Ari and Shivan: Batman and Robin

Statuary Warning: If you reading this Article for the first time. Please read the earlier one for better understanding.

I badly needed comments or suggestions for my earlier Blog before I could really stick in on my blog.

Ari and Shivan pounced on it almost immediately with a lot of suggestions. I find it worth pasting mentioning it here. Thanks a lot :-)

Ari's Comments :

Before i fondle on the importance of accommodative & shape shifting process, i think you have way too much time. which is good.

All SME's have a cost factor which affects the business application therefore ignoring the acceptance of a process. But hey times are changing, the larger the organization the tougher it becomes to foresee the implications of change - which is why you have shape-shifting SDLCs.

A not-so-perfect analogy of SDLC's would be circuit designing, they share a common base but are totally parallel to any work which takes place. Usually being intangible.

The law of 80:20 is so universal that we adapt our perspectives in viewing the systems around us.

If you ask me what is terribly important is the paper requirement gathering stage of the project . you see the BA's are supposed to nail the requirement after devising a solution that has been already discussed and envisaged with the client. for example: if a small functionality of the website has to be built in a stand-alone procedure, the Quality team should interpret the respective necessities of the module and translate them into code guidelines.

Any form of documentation should be automated - providing 100 unemployed technical document writers - those profiles shouldn't exist any more, for am sure documentation procedure can be obtained in various report methods - dude IBM are in process of automating the complete SDLC and we are hatching eggs here!!!

I believe the complexity always lies in the decision of frame work one chooses and leverages it with the amount of time they spend on editing / altering / tailoring.

Shivan's Comment:

Naveen, I understand where you are coming from and where your are going (metamorphically speaking). See, the fact is that SDLC's do exist and they are implemented by one and all knowingly or unknowingly. The question is how effectively it has been implemented. There is no point planning unless you strategize it's execution (I hope the choice and order of words are correct). So what you are asking for (the ideal situation) is Utopian. It exists theoretically but poorly implemented. But the very reason we (India Inc) is getting more and more business is because the client is 60% satisfied (I believe so).

Now, the next question is how to ensure we formalize this SDLC in actual implementation. Sure, every company has all the formal processes in place to do that crap, but as you said the actual implementation is poor to average. I believe it exists at the individual level. I firmly believe we, as individuals, must take more responsibility to do this. Yeah,Yeah, we are supposed to do this and blah blah blah but, it is not done. This leads us to the next question, moral responsibility. I also firmly believe there must be some commitment level to the work we do. If even this commitment is not there then we better jack off at home than disrespect work (I would like to boast that i have high moral values). You can claim that strict enforcement will also achieve this aim but if a person was inclined to do this then that would not be necessary at all. But since not many are inclined companies enforce this and unfortunately everyone sees it as added burden and it gets weighed down in priority and is eventually sunk to the bottom which brings us to the first point - "where the fuck is my document?" "I am sorry sir, but it is not my headache. It should have been done by some other bastard. I am getting paid to fucking code" (This would be a hilarious conversation")

I would like to modify the old saying (Charity starts at home) - Documentation starts at the individual level (I am buried under the assumption that the entire diatribe was on good documentation). I hope this was useful.

The following conversation has no relevance to the above at all but is very funny:

When England toured Australia in the infamous Bodyline series, an Australian apparently called England's captain, Douglas Jardine, a bastard to which he went and complained to Australia's captain, Jack Fingleton. Jack is believed to have asked the following in Australia's dressing room - "Which one of you bastards called that bastard a bastard?"

Ari's Comments:

When shit hits the fan, it spreads. Under the ivory tower of SDLC lies cost of implementation. the reason why India Inc is currently making the world happy is due it the cost of execution. With lower responsibility comes lower liability, and thats exactly where we stand. lets take TCS for instance, despite it being a CMMi5 level company, their process doesn't resolve problems, yet it lessens the risks for the client as well as the implementers.