So, after three years of development on a new version of our product (at my fulltime job), the development manager has decided that we ought to start thinking about the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) and how we would like to manage the process. The humorous thing here is that we have already released the product at this point; not that we should not correct our past wrongs in this department though.

Before this latest idea to implement a true SDLC, we really have been managing the process by chaos, a close derivative of management by exception. The plan was very difficult to make out through the maze of task changes, context switches, smoke and mirror projects and fires to put out that have been thrown at us over the years. To be honest, I am not certain there ever was a true project plan, or at least not one that has kept up-to-date and managed.

So, out of the blue, the development team gets notice about our new goal to create a true SDLC within our team. Of course this cannot happen overnight, but we are all very in favor of making this happen for obvious reasons. The problem is that chaos still reigns and that is actually the way the development manager prefers it! The development manager piles about a dozen of us into a room to plan out the entire SDLC. Of course, what happens when you get a dozen developers in a room with no clear plan, no clear focus and no subject boundaries really? Exactly, you get an hour long meeting that bounces from random subject to random subject with nothing to show for it. Even discussing a world without servers was thrown out there?

I discussed this with the development manager and this chaos theory is actually his strategy. He doesn’t want to narrow the focus. He wants everyone involved and committed to the ultimate outcome and he believes the best way to do that is to have these sorts of meetings to hammer through the process. Now, he has been doing this a great deal longer than I have, so although I am skeptical of the tactics, I am going with the flow for the time being. However, my prediction is that this process will take the better part of 2008 just to discuss, and the results will be less than perfect. I doubt everyone is going to be committed in the end, if there is an end. Most of these sort of initiatives around here die out after a couple of months, with little to show for it.

I know I sound negative, but I prefer to think of it as realistic after having been at this employer for 6+ years now.