TrackitSoftware.com found out the hard way that the time to deliver a quality software product is extremely hard to determine. Polylabel.com knew their customers wanted a software asset management solution, they’d been supplying barcode asset labels to them for years. Customers were ready and waiting, all they had to do was put their knowledge into a finished program.
Everything looked rosy, great young I.T. Manager, gray haired committed boss and access to talented programmers. So why did a six month job turn into 3 years.
The boss, Fred says ‘We truly did not take into account our determination to provide maximum value for our customers money. There is a huge cost difference between producing an OK product compared to the one your customers need In software development you can do it fast but the cost is high’
The boss’s right hand guy, Oliver Ibanez, comments ‘We hired a smart, expensive and fast outside software developer who delivered what we asked for but not what we needed. Back we went to develop a detailed manual of what had to included.
So six months into the project and down $40,000 before Fred and Oliver finally understood that this was going to be a major and expensive project. They compromised saying ‘Let’s search for part time moonlighting programmers, we can hold their hand and save a fortune.’ That worked for over a year with weekend warriors who did a good job and did bring good ideas to the table. Good ideas in software are called ‘feature creep’ and greatly lengthen development time.
The thought of hiring a full time programmer was initially ruled out. Their reason, ‘those guys are expensive.’ Well as investment climbed so did the reason to safeguard all code and control. In addition finishing touches, and bug fixes, required close collaboration between designers and coders. The result? Mohammad Aria M.A., joined the in house team and quickly laid down the law saying ‘one guy for this project?, will be a year at least.’
The result was an excellent product but over 3 years in development when six months was target.. Sometimes a smart young guy and experienced older guy can pull it off, just evidently not on time.
