classical waterfall approach to software development, for example, can decrease the
group productivity by a further factor of 2 or a total factor of 2 * 2 = 4.
Thus, we have an individual productivity ratio of 1:6, and a departmental / managerial
productivity ratio of 1:4. Together, this amounts to an organizational software
productivity ratio of 1:24, which comes close to Sackman‘s empirical finding. So, it is
no wonder that while some software organizations like Intuit or Google or even Oracle
(Oracle has a reputation where motivations and morale fluctuates, since it lays of 5 to
10% of its workforce routinely) thrive in today‘s era of off-shoring and other competitive
pressures, 90% of software start-ups go down the drain in the first three years.
Frequently, lack of funding or product ramp-up to create markets is the cause in start-up
failures, but as rampant is the fact that the start-up executives are incompetent in terms of
motivating the engineers on their payroll to deliver consistently.
So, must these fledgling software start-ups / nascent in-house IT departments give up and
submit to this great productivity disparity between one shop and the next? What is one to
do, if one were a manager in charge of a product build / release? I have already detailed
out the reasons for low morale and productivity above, but I will summarize it for your
benefit one more time, in terms of concrete steps one can take to be in charge of a
superior software engineering shop:
Discard waterfall methodology and embrace iterative development / spiral modeling
using techniques like rapid prototyping / agile methods / extreme programming.
3.0 Software Development Methodologies
This chapter compares and contrasts the classic waterfall model of software development
with the more modern iterative build/release cycles. The iterative approach is appealing
from a product management and marketing perspective, because the product managers
and product marketing managers in software firms are customer champions, as opposed
to software engineers who are product experts. With an iterative approach, the product
managers get a chance to showcase a developing product / product line multiple times
during / after each build/release cycle to the customer and solicit customer feedback
multiple times as part of continuous product development / release / enhancements.
3.1 Waterfall Model
The time-honored waterfall model in software engineering has its roots in older
engineering disciplines like Mechanical and Civil engineering, where prior to building a
machine or a bridge or a building, analysis and design are a pre-requisite.
