When you build a custom home that costs $300,000, you pay exactly $300,000 for it, right? No? Blueprints cost money too, you say?
That’s right… you are smart enough to know that the builder would laugh at you and walk away if you left out the blueprint step.
Assume the blueprints cost you 10%. Why would you pay $330K for only $300K worth of house? Simple: Because you don’t want to pay $600K for the same house and endure the frustration of having to correct the project every single week. Actually, it wouldn’t occur to you in this day and age to build a home of any type without a blueprint.
Using a blueprint is a no-brainer built-in assumption in the construction industry. So why isn’t this step also automatic in the software industry? Why do companies jump willy-nilly into complex projects without a clearly defined plan to succeed? I see three reasons.
First, the software industry is still young. Compared to the construction industry, we are still in our Wild West days and so gunslingers (techies) still roam the streets and lure unsuspecting town folk into hiring them to rid the town of nasty villains.
Second, we tend to be optimistic about the effort and risk involved. We approach projects like making money in Vegas – we’ll be the lucky one that beats the odds and walks away with the house’s money, having invested only a modest amount of time & energy.
Finally, our consumer-driven, have-it-now culture has us all convinced that everything can and should happen now. Nothing is difficult or requires planning. Delayed gratification (a.k.a. planning) isn’t that important. Let’s just get started.
At the risk of over-selling the point, let’s sum up this way: Success is realized and nightmare projects are avoided through planning. This is true in construction, in software, and in life. Plan to pay less by taking the time to plan.