Tom DeMarco的Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone?摘要与感想

在Google搜寻时, 刚好在网路上看到Tom Demarco于2009 IEEE 七八月刊的作品: Software Engineering: An Idea Whose Time Has Come and Gone? 很欣赏他连之前的自己都可以否定的勇气.  我相信越有名, 要说自己以前是错的越困难.

他在此文对于自己1982年写的Controlling Software Projects: Management, Measurement, and Estimation(Prentice Hall, Yourdon Press出版),这本启蒙软工项目计划与度量发展的重要作品, 重新评价:
"Do I still believe that metrics are a must for any successful software devleopment effort? My answers are no, no, and no."

还自己说这本书所传达的message有误:
"The book's deep message seems to be, metrics are good, more would be better, and most would be best. Today we all understand that software metrics cost money and time and must be used with careful moderation."
"The book's most quoted line is its first sentence: You can't control what you can't measure. This line contains a real truth, but I've become increasingly uncomfortable with my use of it. Implicit in the quote(and indeed in the book's title) is that control is an important aspect, maybe the most important, of any software project. But it isn't. "

他从项目的本质： 一个投百万可赚1.1百万的案, 和一个投百万可赚50百万的案相比, 获利能力低的案子相对需要较高的control才能成功, 来说明并非每个案子都要一样的control程度. 那是否获利低的案子反而要花更多钱跟时间去做measurement, 那利润不就更低了. 这是做低获利案的恶性循环. 也回归到business model的问题, 为什么要接这样低利润的案子?

另一方面, 他也提出人的品质是无法度量的, 你可以度量honor, dignity, discipline, personality, grace under pressure, values, ethics, resourcefulness, loyty, humor, kindness这些吗? 但事实上这些都深深影响到项目的performance. 所以DeMarco建议要做好项目就回归人,时间和资源的管理. 在管理的方法上,虽然他很谦虚的说他没什么资格来建议软体开发要用什么方法, 不过他提倡agile的概念.

虽然他一再说度量, 可预测不是最重要的, 但仍相信软体开发仍需要工程化, 但不要把on time和on budget当成最高准则. 那什么是最重要的呢?
"The more important goal is transformation, creating software that changes the world or that transforms a company or how it does business."

我相信这是DeMarco殷切想让大家不断去回归本质想"为什么我要做这个项目?", "怎样才能把事情做好?" 而不要因为要达到某专家说的最高境界, 而投入大量资源只为生出很多度量报告, 但忘了去评估做这些报告之于"原始目标" 帮助有多大? 哪些是必要的? 又哪些没有必要?

如果Google当初是选择运用搜寻引擎的技术接项目的方式, 今天大概没有人知道Google是什么吧.  这应该就是DeMarco在这篇文章一直强调的what is important.

最后, 不相关话题, 但相关Mr. Tom DeMarco
推荐DeMarco "最后期限 "的项目管理的小说  有深度又很有趣！