Re: Musings: Why do well-intentioned projects go so wrong, so often?

[pmonk4ever]

Regression Testing?!?! Bite your tongue!! Why would Management want to discover regression issues? "Those are issues that 'Rev. 9 million 5' can fix"..."an undocumented feature"!!! :-D

I agree with apl we must have Regression Tests, you must discover what broke when you changed/added 'XYZ'!!! No excuses for not doing Regression Testing, however Micro$haft ships patches without testing all the time...forcing every IT shop in the country to do their OWN testing before deploying a fix enterprise-wide.

[apl]

One doesn't have to dwell on Regression Testing. Management has their priorities even as Programmers do. The difference is, they don't usually tell us why they need to shave time off the estimate. All we see is that we're being forced to ship something which we know is not complete.

But who gets the blame? You'll notice the title of this thread is not Who do so many projects get mismanaged, so often?.

[pmonk4ever]

Right you are, apl! They are operating under the 'mistaken' assumption that there's always money to fix it later. However, if you work on a government contract, they expect you to do it right the first time AND test it AND make money at the same time!!!!

And we get the blame, the technical folks, they fire the innocent and promote the guilty!

Ah, well, what's new...I'm preaching to the choir here! Those who have a major project in their experience know this by heart!

Regression Testing is what saves your bacon with the customer!!!