commitment to support Microsoft's .Net platform, in
addition to its support for J2EE and Linux, we believe the product line will
appeal to organizations with multiple platforms and toolsets, and in particular,
we expect to see Borland's life-cycle suite integrated with Visual Studio as
well as Eclipse." You'll find the complete report at
http://www.metagroup.com/webhost/ONLINE/89288/p2020.htm
You can find more information about CaliberRM at
http://www.borland.com/caliber/index.html
Borland - Excellence Endures
David Intersimone "David I"
Vice President, Developer Relations
Borland Software Corporation
davidi@borland.com
