Development Status Update Translator
January 23rd, 2008Asking software developers for status updates is always a dicey affair. One has to learn how to translate the various statuses into the reality of requirements and project plans.
Functionally Complete
Developer Believes: The application is 80% solved. All of the hard development work is complete. We just need to paint in the corners with error handling, logging, reporting, etc. Throw some CSS on top of it and call it good.
Reality: The application is 20% complete. The pages look like refugees from 1996 with little to no styling and broken or poorly implemented HTML. Only the base case works and most other use cases will result in a Page Error. Things like reporting, logging, and error handling are non-existent. 10% of the requirements have been addressed.
Basically Done
Developer Believes: The application is 90% finished. All of the hairy problems (at least the ones they know about) are solved, the base case works and just the border conditions need to be finished.
Reality: The application is 80% done but following the inverse 80/20 rule, the last 20% will take four times as long as it took to get to 80%. There remains at least one forgotten about or unknown hairy problem to solve not to mention making it actually look something. The requirements are 50% addressed.
Almost Done
Developer Believes: The application is in the home stretch, someone just needs to work through that pesky CSS and Javascript stuff. We don’t need QA because this application is solid.
Reality: The application is 90% done and is starting to look like something. 75% of the requirements have been met and 25% will actually pass QA in the first time.
I know this because I have used all of these terms at one time or another and believed everything I said.
