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We're in a somewhat unique situation, as our products are designs
that are delivered as electronic files but are eventually incorporated
into HW. You are correct that no company/dept has the time to
allow random things to happen in the development process, and
we do have rigidly documented procedures designed to prevent
them. But people being people, #$%^ sometimes happens
anyway.
My experience is that in modern, state-of-the-art software departments,
engineers do not make changes "whenever they feel like changing it". No
department has the time to allow random work. Ad hoc changes can cause
bugs, and they throw off the QA department. The product managers and
usability teams need to vet UI changes. The bottom line is that most
engineers are too busy implementing past-due features and fixing
long-standing bugs.
Hardware, of course, is different. For a variety of reasons, hardware
companies have a very strict, defined, and enforced process for making
design changes.
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