Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We've invented waterfall

epicenterconsulting.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 172 posts

Re: We've invented waterfall

#71

Post by jakejake »

namank wrote: post #62
roc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you why you don't see this happening more often. I did this on a project a few years back. I replaced a paper workflow process that was taking up two people each in three departments with a web-based workflow that increased visibility, dropped turn-around time from days to minutes, increased accountability and accuracy and trimmed those 16 person hours of processing down to 1-2 per department. Everyone wh…

There is process called Contextual Design. Part of it talks about treating the tacit knowledge of a workplace like a very necessary requirement for your software. So that means including the culture of the workplace in your reqs. It sounds dumb at first but it makes perfect sense. What you did at that place was to apply a bandaid to a fracture where it really should have been a cast. But you didn't know it was a frac…

Interesting point until the twatty comment at the end.

Re: We've invented waterfall

#72

Post by bh42222 »

zedshaw wrote: post #64

Actually, this is refreshingly honest compared to the "agile" methodologies. Having worked with plenty of supposedly agile consultants I can tell you they basically do waterfall it's just their cascading stupidity starts with code and then wanders around writing unit tests until the client is tapped out. At least this is doing some actual user interface design and usability testing. Then again, I doubt these guys do…

The difference between "agile" and "waterfall" isn't that easy to pin down.

Some people think of "agile" as just going through their full waterfall process every month or every two weeks.

Other people insist the core of "agile" is TDD, others claim nonsense, TDD is just as much part of "waterfall", and yet others don't see any point in TDD for their "agile" process.

tl;dr:

It's all bullshit, all the way down.

Re: We've invented waterfall

#73

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

SomeOtherGuy wrote: post #60
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a choice of koolaid. The waterfall brand is implicit in the statement "We don't write a line of code until we know your business as well as the people who keep it running every day." - it is founded on the assumption that you can finish requirements for the entire system before starting to deliver working software, and no feedback or iteration is needed. My experience is that for the majority of software pro…

>You have a choice of koolaid I also have the choice to ignore all the methodology snake oil salesmen and actually write software. Every "methodology" is bullshit. The new ones are not any less bullshit than the old ones. The fact that your response assumes I must love the old version of "follow our stupid manager nonsense" is really pretty sad. You honestly can't even imagine a world where I might think all of the b…

You have chosen the "just code" brand of koolaid. Results are highly variable, its hard to manage and it doesn't scale. But YMMV.

Re: We've invented waterfall

#76

Post by cleaver »

roc wrote: post #49
giberson wrote: post #41

Here's what I would like to see from a consulting company for once. Don't interview the stake holders of the company, they don't use the software like their employees do. They have a high level overview based on feedback from their employees. When you interview them, you're getting second hand information that will likely be missing key points that they forgot to mention or just simply think is obvious and doesn't re…

Let me tell you why you don't see this happening more often. I did this on a project a few years back. I replaced a paper workflow process that was taking up two people each in three departments with a web-based workflow that increased visibility, dropped turn-around time from days to minutes, increased accountability and accuracy and trimmed those 16 person hours of processing down to 1-2 per department. Everyone wh…

From my experience in consulting (over a decade), I have to agree. It's extremely difficult to convince people to do things right. It's sooo much easier to give a friendly grin, a firm handshake, maybe dinner or a round of golf and state emphatically that "you need an ERP or CRM or other three-letter acronym".

Ultimately, it comes to corporate Darwinism... the companies that evolve reasonable processes prevail. Others will only leave a fossil record. Unfortunately, we have governments as well as corporations.

Re: We've invented waterfall

#77

Post by grecy »

giberson wrote: post #41

Here's what I would like to see from a consulting company for once. Don't interview the stake holders of the company, they don't use the software like their employees do. They have a high level overview based on feedback from their employees. When you interview them, you're getting second hand information that will likely be missing key points that they forgot to mention or just simply think is obvious and doesn't re…

This is exactly how we did process review / analysis at my last company. It was always awesome to uncover the differences between what the stake holders thought the current process was, and what the people actually doing it did.

After that we tried to reconcile the differences and usually made the in-software process a mixture of the two (where possible)

Re: We've invented waterfall

#78

Post by MortenK »

jameskilton wrote: post #69
MortenK wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waterfall is actually considered the very best model for software development, when the requirements are known up front in excruciating detail. An average project experience around 25% change in requirements. Hence waterfall is highly unsuited for the majority of projects, since it does not handle requirement changes well. However, in a few areas such as aeroplane control software, space shuttle software and similar,…

"Waterfall" was defined in a paper describing how NOT to do software development. The problem was that very few people at the time had any process at all with software so seeing this they gave it a try.

The paper you and "gujk" are referring to, I believe must be Winston Royce's paper.

It's wrong to say that the paper is a description of how not to do software development. Rather, it's suggestions for a set of improvements to the process, while retaining the sequential nature. In the paper, Royce considers waterfall to be a good process, but with flaws which result in high risks. These flaws is what he addresses in his paper.

His suggested approach is derived from pure waterfall, and is very much similar. It falls into the "modified waterfall" category of life cycle models, together with a group of other similarly waterfall-derived models.

Re: We've invented waterfall

#79

Post by SomeOtherGuy »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #73
SomeOtherGuy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You have a choice of koolaid I also have the choice to ignore all the methodology snake oil salesmen and actually write software. Every "methodology" is bullshit. The new ones are not any less bullshit than the old ones. The fact that your response assumes I must love the old version of "follow our stupid manager nonsense" is really pretty sad. You honestly can't even imagine a world where I might think all of the b…

You have chosen the "just code" brand of koolaid. Results are highly variable, its hard to manage and it doesn't scale. But YMMV.

That response is even sadder. I haven't chosen the "just code" koolaid, but your religious beliefs are so deeply ingrained that you can only perceive me through that lens. As a result, you miss out on the great big world of "every situation is different and you should do what is appropriate instead of what some dipshit hawking books and seminars says".

Re: We've invented waterfall

#80

Post by sleight42 »

cleaver wrote: post #76
roc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you why you don't see this happening more often. I did this on a project a few years back. I replaced a paper workflow process that was taking up two people each in three departments with a web-based workflow that increased visibility, dropped turn-around time from days to minutes, increased accountability and accuracy and trimmed those 16 person hours of processing down to 1-2 per department. Everyone wh…

From my experience in consulting (over a decade), I have to agree. It's extremely difficult to convince people to do things right. It's sooo much easier to give a friendly grin, a firm handshake, maybe dinner or a round of golf and state emphatically that "you need an ERP or CRM or other three-letter acronym". Ultimately, it comes to corporate Darwinism... the companies that evolve reasonable processes prevail. Other…

And yet some of us keep charging at windmills, trying to do what they allegedly engaged us for. With about as much success.
Post reply on HN