Implementing Software Engineering In a Small Workgroup

The conference is over. You’re back at your desk, battling the same alligators that filled the swamp before you left. You heard many interesting talks, with industry gurus preaching the latest software development wisdom and telling you how you should build systems now and in the future. What they didn’t tell you was how to reduce to practice the highfalutin’ ideas they endorse while still trying to get yesterday’s project done by tomorrow. Besides, your projects aren’t large enough to benefit from formal software engineering, and you don’t have the resources to do it, anyway. The people in your group don’t want to hop from one bandwagon to another, chasing the Holy Software Grail while your customers breathe down their necks. The default decision is business as usual, with a vow to do it better sometime next year.