The Crisis
I hear the term software crisis from time to time, and it has always confused me. The software industry continues to produce and improve software at an astronomical rate. Users continue to consume it at the same rate. In addition, for all intents and purposes, this appears to be a totally sustainable trend. So where is the crisis?
As I understand it, those that use the term refer to the common occurrence of software projects not meeting time, cost or quality estimates. Certainly excessive time, cost or a lack of quality is a concern, but estimates and reality are not equivalent. However, other types of projects do not have the same difficulty in making accurate predication, so something must be wrong. Right?
I don’t think so. There is an alternative explanation to why software project estimates are so often wrong. It is not that the software industry is worse, but that it is better. No, this is not a tie-in to the worse-is-better philosophy. This relates to a fourth element in time, cost and quality matrix. It is called efficiency. In these terms, it is the rate at which cost and time are converted into quality.
This quality, efficiency, is the root cause for all of the unpredictability in software project estimates. The reason, is that efficiency among software development, varies greatly. This may initially seem a cause for concern, based upon the assumption that if some projects have high efficiency, and others do not, there must be something wrong with those that do not. The problem is that the differences in efficiency are not due to flaws in software project management, but due to an inherent difference in the value of quality.
For example, the difference between having the worst or best programmers has far more effect on efficiency than the difference between the worst and best in almost any other profession. Is there a much greater gap between the intelligence of the best and worst among programmers and other professions? I don’t think so. There may be a greater gap today than 10 or 20 years ago, but the effects of the “software crisis” was alive back then as well. In addition, 10 or 20 years ago, it would be easy to say that the gap between intelligence of the best and worst was less than most professions, since only very smart people were involved.