RE: The software factory (was "Don't believe the hype?") (long)

[stevefjong -at- comcast -dot- net]

John, I'm happy to hear that you produce excellent results, even though all your work is unique. That's great! How can I achieve the same results? What is it that you do that makes your results so good, and how can I do it?

The issue is: can you do it ten times a year? How about 100? If you can answer the question "how do you do it?" we can move toward the factory model--from your way to our way. If you can't answer the question, our combined output is the poorer, and you are admitting to a limitation on what you do.

The history of quality awareness and quality development teaches that individual, heroic effort only takes us so far. (Culturally, the model is the lone sheriff cleaning up the Wild West; a more apt myth is Paul Bunyan and his last stand against mechanization--he beat the machine, then left forever.) As I wrote, if Tupperware required each bowl to be hand made, we'd all have to work for Tupperware. You get more output, and arguably better output, the factory way.

Finally, I didn't intend to ignore the last part of your post. I would suggest to you that the factory-modeled group crashed despite its process, not because of it. Did other factors contribute to its crash?

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